lonely, yucky, and miserable

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In the last year, my life has really taken a dramatic plummet. First of all, I left my (somewhat) safe haven of graduate school (where my intelligence and ideas actually mattered to someone--to me, at the very least, as [at least partial] determinants of my grades.. hehe) to come to a garbage pit known as the East Coast--or, more specifically, the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.

I have a "job" at the National Archives (the big facility in MD, not the tourist attraction in D.C. proper), where they know I have a disability/AS. (In fact, they knew it when they hired me, and I have much evidence to support the possibility of their creating a "fake" job for me when I applied, in addition to hiring someone else for the job I for which I *did* apply, to meet some hiring-disabled-individuals initiative out of the agency's HR office). I have been "working" there for six months. I have gained thirty pounds. They have not given me any real work. It has been up to me to come up with busy work to occupy my time. Nobody looks at it. I've gotten in trouble for seeking out my supervisor and the man I'm (not) "apprenticing" to too often and thus "bothering" them and thereby wasting the agency's resources. (My supervisor actually wrote me an official "warning letter" about this.) My performance evaluated, as far as I can tell, based solely on the amount of time I sit with my bottom in my chair and look to be doing anything that isn't personal. (As far as the real work that goes on in the office--I'm not allowed to do any of it. The "work" I do [the stuff I came up with myself, which I've already referred to] will neither be seen nor used by anyone. It's not that I'm too new/too low a level, since several other people at my same level are given a significant amount of real work and communicate with our supervisor about it on a daily basis.) My "work" is the equivalent of crayons and scratch paper given to a mentally ret*d, naughty child so [s]he will go off to the corner and not bother anyone.

I'm sorry about the rant-ish nature of this post. I'm just feeling very bad about almost every aspect of my life right now. I hope someone at the National Archives doesn't read this and try to get me fired.. heh.

I really want to go back to the Midwest. Believe it or not, there was more culture in the small college town in Missouri where I lived than in this entire dump of a MD county (right next to the D.C. border, no less).

I thought all government jobs were fake , act like your working busy work

wow...that's horrible. I would go insane if i were in that situation. I would talk to the boss and see what he could do. Try to act formal and use all the polite context i.e. thank you, sir, your welcome ect. Just don't try too hard. If that didn't work out then
I would I find another job and quit your current job when you are accepted.

i don't think i could live anywhere east of the mississippi its entirely to flat. i need to see mountains, not hills. mountains. and forests, yes forests. not those crappy forests either the bluespruce kind, and aspen trees kind. anyways sorry to hear about that, i hope things turn around for you since it seems like your trying to live as much of a normal life as possible. i don't think i could live in washington D.C. either, with all the politics and bickering and fighting it would drive me crazy.

Thanks, everyone. It feels very good to get unconditional support on this. I actually felt a bit better today and stood up for myself once (wrote a very professionally-toned email to my supervisor requesting more work) in a positive manner.

I'll see how things go for the rest of the week. (And on into the hazy future...)

It is no wonder you are feeling down, with things as they are. My advice is to work on your self esteem, and getting the respect you deserve.

About 6 years ago I reached a point where I did not like where I was living nor the job I was doing - but for different reasons to you which are not really relevant here. So I quit my job and moved to a part of the country where I really wanted to be. I had no job to move to, so priority was to find something I could be happy doing.

To cut a long story short, I now work in a much lowlier job, but I am happy there and it pays the bills. My quality of life has improved hugely as a result. There are of course things along the way that need to get sorted out, but that's life.

The important thing is to feel good about yourself - and above all never give up. I hope things go OK for you at work but if they don't, move on - you deserve better.

Thank you, devonmike. Incidentally, I had a terrible day--my plan to professionally and respectfully ask for more work blew up in my face. Oh, well. I'll see if I can get through another week, and go from there.

It's coming up on a year since I removed myself from DC to a small university town in my home state. While I lived in Adams-Morgan and it could be said I was surrounded by "culture," it was nothing of the sort that was worth anything to me. Sure, there was much opportunity to be an audience member but not so much when it came to participation. Luckily, where I now live has a thriving community theatre presence that I'm looking to finally get connected with within the month as my social outlet and I have two libraries, nice historical architecture, a bustling old downtown area, and a major river with its attendant creeks all within walking/biking distance. I'm currently looking to do some telecommuting which will mean that I will only have to drive my little pickup truck once a week for my grocery run, which is less than I drove in DC where I didn't even own a car. (Long story.)

Anyway, here's wishing you much luck on finding a more suitable environment for yourself.

I do not care what the boss told you because as I said before I'm sure they are
not working either. The government lives and dies with paper work. G Gordon
Liddy's addvice would be for you to generate alot of written requests to the
people making your life hard. This will force them to work. Print the letters up at
work act like there from real people across the US. Do hundreds aday use mail
forwarding services.