Is It Tolerable?

Which might depend on which definition of the word you choose.

According to Merriam-Webster, here are two definitions of tolerable: capable of being borne or endured, and moderately good and agreeable.

Last summer, I ran into my writer-friend Michelle at our local farmer’s market. She’s the author of about a dozen books or so and recently retired from teaching. We were catching up a bit on our lives, and then she asked, “How is your job; by which I mean, is it tolerable?”

She was joking, sort of. She loved teaching, but like most people I know who teach, it is all the other administrative aspects that made the work, like many teaching jobs and jobs in general, intolerable. My friend’s question was posed months ago but ever since, I’m not sure a day has gone by without asking myself is it tolerable?

Objectively, my job is fine. I work for a healthcare provider in Ohio; three days per week I work from home. My company is flexible about the first and last hour of the day when it comes to picking up or dropping off children. Two days per week, I work in the corporate office, a relatively modern building that is approximately a six-minute commute from my home. I am not a manager; I do not have to be responsible for any direct reports. My salary is sufficient, and I have a 401k and, from Liz’s job, health insurance for our family.

On the other hand, until recently, my manager was a micromanager and bully, a wildly insecure and petty person, arguably the worst manager I have ever had (which is saying something), and just seeing her name in a DM or email filled me with dread. Yes, dread. Further, working in health care is like polishing brass on the Titanic (digression: one might reasonably argue that if you aren’t actively working to fight global warming, your work is pointless, but hey…), and the corporate “wow!” and rah-rah culture stuff that is particularly pervasisve in marketing and communication departments sends my Gen X sarcasm and contempt into overdrive. As with most corporate jobs, I seem to be busiest with the most meaningless work which often comes at the behest of some c-level poohbah who is trying to gain followers on LinkedIn so they can golden parachute to the next high paying gig.

I have always been very good about compartmentalizing my working and writing (“creative”? This word feels like it is about “wow” but, doesn’t Story and writing sorta fit together for me?) but those walls are cracking. I cannot seem to find enough hours in the day—because there aren’t enough—to do all the work I want to do. The work that pays the most (day job) means the least and fills me with the existential dread of wondering if I am truly wasting my life and talents.

Today, I feel good. Liz and I are away on a long weekend—when is it a vacation? Probably at least a week, yeah?—and I have time to think. The ability to clearly think: this is maybe where I feel the most frustration with all of it, with the day job and writing short stories and writing a novel and editing Story; I can’t seem to think anymore. I can’t concentrate. All the demands of parenting. The shitty condition of this godforsaken country, which manages to get worse every single week. Once, I felt capable of keeping the noise in neat boxes that I could mentally file and store and open at my leisure, but now, it all spills out all the time. I often chastise myself for not being able to manage it anymore, telling myself that I have all the financial, social, rational, and emotional resources in the world to keep my interests in balance. But this isn’t true. I’m not above the siren song of my smartphone, the endless advertising through increasingly lousy tech products, or the moral rot of this country. Of course, I feel out of whack. Who doesn’t?

Americans have a strange relationship to work, and I’m no different. I want to work but the work that is most meaningful is the lowest paying; the work that is most meaningful takes the longest amount of time to create.

I have yet to figure how to end this, but perhaps that’s baked into this essay: there is no ending. There is finish line, end of regulation buzzer, or whatnot. So I’ll make a high school essay move and close with a quote: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Three Better Things to Read:

1. Lindsey Adler on the creative professionals and how their industry is going (“Not great, Bob!”

2. The answer is probably No, but on the other hand …

3. I was surprised when Dana Miranda took a job in 2025 and six months later, welp, guess what happened?

Until the next time,

Michael