I lost my second job this week.
I was shocked. My competence as a translator has been proven a thousand times over, but in these last few years my corporate incompetence seems to have been intensifying, and I lose my temper often.
I can recall the numerous occasions on which I pointed out a serious mistake and proved my point with solid reasoning, but was invariably rejected because I didn’t treat the incompetent culprit with enough respect. Meanwhile, the mistake prevailed over the correction — a good description of today’s business landscape, in which there is respect to spare, whereas competence is rare. Generally speaking, of course.
This second job was deeply entrenched in AI, state-of-the-art technology, crypto, fintech, all things virtual; and lately, much to my dismay, it was preparing for a sharp turn toward the “agentic economy,” an idea that honestly gives me the creeps.
And yet I insisted. While the stress kept mounting, inside the company and out, my marketing translation brain kept looking for inspiring metaphors, idioms, and figures of speech that could add some brilliance to those arid themes, making sure to maintain the rhythm, the lightness, and sometimes the humor in the headlines — precious currencies the company really didn’t care for. So Tuesday morning I got the call, and was told by an anonymous clerk that my contract had ended, effective immediately.
Gross! So 21st century, so coldly “agentic”!
I confess I was shaken to my core. It took me two days to start a timid recovery, after which the profound effect of not having to work those 20 weekly hours on a complex subject I frankly detest started to pay dividends.
The first sign was that I started to hum a famous Brazilian samba I hadn’t sung in years:
In Clovis Square, a pickpocket stole my wallet
It held five dollars and that old picture of you.
Five dollars, I admit, was a cheap price to pay
To clear away the past and point out a better way.
Since COVID, I have allowed myself to dwell in misery, but once this stone I had long carried around my neck was gone, I started to see a glass half full where before there was only emptiness.
I live in the forest, surrounded by beauty. The wildflower garden I started during COVID at the side of the house is now coming to fruition, and in ways I could never have imagined until a short time ago. Seven years later — this summer — I expanded my domain, started to cultivate flowers around the house, built comfortable paths to move around, and installed a whole system to irrigate the huge garden we have here.
I just finished all these endeavors this week, and can now prepare for a winter that I expect will be highly productive.
Mind you, keeping this rhythm wouldn’t be possible if I still had that second job. I was terribly tired, always tense, constantly angry, and yet I couldn’t see a way out of this seriously unfulfilling situation. There were never enough hours in the day to spend in the garden and lower the temperature — the ultrahigh temperature of my stressful thoughts. I could barely sleep, checking my phone for “jobs” all night every couple of hours.
I’m still not out of the woods, but I have finally started to move. The other day I was telling my husband that this train had left the station, but the truth is that, until Tuesday morning, it was stranded on the tracks.
There is a lot to be done. But at least now, I can see a way forward, and start planning the next chapter — one plot at a time.