overdrawn at the memory bank

I got another offer and...I thought it would be objectively better for me than my current job, and I still think that, but I also just kinda don't want to go? It's similar to my current job and it's a big pay cut. The main thing, though, is that I just suddenly feel so different.

This isn't my ideal job but it has been very clearly demonstrated to me over the past year that I'm not a competitive candidate (not being down on myself; I'm just early career). There are plenty of things I like about it, and there is a lot of benefit to having familiarity with my clients/colleagues. A new job comes with the drawback of being a new job. Plus if I wasn't distracted by trying to interview for other jobs all the time, my job would be easier.

I'm on a couple of county eligible lists (this is too stupid to explain if you don't know what it is) and if I don't get a job through those in the next couple years, I'll start looking again when I'm an LCSW.

I was offered a hospital job verbally; with lots of coaching from my girlfriend I told them I needed to finish interview process with another job to be able to make a decision, and the supervisor was really understanding! I think I'm supposed to get a formal offer letter after references & background checks but it's a little stressful.

Then I interviewed with my dream job that took 4!! months to be approved after I was initially told about it. I'm supposed to hear from them in a week. I really, really want it. I think it would be enough like my current job that it wouldn't be the steepest learning curve, but, like, without a lot of the parts I don't like. It's working with a very specific group of clients in a very specific circumstance (a really interesting one!) so I would be able to just hyperfocus and not have to learn a billion new things all the time.

Hospital job would be okay though, I think.

I'm continuing to feel like, wow, yep, I met the person for me, I want to be with her forever, and this is pretty simple! And statistically I can't know that after only 3 months. But how can I deal with that not being true? I want to be with her forever.

I'm trying to just frame it as an amazing thing that is happening to me and doesn't have to be permanent; I should just appreciate that it's happening at all.

Things are exactly the same as they were at the beginning, like we're both less stressed about our relationship, but we're just as excited as we were.

we went to our first show together last week and it was so fun dancing together. I went to rest at one point and the other side of the venue had a video feed so I just admired the back of her head on the video feed.

I introduced her to some of my friends and it was really nice.

she left her bag at the movies and I went back and got it for her the next day. It felt nice to do that!

she brought me a bookcase from the thrift store while I was home sick today. We were on the phone talking about if I wanted the bookcase and she saw something in the store and said "this is EXQUISITE!! I'm getting you this for Valentine's Day!!" and refused to tell me what it was. Then she dropped off both in front of my door and we stayed on the phone so she could listen to me open it and it was a homemade-looking ceramic sculpture of a wolf chewing on meat.

she is just so nice to me? And she just...likes me? I don't feel like I've ever had a partner who just genuinely liked me and was so happy to be around me. She does romantic things for me!!

I think we've had about 3 years' worth of sex in 3 months and it's really, really, REALLY great, okay that's as TMI as I'm going to get but I can't believe it can be like this

after she read some BG3 fics I like, she started doing her "Astarion-sona" where she speaks in a fancy voice (neither of us has ever played BG3 so this is based on osmosis). The other day after we played together she got so wacky that she kept doing Astarion-sona for a full hour and narrating everything in a fancy voice. I was trying to put this flyer in an envelope and she was going, "it won't fit in the envelope darling (sigh) I have already tried that and it SIMPLY WON'T DO"

the other evening we went out for dinner and the restaurant was playing a lot of pop songs from the last 20 years and we discussed our opinions of each pop song (we haven't talked about radio pop really, so it was a new topic)

I got pretty sick this weekend so I called in my first day back. Checked my email and my supervisor has sent out this email that really cements my decision to leave:

"we haven't completed enough units [hours with clients] for where we are in the fiscal year. [Outlines why the county standards aren't realistic for the type of work we do] so we'll have to get creative. By March 2 everyone needs to submit an outline with a plan for how you are going to get more units with each client."

My supervisor is so nice and I respect how detail-oriented she is and how much she can engage with the ridiculous policies we have to follow but those policies are...not good...and this is...bad?

Because of their circumstances, it's pretty common for our clients to cancel or forget appointments which is one reason we don't get enough "units." We also travel to clients a lot, and traveling doesn't count for "units," and the combination of those two factors is not great--imagine traveling 30 minutes both ways and the person is not there or doesn't want to meet. Your whole day can be taken up with travel time that way.

"Getting creative" means things like, if a client no-shows or is difficult to find, then you should just randomly call and visit other clients even if they don't want a visit or it's not a good clinical decision. Or if you're unprepared to help with the practical things they need help with, because all your spare time is being spent seeing clients unnecessarily, because researching, making referrals, etc. is not "units."

Like, maybe routines and boundaries are good to have with clients, and it's really bad that these expectations are so unrealistic that they encourage you to provide services you shouldn't provide and de-prioritize important tasks. Our clients have such acute needs and focusing on "units" instead is harmful.

I'm finishing up a week of staycation and just becoming more aware of how much I don't want to return to my job. I've kind of decided that I am going to give notice even though I don't have another job offer (I have some interviews, but nothing for sure).

(the fanfic)

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(I'm okay, this is not related to any current stuff in my life!!)

placeholder for longer thing, but I've been thinking a lot about a conversation I had with a friend a few months ago about polyamory and my weird relationship to it. My friend brought up failed communes he'd seen: "there's a societal model for how to live. People might plan to do something different, but the default is easier and more familiar, and people often revert to the default, which can leave other people feeling betrayed."

Good comparison!! It really covers the whole thing for me.

In theory, I have no problem with a partner having other partners, and I'm open to it for myself (it's not something that interests me very much, but in my ideal relationship, I'd want to be able to go for it if I really fell in love with a second person). In practice, the prospect is unappealing, and I've had a really bad experience with it. And I think this really boils down to the idea of people reverting to structures and defaults.

People can agree that they're committed to you, but if there are multiple partners and you're the less traditionally desirable partner, or the one with the less enmeshed relationship, then you have to take it on faith that the person will actually treat you with consideration. They can just ghost you, and it's not even that there won't be concrete consequences, it's that everyone will think this is normal and you should have expected it. Everything can just disappear because a)people didn't even know about you and/or b)a lot of people will just see you as an affair partner or hookup who shouldn't have expected more. You can't negotiate that someone will care about you, and there's no structure making them care.