Bizarre Nightmare about my Work; What Could it Mean?

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This week on Thursday night, I had a really bizarre nightmare about my current job in IT/help desk. First, a bit of background. I've been working there for a little under two years, and in the last year, it went from "sucks" to "horrible". The work is stressful, the management is clueless and naive (in a way that hurts employees), and people have been quitting left and right; my department went from 20 people at its peak to 7 people now, the whole time I've been with the company. And the work went from 40 hours a week to 55 hours a week per employee. I'm barely keeping up, falling behind pretty often. At the same time, the company would be worse off if they fired me, given the low staffing. (Not unlike lowering your standards in dating.)

Now, on with the nightmare. I arrive at my office building as usual, and although the layout doesn't look right, and the rooms are bigger than in real life, I don't really pay attention to it. One thing catches my eye: everything except computer screens is in just three colors: beige, gray, and white. I sit down at my desk and start working. A few uneventful hours pass. Then everything on my screen becomes disabled: buttons, text fields, and checkboxes are grayed out (cannot click or edit); keyboard and mouse don't work; and the monitor is very dim.

A few minutes later, a message box pops up on my screen: "You have been let go. Stop all work immediately, collect your possessions, and proceed to the exit"; the OK button is grayed out too. The box looks different than a Windows message box; it came from an employee monitoring program (my company doesn't overtly use one in real life). I start thinking: "How can they be so soulless; they could've at least fired me by phone, if they don't want to do it in person." But the strangest thing is, I don't feel scared at all! I feel pretty relieved and even perked up! I throw some papers in the trash, and walk out into the parking lot.

As I go outside, I see a crowd of people in the parking lot, speaking a mix of foreign languages and English, and burning a flag (doesn't look like any national flag I know). I can make out a few isolated words: "suppress", "cruel", "force us", "miserable", among the loud, chaotic talking. I try to ask people questions, but they just talk at me with no attempt at a dialog. However, they peacefully step aside when I go through the crowd toward my car. I get in and start driving, and everything goes blurry and I wake up.

I woke up sweating profusely and feeling mildly sick in the stomach. I felt really shellshocked, mumbling to myself: "it was a f*ing dream!". Then I got really ticked off: "I wasn't fired, I still work there, I gotta get up for work now". Still cursing under my breath, I dragged myself out of bed, turned on all the lights in my apartment, and started with my morning routine.

So, what do you all think of this bizarre nightmare? Post your thoughts on what it might have meant, or just share your take on it.

Interesting...
the beige/gray/white colors of everything except the computer screen -- these are dull colors and probably reflect the fact you don't derive much happiness from your place of work

the computer buttons/checkboxes etc. becoming disabled and the you're fired dialog with a disabled ok button -- seem to suggest a feeling of powerlessness

the scene outside, remarks made by them -- again sentiments of powerlessness and discontent that are at last being expressed by the crowd

you leaving and feeling good -- the resolution is that you leave the place that was making you unhappy and feeling powerless, and it seems everything becomes resolved



My interpretation is that you're not happy with your work and you feel like you're being lived instead of living, as if you're just going through the motions, knowing there is discontent but not acting upon it, and knowing that your place of work is to blame.

You're right, your inner being is definitely trying to tell you something. You don't have to work at a place that sucks much less is horrible. Be happy, do the right thing, you only live once.

Well, looks like my nightmare might turn out to be a prophetic one: I got a bad performance review today. At this point, I'm too burned out to care, but that explains the message box on the screen. What adds insult to the injury is that the person who helped put together the review is an executive located thousands of miles away from where I physically work. So soon after the review, I started going through my company's directory, and writing down contact information for people who I hope to ask for references. Tomorrow, I plan to continue doing that, plus copy any documentation I can use for my defense onto a personal flash drive.

As for the parking lot scene, which has some things in common with the "Occupy Wall Street" protests, maybe it'll be a prophecy for how my co-workers will resign within a short time due to sheer frustration, after my workload will be dumped on them after I'm gone. Then the managers will be left tearing their hair out in panic, having no staff left, or just one or two guys who decided not to quit. Because they don't appreciate who they have until they're gone.

So for now, resignation is definitely in the works. I just want to be smart about it and have all the necessary preparation done, before I give my supervisors my two-week notice. Plus, I want to do at least some damage control, so I can use my supervisors for a reference.

A poor performance review obviously doesn't mean I have to quit; it means I might get fired soon. I know I won't get unemployment in either case, but it'll look a whole lot better on my record if I left voluntarily, rather than when I got fired. The reason why I'm even considering resignation, with the bad review and all, is that I want to beat my employer to the punch, if they're planning to fire me.