Rant: Work Has Melted My Brain

The crushing agony of work, maybe.

words Revathie Dhanabalan

When I was a uni student, I had somehow managed to get through almost five years of education with a vague sense of brutal efficiency. I completed a degree with a minor followed by a postgraduate degree while attempting to hold down a kitchen hand job and volunteering. And mind you, I am completely aware that I was privileged to be even afforded that chance. But I was also highly aware that all this was intended to move me towards an illustrious career as a communications “something” or rather anything.

But here’s where I think it went all wrong – and maybe some might agree with me - I pursued the type of degree that, literally, had the word “creative” in every other unit.

Let me explain.

It’s not that I regret studying it but maybe I do regret pursuing a career in it.

When you’ve got that degree framed in your parent’s house, you stare at it and you start to miss all the fun you had while you were studying, managing life with little to no expectations. You just did it because you liked it even though you might have known that the future’s potentially bleak. So unsurprisingly, I decided to divert and get my postgraduate degree. Why? I just needed an excuse to hang around studying, long after it was needed. Masters? Don’t mind if I do! But despite all the alluring pitfalls of great marks or enjoying campus life, I knew I was trapped. I was comfortable, so I stayed.

Soon enough, sweet PhD thoughts started creeping in but my lofty ideas to continue studying started to wane. It would have honestly been the sweetest deal on earth - you get to read books, write the longest essay of your life over maybe three years, with the possibility of earning on the side. But life always throws you a curveball and what no one tells you are the ramifications that hit you like a brick a few years down the road into creative ‘adulthood’.

1. Time is not your friend.

If you’re the bookish type, you built your love of literature, made it your degree - that will no longer be something you’ll adore. If you’re academically inclined or you just love bookshop cafés, that will no longer be your escape. Once you begin your career, say goodbye to The New Yorker and Niall Ferguson. Instead, say hello to your new friend Zoom, Microsoft Teams and daily updates from your organisation’s newsletters.

2. Losing day-to-day communication skills.

At first, using all the familiar words you picked up from uni in a new context is exciting. You learn that terms like “raising awareness” becomes redundant when that is your day-to-day purpose in your new role. Here’s a kicker for you - do you create campaigns to raise awareness or are you raising awareness by creating campaigns? [mind blown] Truly fascinating.

But after a few years, this type of language starts bleeding into your everyday world too. You’ll find yourself speaking like an office worker who has somehow managed to finish a proposal via email. And despite cultivating all these abilities to blend in with the working folk, you will never again be able to speak to a person without constantly nodding your head as you do during a Zoom call to show that you’re listening. You’ll start using “as noted” in everyday speech and you can’t help but laugh at yourself.

3. You might be a hermit crab.

This is an odd one. You spend a good portion of your day with people stuck in an office (pre-COVID of course). But why is it that given the few hours we have left when we get back, some would rather be a hermit crab? And now, WFH has me glued to the computer monitor for hours on end while living in a small area of my room surrounded by my sweet books and pending crochet projects along with empty mugs with coffee lines.

Here’s a welcome change, going to the grocery store by my lonesome has become my sweet reward. Cleaning the house becomes a legitimate yet desirable pastime. You might start seeking out any form of productive work to get away from the work. But here’s the downside, you can’t and the cycle repeats once again.

4. You even smell different.

By the end of my studies, I had accomplished something truly wonderful. My weird reek in the final weeks of me handing in my thesis while after-hours working as a kitchen hand, finally left my body. It was a stench of accomplishment, something new. Now, it is the stench of stagnancy, no matter how much you bathe or dose yourself in heavenly scents. I believe there are several theories as to why our scent changes as we progress, but lately, for me, my body’s vibe feels like it’s in this constant state of weeping. I feel different, everything smells different, I smell different.

5. You will feel shame.

My mother couldn’t be more proud that she has a daughter that finished her postgraduate degree. Despite pursuing something that isn’t a professional degree that allows me to heal wounds mind you, but one that understands writing structures and gendered representation in Asia. Yet, there’s a special type of shame that I’ve come to feel with choosing a stable career path over my passion (if you can call it that).

And that makes sense - you feel shame when you feel like you have violated your belief system and you just want to sink into a deep hole. While I should share in my mother’s pride in having completed something that I loved, while she never had the chance herself, I know that in the real world, that certificate framed up on that wall is just something that could have been. Because sometimes the real world outranks your deepest of passions.

And you think, oh God: “what was I even doing taking out that $80,000 education loan?”

So, do I think I may have made a bad choice pursuing a “creative” degree? No. But at times, I can’t help but regret the career choices or opportunities that I didn’t pursue. I was gutsy back then but why did I lose that? And I’m still trying to reconcile that facet of my life at 30.

Does anyone else feel this too? Or is this what folks call a quarter-life crisis that came a few years late?