I have not come this close to just quitting my job in a long time.

I thought I was doing fine. But last Wednesday my boss basically told me “everything you did with Thing X is wrong, and you have to do it all again, and here are all the ways you messed it up.” Then on Thursday he got on my ass about one of my employees because he wasn’t in the office — which he should have been, but he kept hammering and hammering about this one guy and would not leave me alone about it. He doesn’t seem to want me to lead; he wants me to micromanage. I refuse to do that.

But I have no recourse. The job market gets shittier every day. Applying for jobs eats up all my energy and creativity — find a job that fits and pays the right amount, run my resume through AI to match the job description, fix the mistakes AI made, apply for the job (bonus shittiness points if it’s on Workday; thank goodness for Greenhouse and Ashby), wait to be rejected.

I should be thankful I have a job. I should be trying to do better at it. But every time I think I’m doing better, it turns out I’m actually doing even worse. I kind of wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t taken this job and its 30 percent pay cut; I’d probably still be unemployed. Unlike my colleagues who got hired at the same time as me or even after me and got new jobs after a couple of months making more money and doing what they love. Or at least not working for my boss anymore.

I know some of this is extended drop from GASP (which I have yet to write about, I know). But a lot of it is just feeling helpless and useless and miserable about something that is a huge part of my life (work is a huge part of life). I was hoping that by now I might be making maybe a few hundred bucks a month on my stories, but I’m terrible at marketing them and I don’t have the money to pay a marketer (nor the energy to do it myself). Everything saps my energy and I just want to lie on the couch and watch Chopped.

I’m sure that by the end of today (this post goes up on the same day I have my weekly project meeting with my boss) I’ll have another list of things I did wrong. So much fun to look forward to.

This, by the way, is why I haven’t posted much lately fiction-wise for you to read. When you don’t feel like writing, you don’t feel like sharing.