This article is part three of a seven part series on unplugging from the cubicle. Read the full introduction here.
It’s Not Goodbye, We’re On a Break
12 hours. That’s how long I worked one fateful day. Not my normal hours, but 8 + extra adds up to 12. Exhausted, annoyed, and angry to sink so much of my day into this. The worst? I hadn’t even noticed the sun setting. My eyes blinked away from the monitor towards darkness. A fully lit office tower amidst the black of night always strikes me as wrong. A strange scene of forced production in a serene setting. That night I cried.
The next day I woke to a new day of work. A fresh slate. I chalked up the previous night’s reaction to tiredness. After all, I need this job. It’s important to meet critical deadlines. I mustn’t turn such trivial worries inward. The luxury of my neighborhood are the delightful shops devoted to my two loves: shoes and fashion. After work, I found myself at a store trying on a few items. My black dress slacks are getting frayed, should replace those. And the office is bloody cold all the time, a wool sweater is in order. I really should replace those lost earrings. Those were my favorite baubles.
As the salesperson rang up my purchases, contentment suffused through me, a heady rush of joy filling the spaces of anxiety. Any thoughts of those 12 hours dissipated, my mind occupied with these new finds. Even though my love affair with the job turned sour, probably eons ago, somehow I resolved to keep it coasting, because yeah, I need this job.
Codependent relationships always dance the line between disaster and bliss.
Deny Much?
How Denial Keeps that Crap Relationship Alive
I’m betting you can relate to multiple days of breaking points, ones you gleefully ignored, because the past is the past – time to move on. What I fought, what you’re ignoring now is the inevitable. And we do so with denial tactics.
What are denial tactics? What is the point of them? Sigmund Freud split human behavior into three modes: id, ego, and superego.
The id - consists of the basic survival instincts that drive humans: sex and aggression (oh my). If id were captain, humans would be dancing naked around a bonfire to the pipes of Pan. Oodles of food and orgies to follow.
The ego - logic and rational thinking. The ego moderates risks or benefits with a situation in a realistic fashion – the yin to impulse-driven id.
The superego – a big ball of our moralistic standards, essentially our conscience. Though the superego dictates our sense of right or wrong, some of those run the gamut of extreme, unrealistic notions of moral fiber.
All three combat gladiator style for dominance. The ego acts as the child in between battling parents the id and the superego by adopting a common method – defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms are roundabout ways of tackling anxiety, such as rationalizing a crying session to exhaustion or blaming the client for a lousy day in the cube. There’s a laundry list of mechanisms, the one we’re after is denial.
The chief goal of denial is to ignore or bury an unpleasant reality. If I purchase 50 TVs, all my bad feelings will melt away.
I'll Take Em' All!
Denial Tactics in the Cubicle
- A series of days deemed normal at work cause massive hemorrhaging in the stress areas of your brain, but you decide it’s just super busy at the moment.
- Always on the verge of tears or so gnarly you bark at innocent people, you convince yourself it’s general moodiness.
- Puttering in the early morning hours on items that have zero to do with getting ready for work, or dawdling, coming in later than usual. Hey, you’re just a busy person with lots on the go at the home front, and you validly missed a transit connection.
- After working late several weeks in a row, your contentment level plummets, because spending more than an allotted 8 hours forces a stark conclusion – it’s time for a change. Oh, but you push those feelings down by going for the big guns – self reward. I had a vicious week at work, a nice meal out on Friday night will ease the pain. How about those TVs? We so need that new iPad honey, what’s the harm?
Cutting the Fat of Denial
The Skinny
Defense mechanisms are vital for dealing with childhood trauma or tense situations, but denial won’t solve your cubicle misery, only hasten it, sometimes for years. Instead of facing the anxiety-producing source head on, we hide. Rationalize, dismiss, purchase, binge, smoke, drink, ignore… anything to not man up.
My best advice for combating this pervasive stage is waking up to your situation with honesty and clarity. The honesty will hurt, and the clarity fine tunes it.
What hurt for me was accepting that I made terrible choices, grasped at ideas that I never believed in, and face that time was literally gone. I couldn’t tap myself on the shoulder at eighteen to say do A, B, C, and you’ll be happy. And honey, ditch that bad cowlick and perm at the same time.
Clarity is that moment of pinpointing the actual source of distress – what you’re doing everyday. Even who you’re doing it for can be a factor.
A crucial question to ask as you reach for that next pacifier to ignore the obvious, when you’re eighty swaying back and forth in that rocking chair, how many regrets are you willing to live with? Regrets sting, leaving a job that gives no pleasure won’t. Trust me.
Source: Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders
Photos: catskillgrrl and A30_Tsitika under Creative Commons.
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
@Sarah – You pose some thoughtful questions. In centuries past, there were nomadic cultures who operated on an egalitarian level – bartering or trading, with certain norms and rules they followed, but each person in society had their role and fulfilled it. Then clans would break up to meet again down the line. The current system took root due to agriculture and the industrial revolution, hence an egalitarian system was impossible to uphold, as some did better than others, coupled with establishment of property lines and taxation, equality was truly gone. There would need to be a humongous revolution worldwide to even return to that nomadic, egalitarian existence. Think about it, if you don’t own anything, there’s nothing to protect or be frightened of. There’s enough wealth to feed every single person on this earth (a known fact), but all that wealth is concentrated amongst a small number of countries. So when you say our society would no longer exist, it wouldn’t, but perhaps something more equal or workable could replace it? Gone would be cheap travel, but that might leave room for affordable travel available to absolutely everyone, not just you or I. Now that would be cool, in my humble opinion. I really, really loved your comments and opinions. Keep em’ coming!
