Slow Down and Recharge

Continuing down this recent trend of positive posts...

The last couple of weeks have been spent getting beat up.

I know, I know. I'm just following the usual trend of describing getting knocked down before climbing back up. Someday, maybe I'll just stay on my feet from the start. Probably better for me but certainly a lot less interesting in terms of things to talk about.

Anyway, yeah. The past couple of weeks at work have been demanding, largely because we're babysitting somewhere in the neighborhood of 1400 packages that were supposed to be delivered to Fort Mac before that town burned down. And that number has plummeted as people have shown up to collect their stuff. That collection has meant a lot more work, as has maintaining scans on all of that crap in a system not designed for situations like this at all. And this is before we factor in picking and packing things up once Fort Mac opens for business again and wants all of this, to say nothing of the masses of added material that will be heading their way.

It has been a busy couple of weeks regardless. And for more than a few of those days, I've pretty much taken on 90% of the warehouse stuff solo (...it wasn't suppose to be solo, but let's just leave that off of easily accessible social media type stuff...look, I'm growing!) while others take care of the rest. My usual average of 150 scans a day (every package or document we put anywhere gets scanned) has tripled. This is on top of the usual 'push containers around and shove them down the length of an airplane' type stuff. Frankly, I'm a little beat up (though I have remained a good boy in terms of not trying to solo giant crates that I cannot put down without injuring myself. It's rather depressing that this represents actual progress on my part).

Add to that some previously hinted at...let's be diplomatic (I know, right?) and call them 'personnel issues' involving specific persons, and work has been rather trying. Now toss in the imminent hours cut. Now toss in my freelance site of choice (Upwork, the biggest one online) screwing everyone using their service. And finally, let's spray a dollop of family drama over the top of the whole thing. Now I'm feeling beat up across the spectrum.

And today was supposed to be a big 'town hall' meeting with a bunch of higher up executive types telling us how awesome things are. The same higher up executive types who decided to cut our hours starting next week. Yeah, that sounds like a fun meeting.

So I said fuck it.

I took a sick day. This was the first time that I've taken a sick day in over two years. The last time I took one, I actually had to take three because I had a highly contagious viral infection in my left eye and was basically quarantined at home for awhile (winter tip : when you're sneezing/blowing your nose, close your eyes. Otherwise you're getting stuff in your eyes, and you might end up with the viral equivalent of pinkeye. Trust me). But I finally decided to be honest with myself. I was tired. I was frazzled. I was exhibiting classic 'Cliff is not doing well' behavior by making massive leaps in terms of trying to do way too damn much myself. And the last thing I needed was to sit through some 'rah rah' bullshit from the very corporate level of people who just axed my hours while asking me to do more.

So, sick I was. First thing that I did after my normal morning routine : nuked my Upwork account. All that it was giving me at this point were bad reminders of just how badly the wheels had fallen off that entire enterprise. And even if they did decide to change back to the way things had been set up prior to last week, would I really be able to trust a site run by the sort of idiots who thought those changes made sense? No. So it's gone. I have hard copies of all of my work that I can use as samples for new clients elsewhere, so good riddance to the account. Incidentally, anyone have any good ideas of the best way to set up a site somewhere purely designed as a content showcase? I'm not sure which setup makes the most sense for that.

Then I signed up for a new one called Fiverr. Horrible name aside (it really does have 2 r's at the end. No, I don't know why), it's pretty neat. You set up ads for what you'll do, create a series of different levels of job packages you're offering, and toss it out there. Plus, you can search through jobs being offered to the general user base. In fact, I already scored one of those. It isn't big money, but I'm getting paid to review some dude's RPG system rules and mess around with them for a bit. Seriously, I'm GETTING PAID to do that? Fuck yeah! Besides, it's just a start point. And I feel like I'm starting fresh, away from the metric tons of baggage that had become associated with my Upwork account. Now I can get back to stretching out creatively and not being shoe-horned in to just being 'website content guy'. And it was fun to get back to doing a chat interview with someone and scoring a job while working on the 4th beer of the afternoon.

A couple of weeks ago, I did some board gaming with a couple of guys who I've met through various game transactions over the years, and we had a blast. It sounds like the follow-up night will be this Saturday. Assuming that doesn't somehow end up in tragedy, chalk one up for getting out of my social comfort zone a bit. And seeing as this endeavor was successful, what else might end up the same way? Perhaps it's time to find the fuck out.

