But I have to tell you something secret about myself. I SUCKED at my business jobs and can never do anything remotely like that again, ok? I always did just enough to not get called out. I found I didn't really care at all. I lacked passion of any kind. I like to pretend that I have this great work ethic, burdensome in its magnitude, but really I'm just clever enough to get by. I'm clever enough with words that I can hide the lack of content. A professor wrote something just like that on a paper once - she was almost dazzled enough by my language to ignore that I really didn't say that much.
It's not something I like admitting. But I'll tell you even more. I'm organizationally retarded, I HATE making business related calls, and I have no mind for details. I'm daydreamy and unfocused. I avoid with a vengeance. When those daydreams drift to alternate job paths, the sad truth is that I'm not cut out for any of those dream jobs (i.e., southeast Asia correspondant for NPR).
I just looked at my old diary that I kept online while I was working at the translation company, and remembered it all so vividly. Those days were the worst. Here are a few supporting quotes:
"Shit, I messed something up and it's too late to fix it. Well, if you receive your HMO benefits summary in Arabic, and something doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll clear it up for you."
"I nearly bought a pair of dominatrix-looking boots at lunchtime. Ready to whip those projects into shape and show them who is boss. But I'm so not the boss of my projects. I didn't buy them."
"God, I wish my co-worker would shut up. The complicated project involves module 2 and module 3, and each module has sections 1, 2, and 3. All day she has been talking constantly about it. Module 2, section 3 is fine, but module 3, section 2 is not, and modules 2 and 3, section 2 have this issue, whereas only module 2 has that issue with sections 1 and 3. I don't have any idea what she's fucking talking about."
"At my meeting, my jokes fell flat. "We are still working on the lead poisoning prevention brochure," said co-worker. We have been working on this since Jeff was a pup. "Still???" said I. "God, in the meantime, a bunch of kids have gotten lead poisoning!" "We have sent the Arabic translation of the gambling awareness brochure to the State of MI for a final review," said co-worker. It's the 50th or so such review. "Meanwhile, dozens of Arabic-speaking people have developed gambling problems!" I said. Well, no one laughed, but I did. Then I started imagining stroking a cat's belly. A soft, silky, cat belly. I thought about this for a long time. Then I started thinking about stretching exercises. I want to stretch out, and i want someone to hold my hands while we spread our legs and sit feet to feet, then we take turns leaning back, as far back as the other person can take it. This made me start thinking about other couples' stretching exercises and imagining photo layouts of couples in matching warmup suits, doing various couples' stretches. I snickered out loud. I was afraid that when they asked me to give updates on my projects, I was going to blurt out something like, "I like couples' stretching exercises!!!"
God. See what I mean? Unfit. But able to act the part.
This is really depressing me right now. I see that I'm basically unloveable (so much so that I don't even know if I am supposed to keep the "e." This, from a fourth grade spelling bee champ!!!).
At least there's Galaxy 500. I'm good at listening to them.
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