i always crash by 5pm. when i'm not in an office setting i'm inclined to half-assedly read the NY times online, or watch television that i don't really like. if i were a nap-taker it would be my nap time.
when i'm in an office, it is especially difficult. i often combat it by setting out concrete tasks to do at that time so i don't aimlessly fall into "checking email" or otherwise pittle away my time.
but it also makes me contemplative, even philosophical. lately i've been feeling rather removed from the world, in general but in my work i feel it the most intensely. sometimes i lose sight of how sitting in front of a compter for 40 hours a week has anything to do with social justice. i mean, they tell me i'm young, in the prime of life with the world at my fingertips and i'm... looking at budget spreadsheets and databases?
help me remind myself of the bigger picture: without budget lines we wouldn't know what we're spending or what we need to spend to put on our programs, to visit our chapters, to print our books or pay for these dang computers. and without databases we wouldn't know who to reach out to with said progams, chapters, books. right?
and to boot, the specificity of what we do as an organization warrants tactics such as email and phone...lots of young wealthy people are all about technology. and are super mobile, spread out all across the country/world. AND we have to interface with lots of folks from the Old School of Wealth who require things like excel spreadsheets and formal letters and conference attendence. hell, RG makes attending Old School of Wealth conferences part of a social justice agenda! and that's rad.
ok, i'm feeling a bit better now. still far away from reality, though, or at least reality of other human beings in this work besides the 6 amazing folks i work with. reading other people's blogs and getting updates via email are great, but i think what it comes down to is i'm feeling a void of Human Contact. and this all ties into my voluminous work, aka the previous post, on community....
and all of this is why i'm so pumped to get involved with a small social justice fund my mom's friend is co-founding in northampton! more on that later, but it feels...juicy and dirty and hard. and i'm ready for that.
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first of all, hey jessie my dearest dear! so happy you put your blog link on your gchat thingy because now i, too can sit at my computer at work all day and read (yet another!) blog...
ReplyDeletebut i like this post a lot because i couldn't FEEL ya more. i fucking hate sitting at a computer all day. i feel too young and sprightly, like all this energy is being wasted with my bum in a seat and my fingers getting most of the action. (wow that sounds too good to erase. but i mean typing!!) ANYWAY. i contemplate this constantly as well - working for prisoners rights means a lot of paper pushing... letters to/from inmates, but also corresponding with the CA dep't of corrections and of course, it's a law firm. lawyers love to read and write all day. basically, just want to share that i recognize the necessity of office work, but i constantly feel it's oppression.