:: On the Clock ::
I had some spare time on my hands tonight, lots of it in fact, courtesy of my lack of a social life between monday and thursday, and I realized something: My life is ruled by the clock.
I've worked a few jobs in my day - chinese food busboy, auto parts delivery driver, labourer for landscape companies, but in no other job have I been such a slave to time as the job I've got now. Sure, there were deadlines at other jobs, but not like this. I have to have all my stories written by Monday at 5 p.m. for our Wednesday paper, and Thursday at 5 for Saturday's. There are a billion other deadlines that I won't bore you with, but those are the main ones. I'm constantly checking to see what time it is, constantly reworking schedules to make sure it all gets done on time, etc etc...
Sure, that's not unlike many jobs, but none that I've ever had before. And this on-the-clock existence has made time absolutely fly by - almost to the point of being ridiculous. Having such strict deadlines, my week has basically been cut into three parts - there's Monday to Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon to Friday morning, and then the weekend. And when things are cut down into smaller pieces, it seems like they go by quicker. Much quicker. For example, I cannot believe that I've worked at my "new" job for 5 full months now. It's baffling to think about.
When I was in Peace River, things were the same way. With deadlines here and there, and being so focused on them, time went by at a fairly quick clip, which was fine at the time, because I had an ultimate goal to get a new job in a certain time frame, so the faster the better.
Now though, I have a problem. I'm in a job that I'll have for a fairly long time - for the next handful of years I have no place I'm trying to get to, no "end result" that will occur after X amount of hours, days and months. Basically, having time fly isn't a benefit. Instead, I'm worried that i'll just wake up one day and realize that I'm like 35-years-old. That's not a bad thing, neccesarily - nothing wrong with being 35, I'm just saying that time seems to be going too quick for my liking. I need to find a way to make it feel like things are moving at a normal pace, not a lightning quick one filled with press deadlines and clock watching.
There's a guy I work with, a freelance photographer, who is on the same deadlines I am, but who doesn't care at all what time it is, aside from getting work done by 5 oclock, of course. If he has to work late one night, he doesn't care that he'll get home at 8 instead of 6. Just doesn't bother him. Meanwhile, I'm still racing out the door at 5 p.m. and I'm angry if I get home at 5:40 instead of 5:35. I don't know what I'd do with those 5 minutes, but I don't like losing them. My goal is to be 10 minutes late for something and not give a damn.
I don't know why I'm in a big damn hurry all the time - it's not like there's anything in particular waiting for me when the clock runs out.
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