Over the years I’ve made a point to be as vague as possible about where I work. There is absolutely no reason for anyone who might read my blog to know where I work. I haven’t lied about it being retail, in fact I have a category titled “Retailiations”. But I refuse to openly and outright name my employer. I say a lot of stuff—though it’s never intentionally bashing (I don’t think). But I’m trying to keep certain aspects of my life as private as possible. This post is in fact concerning my day job, and I want to state first and foremost that I harbor no (at least not a lot of) resentment or anger toward any one individual or entity involving my job or workplace. Most of my issues start with me. And of those there are many.
I’ve had a rough few days (weeks, months) at work. From changes in people, to changes in policy, to plain old changes in my established and efficient routine.
When I left my previous position, which I was only in because the one right before it was DELETED, I made a point to try to adjust and make it my own safe space. This was in January. I’ve been in this position for almost ten months. And it seems like there have been changes and adjustments to make in it constantly.
But just when I’d gotten into a routine that suited me and became efficient for me, curve balls were suddenly being thrown one right after another.
Of those curveballs is the addition of an extra process added to my routine. Now, in the creation of that extra process I was told I would have complete autonomy. I took that to mean that I would have control over how this new “process” would be handled. How it was set up or staged, how it was organized.
I was also told that any additional tasks to the process would be basically set aside for me to work through and control.
I took the time, huge amounts of time, organizing (which is hilarious if you’ve seen my house) this new space for my process, in a way that made it easier for myself, or the individual who covered it on my days off, to complete the precesses.
What I did not take into account was that was a lie. Whether it was an intentional lie, or not (I’m going to optimistically go with not) I do not know. Also unaccounted for is the fact that more than just one party would be involved. And everyone has their own ideas with how things should be done. This doesn’t just refer to my job but all things.
What no one else took into account or had to or knew about was that I am HEAVY and FRAGILE (shout out to a person who might never read my blogs but would know it if she saw it, I hope). Honestly the “Heavy” part has nothing to do with this story except that I hate stairs. But that’s another post.
The key here is Fragile. Mentally. Emotionally. I need to work on that, we have discussed this. A lot. When stress comes to shove I break down. Usually with anger. Silent and fuming anger. Sometimes I aggressively tap my handheld on my forehead and only a day later remember why it’s slightly tender. I have issues, ok. We know this.
This new process, this new step that was added into my day, was already taking an extra 1-2 hours to complete. That’s not including the aftermath, we’ll call it cleanup. But because I’d organized it to be easier, it became quicker each time.
But then enter the third party. The third party began to do not what they were asked to do but extra. That was frustrating. They began adding their “cleanup” to my organized files (this is becoming increasingly more difficult to not use work terms lol). Now, one or two or ten items? Okay I can reorganize. But I’d be reorganizing my files each day. Reorganizing for efficiency. So that’s extra time added on.
I mentioned this to upper management, that the third party was told to set aside this additional work for me to preprocess, but they were not. All I was told was to let them know if it got messy.
Well sir, of course it’s not going to get messy because my OCD isn’t going to leave it alone long enough to let it. I reorganize it. Every. Single. Morning. Because I don’t work two days out of the week, and someone who is not me is supposed to do this when I’m not there.
Well, I went in to work with high hopes only to find my files full if new work to process. Unorganized and out of order. Literally ignoring signs I has personally made. There was also a literal tote of extra work. Ironically this is what they were supposed to be doing all along but they just couldn’t finished shoving stuff in the files so it was left.
And then more was added but a completely different party later that day!
So now all my time is spent on this. Seven and a half hours of work time. So I’m legitimately not getting anything else done.
Take that back some of my morning routine gets done. But literally nothing else. If someone gives me another additional task, I will not be able to complete it. There is no more time in my days now. Perhaps when less work comes into the facility, it’ll even back out. But with the holidays quickly approaching (retail likes to advance them by two months) I’m afraid it’ll just get worse.
Anyway this post grew three sizes this day and I had no intention of that.
My point is, I’m off. Four. Days. I’m trying not to think about work. I’m trying not to specifically think about how much I’m going to have to deal with when I go back to work (Tuesday’s are THE WORST).
But I’m going to try so very hard to stay calm. Not freak out. Not use my handheld to hammer imaginary nails into my forehead. It is what it is, amirite? And what can you do? Nada.
Goodnight.
-c
Crash Landing 