I completely agree with your way of thinking. I myself am making the moves to a lifestlye which values happiness over the need to quell your uncertainties with unneccessary purchases.
There’s just one side to this way of thinking that has begun to trouble me – If everyone chose to live a life such as this, our society as it is could no longer exist. (of course, this may be considered a good thing). For a capitalist society to exist, there have to be people doing jobs they don’t enjoy in order to support the whole system. Without the folk putting in those 16 hour days to work their financial magic, we might not have such strong currencies which give us the means with which to travel to ‘cheaper’ countries.
Do we simply consider ourselves the enlightened few who are capable of making the break away from work-based unhappiness? Do we stick around and play our part so that we can feel we’ve contributed to the society who’s roads, schools and healthcare we utilise?
Potentially, this is simply my super-ego piping up with it’s ideas of a social conscience. Believe me, my aim is to get out there and travel. But how do we begin to correct that inbalance?
I’d appreciate any thoughts on this.
@Kelsey – Exactly. I think 9 to 5 is worth doing as long as you LOVE it. Because think about how many hours a day one spends at a job – it works out to be more than 8 when you factor in preparation and transportation. I’m simply meeting too many folks who don’t feel like your bf. :(
@Greg – LOL. Glad I could re-confirm something you already knew. :-D
Wow…great, great post! Thank you for another reminder that I did the right thing escaping a few years ago. :)
Cheers,
Greg
Well, he now has a job that is a 9-5, but it’s something that he loves doing, which is what matters. Besides, at least one of us has to have stable employment. ;)
Monica: are you working 10 hours a day at a desk, or 10 hours a day on all your work? If it’s 10 hours a day at a desk, that’s worrisome. If it’s 10 hours a day at everything combined…welcome to the club! I work 4 hours a day at my “normal” job, but I also then work an additional 8 to 10 doing freelance work and blog stuff. I swear, it’s a miracle anything actually gets done in our house.
Thanks lovely, I’m glad you have so much faith in me. :)
@TLWH – Whenever I doubt this process, that question pops in my mind. It’s a gooder. :)
@Kyle – Agreed! People regret relationships or events, never stuff or trivial matters.
@Kelsey – Thank goodness you’re his gf. :) He’s got the right person behind him to exact change!
@Monica – Oh god, honey, I had no clue you worked 10 hours everyday. What kind of Charles Dickian industrial revolution nightmare are you working for?
@Keith – My spidey senses tell me you’ve been at that stage – done and gone.
@Shannon – Interesting! You were just meeting kids on their way in, while I continually meet those on their way out. :-D
@Alessandra – Hi sweets! Glad my wordage invoked a strong response in you. XO
@Colin – Indeed. So many folks don’t know the choices, I was one of them. Thus, the main reason for starting this site. :)
@Candice – I have no worries about your ambitions. You’re already engaging with travel folks, Matador, etc. For you, it’s just a matter of timing. And when it happens, you’ll be spectacular. I kid not.
Great post, and also, I’m totally in this stage.
Great post! In the west (States or Australia in my case) we have choices about how we live our lives. Unfortunately the sad part is that most people either don’t realise they have these choices or are too scared to actually use the freedom that we strive to maintain in our society.
Freedom, to me, means choices. Hopefully this blog post will help illustrate to people that they do have the choice to live their life the way they want to.
By the way, I hope the next day got a bit better for you ;)
Cheers,
Colin
Love this quote:
“Codependent relationships always dance the line between disaster and bliss.” Love how you’ve illustrated the relationship between work-aholism and massive consumerism. We really are our own worst enemies.
Loving the series – this week in particular I have run into a lot of Spring Breakers who are lamenting that they graduate soon and “wish they could travel like me” instead of entering the corporate world – they plan to go straight into the drudgery and are already dreading it. I tell them to reanalyze their path and motivations for following the same proscribed US approach to working and if they value travel they’ll find a way to do it!
Nice analysis of the corporate drudge scenario. It’s an illuminating post that clearly brings forth important points from the haze of our subconscious.
I feel how you feel when you work 12 hours a day because I work 10 hours a day. Not just one day. Every single freaken day.
Good post. I struggled with this one with Marc, my boyfriend, for a long time. He was miserable in his job but refused to quit because he “needed” the job. I told him over and over that a small portion of his $10k emergency fund would cover a month or two of unemployment, and that we could reduce expenses in the meantime, that his happiness wasn’t worth being able to go out to eat more often, to buy new reenacting clothes, etc. Unfortunately, Americans are pretty much conditioned to believe that they *need* money, that they *need* a job. I’ve never felt that way (maybe that’s why I’ve never held a job for more than 9 months), and I feel very lucky in that.
I second what TLWH said. Nobody regrets not buying more stuff when they are 80 years old and looking back.
“A crucial question to ask as you reach for that next pacifier to ignore the obvious, when you’re eighty swaying back and forth in that rocking chair, how many regrets are you willing to live with?”
My answer to many people is this question, it usually makes them go silent for a while.