Eventually something consumes your thoughts so often that you need to document the details. This is where it happens right here.

Back almost 2 years ago, I wrote about my frustration on my day job. Today, I am just as frustrated, if not more. Yet I stay employed at this job. I mentioned in that post that I wanted to make some changes and move on to another place of employment, but as I write these words, I have not moved on. The details in the post about the decision I made is still my ultimate goal, yet I stick around this place and see that things have become worse on several levels. This is where I have defined myself as comfortably unhappy.

The state of being comfortable in a place where you get a paycheck and can comfortably pay your bills, have some flexible time to run errands during the day and have a decent amount of time off that affords me to leave the office several times a year.

The unhappy part comes from two years of taking over desktop support for the previous person [who is missed every single day] the higher ups decided to let go, with no consulting myself on this additional responsibility that I didn’t ask for. Adding to the unhappy level is the fact that 60% of my time is doing desktop support, which takes away from the projects I so wish I had time to work on: an upgrade to Exchange 2007 and increasing our VMware footprint of virtual servers.

Added on top of this was my review I received this week. My worst one in the almost 9 years I’ve been at this company. So why was it worse? I did not complete the projects on my goal list [I just outlined the reason why above] and had my attendance taken down a number, even though I live 3 miles from work, answer my phone 24/7, work weekends when there are issues that need to be addressed and rarely calling in sick [I don’t remember the last time I did]. For someone who takes responsibility and being reliable serious, this is a giant slap in the face.

The Final Straw?

I don’t want to keep ranting about this because it upsets me even to write this out, but it’s a good thing to put it out there and get out how I feel about this. As before, I plan to leave but have now set a date of September 2012 to find another company, get an Exchange 2007 migration into my skills and work towards my ultimate goal of leaving the IT world in further pursuit of my writing and filming career. I have let this job take away too much of my power over the last two years and let it affect not just what I do during the day, but my personal life’s interests. While I’ve gone back to the gym three days a week and have done so for 10 weeks now, I need to take all of the other facets of what I want to do in life and add those back into my schedule and push for the changes that I sorely need.

Because if I have to come back here in two years to post another day job ranting update, I don’t see it becoming any more positive.

Working towards making this one work here on all levels.