Sloth and Chocolate

Unemployment is interesting. Not a single day has gone by without eating chocolate. I really believed that I would spend every morning in yoga class and every afternoon in the kitchen. Instead I have spent every morning and afternoon on the couch.

Since I missed last month's Daring Baker's challenge, I thought I would make up for it with these Milano cookies. I actually forced myself to get up and make these. The recipe came from the food network and they turned out ok. Not marvelous like I was expecting, but ok. What I liked about them is the orange rind in the chocolate and the lemon oil in the cookie dough. I expected them to be more crunchy but mine turned out too soft. Ah well. It was a good try.

Even if I don't particularly love my baking I tend to eat it anyway. Let me tell you, I ate a ton of these. It seemed like a good idea to eat chocolate while laying on the couch and watching Days of Our Lives. The soap was rather unsatisfying because I don't know all the new characters and the same couple that always has their children kidnapped were dealing with that again. Hmm. I watched it everyday last week anyway.

I have to say that it's not that I am sad I left the office I was in but I feel rather sad in general. It feels like I have wasted a colossal amount of time there. Looking back I believe I could have been catatonic at that job and it wouldn't have mattered. I have been counseled on this topic by many friends and luckily they have reminded me that it's important to focus on the bottom line: my paycheck and ability to support myself. You can't rely on your boss to tell you that you are doing an excellent job or not, you have to tell yourself. I think it has really hit me hard that this office and all my jobs after college really have been the definition of underemployment. I tried to make it different at this one because it seemed like what I was doing really did matter sometimes but it didn't. It wasn't worth the effort. These thoughts are clouding my mind lately and I can't seem to make it go away. I can't wait until this is part of the past and the cast of characters are only in mind for a comedic memoir.

One extraordinary thing that happened once I gave my notice was that people started to really talk to me. It seemed as though many people needed to express their discontent with the office and their personal lives. It was easy to choose me as the venting release because I was leaving. I heard many things about how the job just wasn't for them and they felt stuck. I heard one person admit that they are too comfortable and while they would like to leave and try new things they don't have the courage. They would rather stick with what they know even if they don't like it. I heard complaints about different people and the general sense of having no real purpose there and no sense of accomplishment. The most common problem was the fact that people didn't tell you that you were doing a good job. They only told you about the problems.

It was overwhelming and I was moved a couple times. How does one un-stick themselves from an unhappy situation? Is it part of adulthood to merely get through for that paycheck and always feel underemployed and unappreciated? On the other hand I heard a few people talk about how happy they were with their salary and benefits and how I should look into other jobs within this department for the future. Doubtful. It was a supremely weird couple of weeks.