25th September 2022 marked two calendar years since I first started streaming. And yes, I am aware that we are already in the middle of November. This post has in fact been worked on, on-and-off throughout the past couple months. Day job spilling into overtime as well as streaming in the limited hours I have has left me with very little time for other things…such as this.
Okay, seriously. I need to pick my brain for this. I didn’t give much thought because I’m not really one for celebrations. I haven’t bothered to celebrate my birthday (29th Sep) for the last 10 years. The closest thing I got to acknowledging this special day was a little singing stream with some alcohol.
Early Days
“Shiraga” was born from a desire to blow off steam after work hours 2 years ago. In fact, I wanted to start from as early as March/April 2020 already. As part of these initial plans, I recorded 4 videos of Animal Crossing New Horizons gameplay. This was made possible because I suddenly had quite a fair bit of free time owing to the COVID-19 lockdowns that were rolling through the world at that time. Singapore’s one was in April 2020 – the “circuit breaker”, which ran until June 2020.
My day job back then was with a communications agency, and our clients were struggling with these lockdowns as well. All their plans had to be put on hold, which meant no business – and generally no work for us. Until they did. And this came endlessly. I will dare to say that we gave them some serious bang for their buck, and then some. But putting that aside first; this isn’t a place for me to vent all my grievances. Back to topic. Because of this spike in work, I ended up shelving my plans, until September.
See, at this point I was really thinking that I needed some variety in my life. So I made plans to basically start streaming, and I told myself I would do this on my birthday. Eventually on one Friday night, I had some time so I decided, “let’s just start tonight.” This was 25th September 2020.
For all intents and purposes, I consider that my “debut”. I just hooked up my Switch, slapped together some overlay using Canva and stock photos from Pexels/Unsplash, figured out how to make comments appear, and started streaming to a grand total of 1 person – me, myself, and I.
Streaming, Career, and Mental Health
I think 2020 and 2021 has been a very important year for me to learn more about myself.
First of all, I suspect I have been working like a robot prior to that. Repressing all my feelings, focusing single-mindedly on work just to get by, sleep, and repeat. I think 2020 was when I actually learnt to have some hobbies, and to even be engaged and invested in them. I specially made time at nights to stream, rather than catching up on work.
And it started showing? A regularly-scheduled appraisal went fine, but at that time my manager was also serving out her notice period, and soon after her departure I was being told that my performance was sliding.
In my defence… I’ll go with “everything we were given was a house of cards collapsing on itself.”
This was towards the end of 2020 by then, and I will just tell you straight out that it was a very unpleasant period. I would wake up in cold sweat, my heart pounding, and my thoughts already running in circles. I would get through each day, trying valiantly to “set reasonable goals” so I didn’t end up tearing my hair out.
I used streaming to hold myself together, to give myself something to look forward to at the end of the day as the proverbial carrot. I think it helped me to cope, and even helped me sweep things under the carpet for a little bit. I made “slides” lampooning WhatsApp, but the truth was that my heart would start pounding whenever a message came in. There was one particularly extreme reaction that got me seriously thinking. This was when I was at a bubble tea shop getting a drink. Someone, a complete stranger, received a message. Their phone had the exact same notification tone as mine. I jumped where I was, and felt my heart racing again as my hand reached for my own phone by some subconscious command.
And it also got me questioning. If a place needs and expects you to go above and beyond with overtime just to keep the fort standing, could it be that the place itself was the problem, and not me?
I can take a few late nights, go the extra mile, if I have the blessings of those in charge.
One particularly unpleasant work call however made me realise that I would not get it at my then-workplace. After that call, I threw my phone onto my bed, and drafted my resignation letter immediately. I served my notice period, and I was free. I spent 5 months, in the first half of 2021, jobless. Sending out resumes, going for the occasional interview, none of them successful until the end of June.
I Quit That New Job in 3 Months.
I find I’m dwelling on my perceived career struggles for too much already, so I’ll get straight to the poimt. I was needing to wake up at 5am to start on work, till the usual 6:30PM and often later. It was taking a toll on me even with streaming to help me unwind.
I saw the same thing from the end of 2020 repeating itself, and I knew it would end up with me spiraling out of control if I didn’t put a stop to it. To be frank, I usually wouldn’t mind going a little past my stipulated hours since it is usually part-and-parcel of comms, but this rapidly becomes a no-go when you’ve already been up from 5.
By the way, there is no such thing as overtime pay. This is also part-and-parcel of the comms industry here. I am not singling out any previous workplaces here, since in my opinion, it is just in response to external circumstances. If their agency won’t give them the time of the day for imagined emergencies, they simply go to someone that does; it provides an impetus for the agency to protect their bottom lines.
I think this commentary featured in CNA really hit the nail on the head: “If they are too used to 10 to 12 hours of effort for eight paid hours (…) it creates a dependency on non-paid hours for profit. Over time, the company may end up not knowing how to operate profitably without it.”
The same article also mentioned something about “older generations brushing off younger workers being less mentally resilient” – I recall having this discussion with an ex-boss before, during a job interview over Zoom.
Anyway, I threw in the towel. I eventually found a simple proofreading job, which I am holding on to now.
Future Plans
I am quite interested to wrap up this post quickly. I felt like I spent 2022 mostly on the day-to-day job grind once again. There is stability in routine, much-needed stability that I did not get in 2021. As “Shiraga”, I would like to come up with original songs, and generally be more active in this area. Now that things have calmed down a bit, I think I can worry a bit lesser about holding the fort for now.
However, time is still in short supply now – my nights have been not very certain in recent months due to overtime. This is in part due to how the processes at work are structured; the overtime that may arise is something that I’m not too happy with. I guess that in recent months, with the fort a little more stable I can now even dream at night. I intend to find a different role that can meet this need a little more, and even getting a better salary while I’m at it.
I will not deny that I have a very strong dislike of talking about salary these days, because my drawn salary right now is far below the average. This is not something that can be resolved with negotiation due to the nature of the job; I prefer to start higher up the rung on a different ladder.
Anyway, 2023, I will try to see if I can get at least a few songs out. Stay tuned.
Additionally, I also want to get some merch out. I was thinking a calendar for 2024; it’s way too late for me now to do up a 2023 calendar matching my vision.
It’ll probably have some hand-drawn illustrations as well as additional (short) literary works.
For now, the most immediate plan is to get a new job. I’ll take the rest from there.
I think I’ve said my piece for now. I will wrap up this post now so it doesn’t sit in my drafts folder for another month.
Thank you for coming with me on this ride. I will continue to do what I have always done with the least effort possible. Let’s reach our dreams together.
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