Mortaine’s Blog

I’ve been very stressed out about my job lately, largely because there’s been this whole huge change in my work responsibilities, but also because there are things that have been bugging me for a year now, and I’m getting fed up and frustrated with those things. The reality is, I am starting to adapt to the new job requirements, and they are starting to adapt to me– in 3 months, we’ll either be a good fit together, or they’ll have found someone to replace me, I guess.

I did enjoy reading the STC’s website today to find that I am making just a few hundred bucks over the mean salary for someone with my experience, age, gender, and education– basically, the mean salary for someone like me, nationwide. In my zip code, however, I am making about $15K less. I wonder if that just reflects a higher number of more experienced/qualified tech writers in my area, or the fact that living expenses are so much higher, or what.

Anyway, that made me feel a little better. I was contacted last night by email by the STC volunteer coordinator to help out with some STC projects. I am… intrigued, but it would mean another schedule shift, another adjustment. I’ve been in a nice little rut lately, with work, commute, and LiveJournal taking up most of my time, and John taking the rest.

The main shift would be in the amount of time I could devote to LiveJournal support. I would have to cut back drastically. I would also have to be responsible/accountable for volunteering at STC. With LJ Support, my committment level is actually quite low– I can walk away for a break at any time without anything really “breaking.” I know that I’m needed and valued, but I also know that if I fail to come through, the whole site isn’t going to collapse. Since I cannot cut back on work, commute (oh, how I wish!), or my husband, I would need to transform the time I spend chatting on #lj_support, for example, into productive time spent working on STC projects. There might also be meetings– two a month, at least, outside of the time commit to actually do whatever it is I volunteer to do.

One nice thing about volunteering for STC is that it’s often a high-visibility volunteer position which lends itself well to job networking. I’m confident in my job security for the next year or so, but it would be nice to know that losing my job wouldn’t mean starting a search with no contacts or leads. The STC is a very good professional organization to get involved in– and our local chapter is the largest in the country, so resources are not as tight as they are at LJ or the NWU.

Anyway, just a bit of rambling there about things that are kind of on my mind this week.