I just got off from Microsoft Teams after chatting with my colleague in Japan for more than an hour about our colleague (L) who just resigned. You see, I held a farewell call for her during our team’s weekly call. Then after that I sent an email to APAC editorial mailing list about the Kudoboard for her, announcing her resignation.

Anyway, my MS Teams chat went from one topic to another and my colleague (N) was ranting about xxx and yyyy. He threatened to leave and told my manager about in February 2022. His former manager, M, who left us in March last year for some consulting firm, told him to stay in journalism. He said he sensed M misses journalism. M told him that in hindsight, her years with our company wasn’t so bad at all compared to her current company now where she is managing director.

It was a matter of the grass is always greener on the other side, I guess.

I told N that I also feel that discontent sometimes when I feel like the company is being unfair to me. L and I had been chatting as well and she was sending me names of companies that are hiring. I was looking at the job descriptions and nothing excited me. She said, maybe you would like to try something new. I said, I think I’m happy with journalism. And if I want to try something new, it would be data journalism/analytics that’s why I’m going to enroll in a training program for data analytics. Besides, none of the job openings are remote.

OMG, I didn’t realize that remote working is so important to me now, like it’s on top of my criteria. 🙀

During this chat with my Japanese colleague, N, we were talking about our angst about certain things. Then I sent him a photo of me (actually, my laptop) with a swimming pool in the background (the one I took after Christmas). He couldn’t believe I could work by the poolside or by the beach. I said whenever I feel shit about my job, I look at photos like this and tell myself that being able to work anywhere, according to my pace and comfort level, is something I cannot quantify yet. That flexibility as a single parent is very important, I just realized. Being able to turn off my Outlook or ignore it during the weekends is critical that most of us take for granted.

Even though being a journalist means you are always “on”, I can still afford to tune out when I need to.

Being at home to see my children and cook for them is precious. My kids always drag me out of my room to have proper meals with them at the table. It’s important to them.

L told me to just go through interviews, just to see what’s out there and how I compare against industry. Yes, she makes sense. But deep inside I feel it’s too exhausting and would just be wasting my time doing all that when I’m not ready to jump yet. I would know if a job description will click within me.

N said, you are doing good. You are where you’re supposed to be.

I don’t know how to turn off the confusion sown inside my chest. I don’t know how to quiet it down.

I don’t know. This disquiet is fueled by this desire to earn more so maybe if the company grants me the 8-point agenda I sent my bosses, maybe the noise will die down?

This morning my thought was “If only I could just continue creating like draw/paint and make things with my hands, maybe I won’t be having this anxiety every Monday morning…”

Again, I don’t know where or how to reach that happy compromise.