Beyond that stuff, I just relaxed, watched some Netflix and read a book. I've always seen that cliche about 'recharging the batteries' as a bit of a hackneyed load of crap. But I was wrong, because I feel a lot more energetic right now than I have at any time in a while. I'm feeling all kinds of creative (Perhaps it's time to revisit a certain collaborative story and see if I can come up with some new ideas). Were I the subject of a cheezy rock song, I would probably be described as having 'fire in my eyes' because I'm jacked up right now. So sure, I have to go to work tomorrow. And next week. And keep looking for more jobs. And deal with everything else coming my way. Fine with me. Bring it.

Posse Up

 I've been going over the idea for this post for a little while now, but I wasn't totally certain quite how to go about it. And then Thursday happened. Thursday, May 19th. Not a spectacular day in Cliff history, but it certainly provided the impetus to finally get this thing hammered out.

Ever have one of those days where things happen and you just end up eating shit? That was Thursday. It was like a double-barrel shotgun blast of crap unexpectedly flying down the throat.

Yeah okay, that was gross. I'd like to retract that, but I obviously didn't because it's there. Am I lazy? Am I cruel? A little of both? Chalk it up to what you will and let's try to move on.

So, Thursday. First, the biggest (by a spectacular margin) freelance site on the Internet decided to go ahead with a host of changes that make the entire enterprise fairly close to untenable. On the first $500 I would earn from any client they are now taking a 20% cut of (up from 10%). Since most jobs are one-offs, that's a lot of green I'm handing over. The reason? They claim that short jobs cost them more money to host, which makes absolutely no sense at all. So on top of ripping me off, they're lying to me. Wonderful.

They also changed the way that applying for gigs works. See, to apply for a job, I need to spend Connects. Every month, I get 50. It now takes at least 2, and as many as 5, to apply for a gig. Those can be returned to the pool fairly fluidly, but not all the time, so you do tend to burn through them. But hey, I can get more...for a few bucks. Yes Virginia, everyone loves micro-transactions in every other aspect of their lives, so let's bring it in to this.

Freelancers are pissed. Good clients are leaving the site in droves (they ended up being ham-boned with a bunch of extra fees as well), meaning all that remains are cheapass joke clients who aren't worth my time. So there goes that side income, because I'm not wasting another moment on an enterprise being run by people who would clearly be challenged by work in a seed plant.

Okay, fine. So it's time to sink my efforts into finding another part time job. In the mean time, at least I've got my part time FedEx gig, right? And...oh...great. I still have it, but I just lost 10% of my weekly hours. Everyone did. And while the corporate types CLAIM that those hours can totally come back later on, I don't see why that would possibly happen. Large companies don't hand out more money if the people working for them have proven that they can get the work done in less time. Why would they?

So, in a matter of hours I lost a lot of money and opportunity. It wasn't a good day. The long weekend was looking bleak. I ranted and raved and got a little drunk and hit up the Facebooks and mentioned what was happening before heading off for a rather sleepless Thursday night.

And then people stepped up, helped pick me back up, and things got better. Everything isn't bad. Hell, most things are good...even though I find myself currently applying to work part time at ATS again (yes, really).

When I really slammed into rock bottom, drilled deeper, and kept wallowing in darker and bleaker recesses of the shit hole I'd made for myself years ago, I had rendered myself quite solitary. It wasn't something I was doing consciously, it just sort of happened that I enveloped myself in alone. And as has been covered a few times here already, that didn't exactly go well. If I'm being honest here, I think it had more to do with finding the need to keep up illusory airs of things being okay so exhausting that solitude was easier. Why admit things are bad when you can just...sit alone?

I'm a fairly tough person, but I'm pretty far from indestructible. And I tend to be fairly emotional. I mask that well a lot of the time by just being the guy who cracks a joke when things get serious (working on that), but that's all about armouring myself. Because when you're putting yourself in a bad position and you're being bombarded by little shots of your own creation, those wounds tend to hurt more when you're an emotional guy and you leave yourself open. You might not realize the damage is happening (even when it's catastrophic), but it is. But I do need to get better about always resorting to being 'joke guy'. Speaking of which, I'm now about to get a little...emotionally happy...
  

