Having a Boss Is Bad for My Mental Health

The boss - direct report dynamic is f*cked and needs an update!

Hello there!

I have been a little MIA. I posted about it on my IG stories but I am super sick. Today is day eight and whatever I have isn’t budging.

So I’m in kind of the worst mood ever because my head, sinuses, and teeth are pounding. I’ve had a string of daily sinus headaches and I’m starting to get mad about it. I just want to get better already. So please bear with me! (TY)

Through my terrible mood, I’ve been harping on all the things I’m angry at, naturally. Lol.

I’m really getting that the ~overall vibe~ right now is very Paris Hilton “STOP BEING POOR.” (I know the shirt was fake.)

This goes for lit-chrah-lyyyy everything.

For example, about three weeks ago, I went to an open house in the town we live in (it’s a suburb of NYC). It was a very modest house listed for $599,000. We knew it would probably sell for more than that, but I got the Zillow alert in my inbox this morning that it sold for $931,000. (STOP BEING POOR!)

I went to a very mediocre Mexican restaurant in Williamsburg two weeks ago where the chips and guacamole looked like they were to be shared between mice, not humans, $18. The margaritas were $25. (STOP BEING POOR!) (To note, I will gladly pay these prices for food that is good.)

I hopped in a cab outside of Penn Station earlier this month where the initial fee was $12.00. That’s right, to go nowhere. $12.00 just to start going somewhere. (STOP BEING POOR!)

Oh you’re not interested in SIRENS or Mountainhead? Well, STOP BEING POOR then, I guess!

Sigh. But it’s the house stuff that really gets me lately. I want to buy a house. I didn’t get priced out of New York City to rent in New Jersey to then get priced out of buying in New Jersey where I’m currently renting to then instead buy a house in a random town in New Jersey that I’ve never been to that’s further away from the city with schools that aren’t good. Does that make sense? Like, at that point, I’d rather move back to my hometown.

Well, maybe that’s a little dramatic.

So what do I do when I go down this rabbit hole? (Often. Daily!) I start looking at homes on Zillow in Upstate New York instead, but not as far north as my hometown. I look for houses where a commute to the city wouldn’t be totally insane, even up to two hours. But as we all know, our Hudson-discoverin’-and-lovin’ New Yorkers have infiltrated Upstate New York too—whether full-time or part-time— and now everything up there is also super expensive and actually kinda far away considering the prices. Can’t win! (STOP BEING POOR!)

So I guess I wasn’t being dramatic after all. I think I actually do have to move back to my hometown if I ever want to buy a home as a freelancer. Dang. I hated that place. Wanted to leave so badly. I did! As soon as I could. Sigh. Maybe Melissa Ventosa Martin and I could be friends? She lives up there now…

I go through this agonizing debate on a daily basis. Living in or around New York City in a house seems impossible for the normies like me. (STOP BEING POOR!)

It feels similar to when I was looking for apartments in NYC in 2022. After conducting an exhaustive search, there were no “gems” to be had. No strokes of luck. There was nothing funky or weird that no one else wanted that had all the character I loved. That is how I had found every other apartment I ever had in New York from 2002 on. Whether I lived in Harlem, Hell’s Kitchen, Cobble Hill, or the Upper West Side, every apartment I lived in was a little weirdo gem that was just right for that particular time.

I’m trying to regain that experience with my Zillow searches, but it’s so hard right now. The old quirky houses in Upstate New York that no one ever wanted for so long are now millions. Every post from This Old Hudson or A House Upstate on Instagram are in the $2-3 mills. It wasn’t always like this! The jig is up man! Everyone has caught on. Exposed beams come with a premium.

I am haunted by this defeated feeling everyday and it feels like there is an angry man in the sky (my Dad? Lol jk) pointing his finger at me telling me I didn’t do enough. I didn’t pull myself up by my bootstraps. I should have done more.

But I did pull myself up by my bootstraps. Again and again. It still wasn’t good enough!

I think this is relevant because I have mentioned “freelance dread” multiple times within my newsletter and I am in a particularly bad bout of it right now. I know this one is called “Having a Boss Is Bad for My Mental Health” so I am probably removing myself from anyone ever hiring me ever again, but I kind of feel the need to have a boss right now more than ever.

For financial reasons.

Which I resent.

The tension between wanting to be a free-as-a-bird hermit in the forest who writes stuff and never does PR again and then like…wanting to buy a home so I can put down roots and a sense of place for my family?

Yeesh.

It’s just very real. The tension is tense.

So yeah, I am talking about working a full-time corporate job again. Not that such a thing is easy to find or attain right now, even for people who haven’t devoted an entire unpaid internet job to mocking the industry they work in for lols.

Absolutely 100% me!

So similar to my agonizing rabbit hole of Zillow searches along the Hudson line of the Metro North and beyond, I tend to get a bout of freelance dread, convince myself I need a full-time job again, have a panic attack, cry, and then remember that…

Having a boss is bad for my mental health!!!

It’s so bad for my mental health. My therapist can confirm this, I promise.

As my friend Jaime who is also a freelance PR gal said to me once, “It’s stressful sometimes but it’s never as bad as having a boss.” (She was referring to freelance clients in general.)

Truth!

She went on to say that having a boss creates an additional layer of pressure that nobody has time for anymore. Oooof. Also true.

For me, the boss - direct report relationship is too similar to the parent - child relationship. The line is so fine and I’m unable to separate.

Basically I turn into a child when I work for people in a corporate setting.

In reality, I’m a middle aged Mom.

But the minute someone has “power” over me where “love” (praise) is conditional and performance based, I revert backwards.