Saturday, February 4, 2012

Zoom

There is a pace at my new job.  It comes from the top down.  Calling it frenetic would be a gross understatement.  Frenetic with intermittent boredom.  Everything conceived of and put on my plate is wanted yesterday.  There is little time for planning and none for mulling.

No time for the ideas to stew in the cauldron of my head, simmering.  Strange ideas bumping into one another to say Boy Howdy.  No encouragement toward ideas meeting in strange corners and getting to know one another.  If it can't happen in a nanosecond, it doesn't seem to be worth it.

I don't think the best science is done this way.  Your brain can't always be switched on to frappe like that.  Frappe can shred and ruin some otherwise subtle thoughts.  There is a good mix between moving quickly and thinking quickly and sitting still and pondering.  The one speed pony is a sure fire recipe for  burn out.

Right now I am dealing with it by switching off during my time.  Sometimes that means just turning down the speed, but more often than not it means switching off completely or re-booting the entire cranial load.  Evenings spent without a single thought passing between my ears.

I can't say that I really dig this - the idea that every thought I have is tempered toward work.  I didn't sign on for that.  But it's also a fairly new job in a really tough economy for research and I can't afford to not work.  Don't get me wrong, I like the challenge of it all.  Just wish there was a little more left in the tank for me at the end of the day/week.

5 comments:

  1. I feel ya. My job has become frantically busy/full all of the time, leaving no down-time to catch up on details that elude me if I don't write them down on the fly. By the time I get home, I'm so tired I don't have the brain left to contemplate MY stuff. ARGH.

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  2. Amen! While I LOVE my job (or at least the people I work with) it's getting busier all the time. I MUST keep a to do list in front of me or run the risk of forgetting something vital. Twice last week I had to dash for the train without um visiting the ladies' room first! Evenings are mindlessly spent watching an episode of Blue Bloods or Big Bang Theory so I don't have to think.

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  3. Um, are you in my head??

    "No time for the ideas to stew in the cauldron of my head, simmering." Love those words; hate that you had to write them.

    Not only do I feel like I don't have enough space and energy for my own ideas to simmer, but lately I feel as though I have to take on the thinking for everyone else I work with lest something not get done. (Yeah, I know, I gotta let that go or I'll lose my damn mind.) I know it's my need for control coming to the fore, and my fear that I'll somehow get blamed/be judged for anything short of perfection. The GD POJ lives, apparently. But I'm tired of not having anything left in the tank at the end of the day, too. Thank you for this space to rant. Going to bed now. My tank runneth dry. ;-)

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  4. P.S. LOVE the paint widget. I'm feeling all Jackson Pollock-y.

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  5. LAMO! It it the Pollock widget. A supreme time-waster that I lurve

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