Blog Post No. 510
This is going to be another post about the day job. I know that I’ve talked a lot about it in the past year or so, but part of writing is all the stuff you do that allows/prevents you from writing. I have a day job to pay for general living expenses since I’m currently not making any money writing. Having expenses paid for by having a job that’s not nine-to-five allows me to write. On the other hand, the job is sometimes more than nine-to-five for weeks at a time and while I’m at work, it’s not always easy or advisable to not do work stuff, so it also prevents me from writing.
For the last few weeks in particular, the day job has really been working over time to prevent me from writing. Since coming back from the shutdown, things have been different in general. On top of that, I have a new supervisor. It’s true that everything is always in a constant state of change, but it’s been a lot all at once and I’ve had to re-balance work and writing and sometimes writing loses.
There’s also a small factor in that I’m not doing anything except for the day job right now, so I have fallen hard into a routine that’s not totally conducive to productivity in the writing department. Not getting out except to the day job or groceries is starting to wear me down, but I’m just not comfortable with not being overly cautious considering the state of hospitals in my province.
Mostly, what’s happened is that I’ve been working Mondays at a different facility doing rental and office work. I don’t hate working on the Monday, but the workload is heavy for a one day a week shift. I was managing working at the other facility since things were kind of normal (in terms of workload) at my regular facility, but one of the staff who does the bookings is off for an extended period of time and the rest of us have had to jump in to cover the slack.
It’s not that big an increase in workload but it’s all new stuff with very particular (and finicky) computer systems. Since the job has been done by the same person for years, we’ve had to rummage through old contracts and try to piece together the job and all the particulars that come with my specific facility.
I know that’s all boring stuff that has no context for most of you. It directly affects my writing, though (which I hope is interesting for you). It’s made me stressed out and tired and I’ve worked a lot more days so when I get home, I’m in no condition to do any writing or big editing. I know I probably should (and I am getting some done) but I feel like I’m running up a hill of sand. It’s getting better and it’s only temporary, but it’s still not awesome.
Less important is that since I’m working more evening shifts again, I was going to make a renewed push to attempt fiction writing at the day job. Unfortunately, that’s going to have to wait. But either the staff member will come back or someone else will take the position eventually. In the mean time, I’m trying to do the work the best I can and not get dragged into any of it being part of my regular work (mostly since I don’t get paid for it). Hopefully it won’t be too long before I get my hands dirty with the Invasion Novel again.
Ben Van Dongen 