It's Groundhog Day! Also Known As: Repeat Ad Nauseam

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

In the movie Groundhog Day Bill Murray finds himself trapped in the small Pennsylvania town famous for its annual tradition of consulting a groundhog for insight on how the remainder of the winter will shape up.   By trapped I do not mean to say the roads are barricaded and he cannot escape the actual town.  No, the poor man is trapped in the fourth dimension.  He wakes up and relives Groundhog Day over and over again.  Sometimes I feel a bit like his character must have felt.

Today was my eighth day working in downtown St. Paul.  I am doing my very best to maintain a positive attitude.  Some days are more challenging than others.  I would rate today as a moderately difficult day to keep myself feeling positive.  Sometimes I fear I’ll always be working as a temporary employee.  But I know myself too well; I will do what is necessary to make the changes necessary to find a better life for myself.  I have overcome too many obstacles to end up where I am now…permanently.

I don’t know that a lot has been written about the psychology of being a temporary employee in America but I will make my contribution here.  I’ve heard some of the arguments in favor of temporary employees.  One major one is that it allows an employer to get to know an employee before formally taking the person on as one of its own.  This seems perfectly reasonable in theory.  Companies can save on administrative and other costs by first ‘trying out’ an employee before making a real commitment.  But there is a dark side to such work…and it seems to me that America is moving ever more to the dark side of this equation.

I find it very difficult to get emotionally involved in any real way when working as a contract worker.  Unless I really enjoy the assignment I am doing I find it difficult to do even simple things such as smile and carry on light-hearted conversation.  Why?  Because in a very short time I will be done with my project and I will, in all likelihood, never see the people again whom I have passed in the hallways.  Why would I want to spend too much energy pleasing people or ‘lightening up’ a room if I will never see those people again?  That might sound like a gloomy perspective but I find this to be a very valid criticism.

The United States itself seems to have become a temporary nation in some respects.  People get into professions for the wrong reasons.  I think many of our elected officials in Congress are an excellent example.  If you spend a majority of your time focused on campaigning to get reelected rather than actually serving the needs of your electorate then I think something is seriously amiss.  The recent unfortunate debacle regarding gun legislation in this country is a great example of this issue.  Despite approximately ninety percent of the American populace being in favor of background checks for those who wish to purchase a gun related legislation in Congress met a death as gruesome as the children from Connecticut who died premature deaths in Newtown.  I simply cannot fathom people who run for an office in which they will serve as a public servant and then, ironically, seek primarily to look first and foremost after their own very privatized wants and needs.  It seems that the days of government service being a noble profession are long gone.

I told my therapist yesterday evening that I believe I might need to stay on anti-depressant medication so long as I am unfulfilled in my professional ambitions.  I am capable of doing so much more than completing a spreadsheet.  I could have done the assignment I am doing now when I was seventeen years old.  If I sense I am making no genuine forward progress in my life I can’t imagine how I will not feel some amount of looming discouragement.  My earlier life history was full of enough discouragement, loss and suffering.  I want to create a new future for myself.  And I believe that I can.

I’m going to stay faithful to all my efforts to improve my life…and I hope one day they will pay off.