Warning. I am about to get sappy, which is certainly different for me. See, this post really isn't about me. It's about all of you who help make my life tolerable, fun and interesting. I'll be honest and admit I got a little teary writing parts of it. And yes, I've had a couple of drinks while finishing it. You've been warned. 

 
This weekend has been a nice reminder that I don't need to be some macho idiot standing there alone trying to tough shit out by myself. I've got a small army of people who I can lean on. And those people don't need me to pretend to be bulletproof and invulnerable. I don't need to pretend to be anything different than who I am. You all don't care what I do for a living, how much money I've got, whether I actually finished high school, what shows I watch, what stuff I own or any other irrelevant bullshit along those lines.

I'm lucky enough to have a great family who have always backed me, even when I've messed up and probably haven't deserved it. And I'm even luckier to have a large collection of friends who apparently find me interesting enough to hang around with. I don't really know if I can adequately explain to you lot how much it really means to me to have all of you around. I can only hope to be enough of a friend in return that this is all ending up somewhere close to even, because I owe every one of you crazy motherfuckers more than I can ever hope to properly express, much less repay.

I've had a bad habit of going it alone when things get tough, like I believed that being some stoic action movie cliché would somehow make things easier. And it didn't, because that's not who I am. Fuck that. I want to go back to being more social. As I've been formulating how I want this post to go, I've been thinking a lot about friends over the decades. I've thought about those who I haven't seen in years, those who I've recently started to re-acquaint with, and those who I see all the time. There have been a lot of good times, a few bad times, and a lot that fluctuated between the two. And every one of you have helped me maintain my sanity. 

You guys have been there for me whenever I've needed it. And you would have been there in the past if I'd been less of a stubborn idiot and allowed you to be. And look, not everyone was around this weekend, and that's fine. Everyone has stuff going on. I get that. But if you had been around, you would have been there as well. That's what matters. If any of you ever needs anything, you best believe that I will do whatever I can.

In any group of friends there's that core group. Like a war council in a mob movie.

I especially want to spend more time with you lot, even if we've scarcely seen each other for years. If we've ever spent an entire night talking about everything, where 5-10 minute silences didn't matter, you're in it (Ahoy, James & Liam). If you've shown the courage to always be totally open and honest, regardless of the subject and how much you were opening yourself up to criticism/ridicule, you're in (Pretty much all of you, but I'll single out Shaun here). If you're the one who I always know will boil down my constant over-analyzing to the basics and/or give me a needed boot in the ass, you're in (Hello, Janine). If you've put up with us bringing up awful incidents from 15 years ago with good humor and have always been there, even though we don't really 'talk serious' all that much, you're in (Kelly, of course). If you've been a basically constant presence in my corner all of the time, you're in (Yo, Vlad and Chad). And if you're someone who I once had coffee with for four hours despite getting in a minor car accident on the way to your house that left me with a bit of whiplash and a trunk that wouldn't close because I knew we'd have an awesome conversation that made it all worth it, you're in (Hi, Monique). 

We might not be capable of 14 hour coffee sessions any longer (or spending all night at coffee, then going directly to work before returning to coffee again. Kelly, you were a complete maniac), but I definitely want to be better about spending time with every one of you. And if I didn't mention you, I wanna hang more with you as well because there's always room for another seat at the table. Except when we're literally out of table space, but we can always drag a second table over in total violation of fire codes or something. I need, and want, to be a lot more proactive about making things happen.

Thanks. If any of you ever needs a laugh, a shoulder to cry on, a boot in the ass, someone to listen, someone to talk, someone to overthink, someone to unburden your troubles on to, someone to help dispose of a body or anything else, you've got my number.

On the Topic of Being Happy

Okay, it has occurred to me that anyone reading what I've put on this blog so far is probably coming away thinking I'm depressed. Well, depressed and obsessed with dueling construction equipment (as any sane human being should be! Come on, it's as close to Transformers as we're likely to get!). And that isn't the case at all. I am actually pretty happy. Am I frustrated that the economy is in the shitter and I can't find that second part time gig somewhere? Yes. Do I get annoyed with the inconsistency and unreliability of freelance writing? Absolutely. And I vent, and I deal with it, and I move on. But I'm still happy. And that's all relatively new in terms of the grand sweep of my life (yes, it's grand. Fuck you).

