There was a period in my life when I did not consider myself an angry person. A pretty long one, actually. I only began to question that assertion once I no longer had a (sometimes healthy) outlet for any aggression I felt, which was in my mid-to-late twenties. I spent my entire childhood miserable, my teen years surviving, my college years starting to get in touch with my emotions, and still didn’t realize how angry I was about a lot of stuff until I was forced to grapple with the emotional toll of my grandfather’s death and my separation from my parents. You see, I survived most of my childhood by repressing my emotions in a way that had a lasting negative impact, as perhaps best exemplified by the fact that I didn’t experience any kind of mixed or nuanced emotions until sometime in my twenties. I only ever felt one thing up at a time up to that point and it was only as I began to unpack the way that my grief touched everything else I felt that I started to recognize the complexities of what I was feeling prior to that. And thus came the anger. It had been sublimated into so many other emotions, into so many parts of my life, that it was differnet to pull out and understand on it own, especially because I was raised in a particular masculine tradition where not even anger was a “proper” emotion for a man to have. The only proper emotions where love (for god, of course) and remorse (for not loving god enough), so I tamped down a lot of stuff in order to play the part I was assigned.

These days, I more readily recognize the anger within me. It has served me as a wake-up call to help drive me out of an unhealthy mindframe. It has pushed me to stand up for myself when I otherwise would not have. It has helped me to recognize the difference between when something just isn’t the way I want it and when it is actually harmful. It has also made it difficult to remain calm and collected in some situations. It makes it difficult to have reasonable conversations with someone I know isn’t going to take me seriously even as it drives me to at least try the reasonable conversation if that’s the only option available to me. It pushes me to speak up when I might otherwise be silent in a group setting even as it makes it more difficult to articulate my points when I think someone is being wrong-headed about something (basically any conversation about “AI” these days). It takes real effort to manage this feeling, much more so than sadness or joy or melancholy or even serenity, and it is becoming more and more difficult to manage.

These days, I am angry all the time. It’s difficult not to be, what with everything going on in the world, with my shitty work environment, with the way that so many poeple are looking for permission to just not care. I’ve had to do a lot more regulating, a lot of self-management, in order to maintain my composure sometimes, but I’m handling it okay most of the time. I managed to avoid lashing out the last few times something has stirred it up (not that I ever lashed out, but this time I managed it without needing to go be by myself for a while) and didn’t even leave work after the bullshit that was my entire day yesterday (a week and a day before this got posted). I spoke up, tried to make my point, and then disengaged when it was clear that no one understood it. I would have like to continue to make my point, but I was angry enough to quit my job on the spot if I’d been in a position to afford not having a job for any length of time, so I disengaged from the conversation and occupied myself with other things. I have kept a grip on it, letting myself feel it as my mind inevitably turns back to the disrespect of the past couple days and the absolutely toxic, shitty behavior I witnessed–behavior embraced by all but one other member of the team I work on–while stoking it so that I can use it to finally return to job hunting. I don’t know how long this will last, this anger or the drive I’m deriving from it, but I hope it’ll be long enough for me to find some jobs to apply to amidst all the “ai” bullshit and oddly high number of “Department of War” postings looking for software testers (probably to work on some shitty “AI” tool they’re going to use to commit some atrocity or another).

It was well-timed yesterday that the quote from Terry Pratchett (shared by an account known for daily Pratchett quotes) was about holding onto anger and controlling it so that you might eventually let it power whatever vengeance you might unleash. It certainly created an evocative mental image that I’ve been using to keep myself focused and mentally ordered throughout the last twenty-four hours, even if I’m not going to use it to drive vengeance and instead drive myself to change my situation somehow. What form that’ll take remains to be seen, though. The job market is worse than ever, thanks to the absolutely soul-crushing combo of tech-company constriction and the rise of “AI tools” used to handle the first wave of hiring and entire job posts online (I’ve found three dozen companies that all tout themselves as hiring companies who have “AI” generated websites, job postings, pictures, mission statements, and so on: absolute crap from stem to stern), so I’m not certain that I’m going to find anything that will get me out of this situation. Other options include a degree of malicious compliance–a dedication to the specifics of my job long enough to earn enough money to get the fuck out of here–or applying for another position with my current employer. The latter option wouldn’t solve the “AI” problem I’m facing, but I doubt it could get worse than it currently is and would get me out of the toxic, shitty situation I’m currently stewing in. It might also bankrupt me considering the situation I’m in is what allows me to do the 10 hours of overtime each week that keep me earning more than I’m spending. I’ve been thinking about ways to save money, including downsizing my living situation, but I’m not sure it’s worth it to do all that just to take a job on a different team where most of the existing issues will continue to be a problem even if I am treated better. Might be better to either focus up on getting out soon or knuckle-down and focus on a longer-term plan to get out.

It’s been a busy, exhausting twenty-four hours and while I’ve got my anger under control, it is taking more effort than I’d like to keep it that way. I’m not normally angry for this long. Prior to this week, I still wouldn’t have really described myself as an angry person. Someone with a strong sense of justice and an indignant fury ready to back that up? Sure! Someone capable of anger? Absolutely. But now, this past day, through video games, sleep, and a second whole work day, I have been angry constantly. Maybe it’s fine. Maybe that’s the healthy reaction to what has been going on here and it was unhealthy that I was putting up with all this for so long. I don’t know. I know it’s easier for me to put up with being in a bad situation than I should let it be, that I’m far more willing to accept being miserable in exchange for even the illusion of stability than I am to let myself be angry, much less express my anger. I know I expressed my anger and frustration in a meeting with my whole team after they did something shitty and that I didn’t die, lose my job, hurt anyone, or have any kind of lasting impact at all given that they all did it again seconds later. So who knows. I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually. For now, though, I’m going to let this push me into job hunting for a few days, maybe a few weeks, to see what I can come up with. I’m sure there’s stuff out there, I just have to find it amidst all the generated junk.