Sisyphus

Corporate America. I think anyone who has worked in Corporate America for more than a few years has stopped to wonder at some point – how on earth do companies ever make money? When I think about the excesses I’ve sometimes seen, the wasted time and efforts, the unending tasks that sometimes seem to be done for no one, it sometimes amazes me that products don’t all cost A LOT more than they do on a pure cost basis… OK, to be fair, this isn’t true of all jobs I’ve had in all companies at all times. But it still seems to happen a lot. And it can be a bit disheartening.

I have been known to compare my jobs to Sisyphus (after I looked up the right name - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus). I’m not going to include the whole story (the wiki link covers it), but basically Greek myth says that he was condemned to push a huge boulder up a hill. Every time he’d almost get to the top, it would roll back down and he’d have to start over. How many times does a job feel like that? Why am I doing this? I’m not getting anywhere. This is pointless.

Some days my job still feels like this, but I have to admit that going to part time and refocusing on my life outside work (reinstating a balance for myself!), it’s not nearly so disheartening. Work is work and I’m really able to leave it there / focus on the rest of my life. Yes some tasks may seem pointless, but as long as they want to pay me to do them – fine. It makes me wonder if I could have done this before / without going to part time. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have done it post-baby if I were full time (as all the time spent working was keeping me away from my baby for no good reason / for pointless tasks). I’m not sure if going part time has just made me enough less career focused to finally “let it go.” Whatever the case – it’s really freeing. If I ever figure out the right secret of it, I’ll be sure to let you know!