I spent the morning with an ex-colleague of mine from my old theatre job. She has a young daughter, so we sometimes get together and let our kids wander around a playground (or indoor play area) while we talk about trying to have an artistically fulfilling life while also being parents. She's awesome.
We hadn't done a play date in a while, our winter schedules not lining up well, so there was a lot of catching up to do. She's a really great listener (she's an actor and a psychologist, need I say more), and she was asking me about how the post-theatre/temp life is going.
"It's actually going amazing. I'm happier than I've ever been in my life."
Whaaaaaa? Back up. Did I just say that? And mean it?
Yes. Yes I did. I am working a job that conventional wisdom would declare most definitively a dead-end, soulless, paper-pushing job. A job completely lacking in any kind of personal meaning or sense of purpose. Not one drop. And I'm happy.
Temping
Since Thanksgiving, I've been a temporary employee for a development company. I am the "Executive Assistant" to the VP of Construction on a new retail/residential/movie theatre/park community. Since I'm just a temp, know absolutely nothing about the construction/development world, and the project I'm "assisting" is at a stand still as it gets closed out and sold off, I just sit at a desk from 9 - 5.
No really, that's all I do. Sometimes I answer the phone (about three times a day on average and mostly to just say I have no idea what's going on), sometimes the Veep needs a personal errand (like getting the tire replaced on her car), and sometimes I print a few things up and file them away in files that are just going to be thrown away in a few months when the building gets sold. Oh, and everyone once in a while I mail off a check.
My friends think I'm on some candid camera-type show and I don't know it.
Work-Life Meaning
Now, I was raised to believe that Fulfilling Life = Fulfilling Job. They are, or should be, one and the same. One's purpose in life can be found in their job, or what they eventually want to be their job and are working toward. Follow your dreams, you can do anything, build it and they will come, yada yada yada. I don't mean to sound as jaded as that sounds, because that's not really how I feel. It's just that this new dead-end job experience has certainly turned my head.
I'm really happy. Not because of the job--the job gives me nothing but a paycheck and endless hours on the internet. But for the first time in my professional life, I can walk out the door of my job and leave it 100% behind. After I cross that threshold, it does not enter my brain until I cross it again the next day. (I mean, what would I think about? The blank white walls? The copy machine?) This new-found peace of mind means I can devote all my energy to my family, my home, my hobbies, my food, my interests, my health, my quirks, myself. All the little details that I never paid attention to before because I was in a hurry or stressed out or just needed more sleep, I can pay attention to those now. And all those details are what makes me happy right now.
I've become a better cook. We can balance our meager budget and stick to it with relative ease. When I walk in the door and the Toddler is super excited to see me and wants to play at the rate of a million miles a minute, I can just roll with him. I'm more, umm, playful and intimate with my husband. I can think. I can write. I can brainstorm. I can read. I can make all the truly fulfilling things in my life, well, fulfilling.
I realize I do not want a dead-end job permanently. If I knew this job were lasting forever, or it was a concerted career decision gone awry, I would hate it. But right now, I just consider it a huge gift. A beautiful opportunity to try a different kind of life, and find out why it's (surprisingly) not so bad after all.
I know that eventually I will want a job that is more directed, more conscious, more driven. I will want to feel like my brain is contributing an iota of help to form a better world. I will get there, I have no doubt. But this experience has given me patience toward that end. Getting there faster may not be better. I can stop to smell the roses along the way, and that's okay.
And ten years from now I will look back at this Year of Temping and, with an ironic smile on my face, think "Now those were the good ole days."
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