Sarah Gone Wild

Bad timing, I know. I should just be thankful to be employed at all. I try to be thankful. I try so hard I get migraines from the effort. I love my coworkers. If I met any one of the people I work with outside these walls, I’m sure we’d be great friends. In fact, I really do consider some of them to be real life, social friends.

But I just can’t handle being confused and frustrated every single day. I’m so tired. I’m tired of going in circles for hours, only to come to a conclusion that is rendered irrelevant the next morning. I’m tired of going days without much work, only to find out that had information been provided sooner, we could be working on two campaigns that now have to be completed within the next two months. I’m tired of being incredibly angry all the time. I’m tired of misaligned priorities, doing the work of other people, seeing constant mistakes being made in front of the client, feeling like I’m fighting the same battles every single day…I’m just tired.

No one said working for a start up would be easy. Then again, no one told me I had a choice in the matter. I need the paycheck. Some days, I enjoy the work. Every single day, though, I wake up with a pit of dread in my stomach, a feeling that no matter how hard I try, today won’t be any better than the others. Unfortunately, I am usually right.

I’ve tried to change my path, but in this job market, it’s hard to say “Hey, look. I know my resume says I have a creative background, but I swear I’m good at marketing management” and expect to be taken seriously. I have my MBA, I know what I’m doing and I’m intelligent and willing to learn the things I don’t know. If someone would just give me a chance, I know it would pay off. I work hard, I learn insanely fast, I’m passionate and I bring baked goods to work – what’s not to love?

I hate sounding like a brat, because I know I really just need to suck it up and be grateful I’m even employed. Especially after watching 20 coworkers get laid off and then being told I now work for a new company that wasn’t even supposed to exist until four months ago. It took a lot of guts to start the company, and I respect that. The bottom line is, I shouldn’t spend the majority of my life fighting battles in the name of someone else’s company. If I’m going to put this much effort into something, it should be something I really care about, not advertising cable, phone and internet or telling lies on behalf of car people. But no one said life is fair, and my story isn’t so different from anyone else’s, so I’ll go back to sucking it up and being miserable and liking it.

If I just had $100,000…

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