Justice for sad desk lunch

My husband and I recently drove to visit my family in Iowa, a trip that takes around 17 hours each way. We listen to a lot of music on this drive, but we also always pick out an audiobook. This time, we listened to The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, a reread for me and a favorite I’ve been wanting to share with Dawson.

I love this genre-defying book. It offers an effortless blend of memoir, history, science, and philosophy. It’s thought-provoking and emotional and inspiring. Each chapter is a standalone essay where the author reviews a facet of human experience on a five-star scale. The topics are many and varied, from Diet Dr. Pepper and Canada geese to sunsets, whispering, and The World’s Largest Ball of Paint.

His reviews are, of course, colored by his own personal experiences. How could they not be? But he also includes very interesting historical details and tangents that somehow always circle back to something resonant and true. 

Today, I’m taking inspiration from The Anthropocene Reviewed with a few mini reviews of work-related things. I can’t match John Green’s flair and writing talent, but I can steal his format 😉

A fun fact about me is that I once cried during an annual performance review. It was humiliating — borderline traumatizing. It wasn’t that my review was bad, but a perfect storm of factors (some difficult feedback, peak 2020 COVID burnout and anxiety) added up to a sniffly and choked-up conversation with my managers. 

The one saving grace of this situation was that it took place via video call. As soon as we hung up, the floodgates fully opened. I ranted to my friends about how unfair it was, how I was trying so hard. I still think COVID-era performance reviews ought to have been handled differently. 

And honestly, I don’t know how useful performance reviews actually are for anyone involved. The conversations may be helpful, but numerical performance ratings are arbitrary at best. I give performance reviews 2 stars. ⭐⭐

Helping with my family’s laundry was one of my first paid jobs. My mom agreed to pay me something like $.50 for each load of laundry I washed, dried, folded, and put away in our laundry room cubby system. I kept track of my work with tallies on a sheet of paper taped to the wall and cashed out once in a while, when I had made $5 or $10.

I no longer get paid for doing my own laundry 😂 But it’s still a “job” I do. And actually, of all the different domestic tasks that keep a household running, it’s probably one of my favorites. I find it oddly meditative. I give folding laundry 3 stars. ⭐⭐⭐

Author Stephen King has a famous quote about the challenge of staring at a blank page: “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” I agree wholeheartedly, and it’s why I try to limit the amount of time I spend staring at a blank page. 

For client work, I have a life hack: When I sit down to start a draft, I aim for the absolute bare minimum. I review the brief, start on the outline, and MAYBE work on the intro. Getting started is hard enough, so I try to make it as easy as possible. Sometimes, I stop there. Other times, the bare minimum turns into a bit more, and I write a good chunk of the draft in that first sitting.

For personal/creative projects, I find it harder to get started, but I’ve come to understand the importance of just getting something down so that the page isn’t blank anymore. See also: Anne Lamott’s “shitty first draft” concept — a first draft doesn’t have to be good, it just has to exist. Because it’s both exciting and terrifying, I give staring at a blank page 3 stars. ⭐⭐⭐

When I had an hourly desk job, I quickly figured out that instead of clocking out for my 30-minute, unpaid lunch break, I could work through lunch and then leave 30 minutes early instead. My boss eventually discouraged this, per the HR department’s policies, but I lowkey loved the “sad desk lunch.” I’m an introvert; let me eat my boring turkey sandwich and Lay’s barbeque chips while in peace!

Later in my career, I was salaried and working at a place where lunchtime was very social. It was actually pretty fun, but I still sometimes missed my sad desk lunch days. There’s just no replacing the peace of a sandwich eaten in solitude. I give sad desk lunch 4 stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

See you next week,

Kara

Kara Detwiller is a writer and creative based in small-town Saskatchewan. She specializes in long-form content writing for enterprise SaaS, cybersecurity, and manufacturing clients. She is also working on her first novel, among other creative pursuits. To connect, reply to this email or find Kara on LinkedIn.

Why Wishful Working? I want to help people thrive in a world obsessed with work and productivity. Together, we’re expanding the definition of productivity, rediscovering life balance, and exploring the many kinds of work that make life possible.