tempting fate

My time capsule posts aside, it's been a while since I've written here, and a lot has happened since I failed to decide on any specific New Year's resolutions. Here goes...

Sadly, I'm still working in the same spot; gladly, not for much longer. I've been applying for other jobs and I'm starting to get a few responses back, although nothing too positive yet. It's strange, perhaps, that as tense as I was about deciding to look for alternative employment, I'm even more tense about finding it. You might think I'd be a bit more relaxed after making the decision and relieved to think I can still do it, and I might feel that way once I've found a new job, but in the meantime, I'm still very nervous.

Part of the nervousness comes from a few plans that I may or may not have for the next two months or so. My brother is planning a two-week trip to Japan in May and June, and a cousin of ours is getting married shortly afterwards. I'm hoping to join them both. The problem is applying to take leave in one of our busiest times of the year, particularly for a block of several weeks.

Wait, what? I'm actually needed at work suddenly? Well, sort of.

The task that I'm on now, and that I've been complaining about to no avail for more than six months, still refuses to die. I've had a colleague from across the corridor looking at this in some idle time, and another colleague from interstate who visited here for two days this week, and I'm still not entirely sure what's going on. I've only got about a week and a half to finish the entire task, and I don't even know what we're supposed to be delivering any more.

On the proviso that I see this task out, there are two more tasks lined up for me. The former of those tasks is with my supervisor, for whom I worked directly this time last year. By the time I start working there again, he will have held up my work there for a full year, without having even had the common courtesy to tell me the truth about it. The latter is with another group I spent about a month with on and off about eight months ago. I tried to stop them reinventing a wheel and I didn't get invited back. I haven't received any feedback about this work either, and although my supervisor has claimed to have some, he said it would be "unprofessional" to pass it on to me. Somewhere in the middle of this, this same supervisor is magically going to do his job and thereby allow my work from this time last year to be completed. Of course, I've heard all of this many times before, and the message is just as mixed as ever.

I've tried talking to my boss, my boss's boss and our HR officer about these problems. Everyone seems to understand but nobody seems even remotely interested in solving them. As a result, I'm pretty much through wondering whether any of this will get better. I'm well and truly embedded in a search for another job, and I can't wait for the day when I can leave this one behind. I don't even care that much where I end up afterwards, although it will certainly not be in a defence job. Make no mistake, I'm happy with the money I'm getting here, but this job has nothing else to offer; there's no worth in the work itself, nor in my being there to do it.

My job has drained me of my energy, both physical and mental; in fact, I took today and yesterday off to recover. However, I haven't given up. My mind and body are weak, but my spirit still has hope, at least for the prospect of getting another job. On the other hand, I've still got this one, and I can't talk about how much worse things will get without it sounding like a temptation of fate.