In order to talk about how things are better, I kinda need to go into when things weren't good. So yes, prepare for another round of flaying myself open and bleeding out all over the Internet. But I promise that there will actually be some lights at the end of the tunnel this time.

Let's go back 4-5 years, Mr. Peabody. Many of you probably remember sharing many laughs with myself about my constant job hopping. Oh, I was leaving this place because I didn't like the company. That place sucked because of blah de blah. That job? Nope. Some bizarrely minuscule aspect of working there apparently rendered it a no-go. Ad nauseam. But that wasn't the problem. I absolutely HATED the entire line of work I was in. Despised it. I loathed every warehouse that I trudged into. But it was comfortable, so I kept doing it.

"Oh, it'll be fine. I just need to suck it up." I kept telling myself. And the whole time, I was getting dragged under. It took a long time for me to actually look back and realize just how miserable I really was. And I don't tend to really talk about it because...I don't know. Maybe part of me is embarrassed. Well, fuck that. I was as low as I've ever been in my life, and for an incredibly long period of time I didn't even realize it. And eventually I just gave up. I wasn't getting anywhere, I couldn't gain any traction, so fuck it.



This brought me to two crutches that I have when I'm low : spending and food. The former would be why I don't have a lot of tangible stuff to point at. I was just tossing money out the door on empty purchases to get that one quick little rush of happy before it faded out and I was on to the next thing. The latter is why I eventually topped out at over 245 pounds. Because what's being depressed without adding physical ailments to the list, right? My knees hurt, my back hurt, I felt like shit all the time. Not good stuff.

Hey, there it is!

And then, I woke up. I would love to be able to say that I know what the moment was when the light bulb over my head stopped malfunctioning and actually switched on, but I legitimately don't remember. I just know that it happened. And I finally realized that I hated what I was doing, and the sheer amount of damage that I was doing to myself. And I did something about it...which was a lot harder than it seemed like it should be. Turns out that years of bad routines are brutal to get away from.

But I did it. The wife of an online buddy of mine had been doing freelance writing at the time, and kept telling me that I should give it a try. After years of saying 'Bah, nobody wants to pay me to write things!', I did it. Two years of doing nothing but that were pretty lean financially, but I didn't have a lot of bills and I regained my sanity. I also stretched out creatively in ways that I'd never done before. It was a great experience. Sure, I didn't make a lot of money, but I don't regret it for a second.

And I got my fat ass of the couch and started getting back in shape. Hopped up on the scale today (which I don't do that much, but I figured it made sense since I was going to write this post) and read 204. I've got more muscle tone than I remember ever previously having in my life, and I just flat out feel a lot better. Today, I did this. And I actually did the entire thing. 4-5 years ago, I'm probably rolling out of here on a gurney. Today, I polished it off and am about to head out for a stroll.

So yeah, I'm going to have days where I'm tired or grumpy or just having a shit day. And I've got a ways to go to get to where I want to be. But I'm in a position now that's about a thousand times better than where I was. I dug a giant hole, fell into it, then just kept digging down.

Eventually I hit some sort of bottom, bounced up and clawed my way out of the pit. And I'm pretty proud of that, actually. Sure, it would have been better to just not start digging in the first place, but whatever.

So there you go. Not miserable. Actually pretty happy. Things are good.

Huh, would you look at that. As I was tossing these skeletons out of the closet, I unearthed one more. Might as well get rid of it as well since skeletons make for really crappy house decorations. Seriously, if you're decorating with skeletons, you are creepy as fuck. It's that simple. 

So here's another little tidbit that I've avoided mentioning at all because of past embarrassment : I never actually graduated high school. Nope, I've got a GED. And I didn't get that until maybe eight years ago. Again, would have been better to not be in the situation to begin with, but I'm happy about the fact that I dealt with it. 



Really, most of what might come off as depressing here is me just unloading something off of my chest so that I can move on. If I express it, I get it out. Let's call this another chapter in doing that, while also (hopefully) convincing you that I'm good, because I am. And I'll work a little harder on actually talking about this stuff in person from now one rather than bleeding out all over the page down the line.