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July 6, 2005
half the productivity, twice the exhaustion
This working two jobs, like, sucks and stuff.
And I scaled way back on my primary job to accomodate the secondary one; I can't even imagine what it's like to work two because you need the money. My respect for the working poor has grown by leaps and bounds in the last two weeks. Among my discoveries is that it's not just the number of hours you work in a week; each job comes with a certain amount of "energy overhead" that's independent of how many hours you work. Both jobs require that I devote thought to them in my off hours—constantly processing, working problems, inventing creative solutions. Both jobs come with email to check, people to please, cretins to avoid, developments to track. These things just don't scale down.
On the up side, I got paid twice for not working on the 4th. If only I'd found a way to actually do some MS work I could bill for, it would have been 3x. Alas, I was too busy blanketing Percy's double-wide's roof with fireworks debris.
posted by john at 7:30 AM • permalink