180

I find myself having performed a psychological 180 degree turn this weekend.

This past week has been crazy busy. The other EA was absent this week on leave, so it was arranged that I would work full-time to cover her absence. As a result I was supporting my boss and my boss’s boss (which I have kind of been doing previously, as the other EA also works part-time, so I cover for her on the day’s she’s not there).

And I did a great job. I would even go so far as to say a fantastic job. I had feedback from others to say that they had never seen A, my boss’s boss, so organised. I felt like I moved into a great working relationship with him. He’s quite quirky but we established a kind of give-and-take dynamic very quickly and it really worked well. I drafted some correspondence for him and he was very impressed at my writing abilities. At the end of the week I gave him a rundown on what he had coming up (appointments and tasks I had scheduled for him) and he asked me not to hand those items back to his regular EA, but instead keep carriage of them. Other people in our department commented to me that there was a very different work environment at play when I was there as opposed to the other EA; that it was more dynamic, comfortable and easygoing. I achieved a lot.

And it was busy. I have been on a bit of a high from the adrenaline of working in a fast-paced environment. And I loved it. I loved my job, the busy-ness, achieving goals for an exec and knowing that I was keeping him – and my usual boss – both on track. Getting feedback to that effect was great. I even loved being there full-time as I was able to get a feel for the day-to-day rhythm of the work environment, which is not something that happens when you miss 2 workdays every week, as priorities and events can change so much in that short amount of time.

So this just adds to my confusion. Maybe I *am* on the right path for me. 2 weeks ago if you had asked me “Does your job allow you to use your best talents and abilities?”, I would have given a resounding “No.” I felt like a fish out of water – in the wrong place at the wrong time. After this past week, my answer would be almost the complete opposite. I was using my best abilities. And, from what I can surmise, the work environment seemed to be influenced by me.

And now the opportunist in me is hard at work. I can learn a lot from this industry, and while not directly related, I can leverage my bachelor degree to my advantage in choosing a postgraduate course that could possibly give me some grounds for advancement in the future. Not now – in a year or two.

I’m still on a high this morning from my week of full-time work. I don’t think that happens in a job you hate, right?

A good day. Of sorts.

Yesterday was a good day at work, in a manner of speaking.

I woke up, for once, not actually minding having to go.  Perhaps because my mindset was changed – because I had decided the day before that I would quit.  Or maybe it was just having vented all the stuff that made me unhappy the day before.  Or maybe it is just having come to the realisation that I have a choice over whether or not I work there.  It’s not compulsory.

I was busy.  Really busy.  My immediate boss and colleagues were pleasant to me.  And I found myself thinking, “Maybe this isn’t so bad after all.”

This morning, however, the gloom has returned.  I’m recalling not-so-good things that happened during the day.  Being snapped at by my boss because I told him that a piece of work I was putting in front of him was urgent.  Colleagues who won’t even bother to acknowledge my presence with a polite ‘Hello’.

And still I have this feeling of anxiety that spreads through me as I think about my workplace.  I think it’s probably partly because I am going to have to bite the bullet and let my bosses know I’m quitting.  This is not a pleasant conversation that I look forward to.

What I need to do, though, is stop wasting my weekend time thinking about my unpleasant work situation.

When a job is a bad fit

I have been churning it over in my brain, this whole job situation.

I’ve got to go in this afternoon for a meeting – just for a couple of hours.  But even that leaves me with a sinking feeling.  I’ve been trying to fathom why I reached this peak of dislike and now I’m actively trying to come up with more and more reasons for leaving.

I think ultimately this job is a bad fit for me; I cannot commit to it in the long-term.  And like any relationship that’s not working out, it’s better for both parties to end it sooner rather than later, before they become too dependent on me.

For the sake of laying things out clearly, thinking out loud, so to speak, here’s what I have figured out are the issues:

I have issues with the workplace culture.  It is too big for me.  There are too many people who have a say in what I should or shouldn’t be doing, and that doesn’t sit well with me.  I need my independence, and to manage what I’m doing and how I do it, and do things in the way that I want them to be done.

Related to the above, I have not connected with any one at work.  After almost 6 months, I am still eating lunch by myself.  I’m not stopping by to have a chat with anyone except in the most rudimentary of ways.  I don’t feel like there is any likeminded souls there – I feel isolated and on the outer.  Admittedly, I am a difficult person to get to know, but at my last job I made friends, at least.  In addition, they have this social group going that was started at the beginning of the year, where each separate department is responsible for organising a monthly group social gathering and I was not invited to be a part of this.  And I suspect this was deliberate.  So they don’t see me as being part of the group, either.

I am not bossy enough to be an EA.  This is in part because I haven’t ever relaxed enough to be myself at my current workplace (at my last job I wouldn’t hesitate to barge into someone’s office and let them know they were running late for an appointment).  Because I’m not comfortable in my skin at work, I am more sensitive and hesitant than I normally would be.  I am nervous about bossing my boss around, which you just can’t afford to do as an EA.  I feel bad when she snaps at me because I’ve reminded her of something she needs to do.  I’m not comfortable about laying down the law and saying “this needs to be done and you need to do it today”.

I can’t be myself.  I haven’t been able to relax into the role (because of a combo of the above and more besides), so everything feels at odds for me.  I can’t hone in on the rhythm of the workplace or my own rhythm, so I constantly feel disconnected from everything.  Admittedly, there are aspects of the work I enjoy but I am constantly second-guessing myself and feeling as though this is not me.

I don’t feel informed.  It is difficult to get information from anyone about what is going on in my department – with my role, with other roles, with projects that are going on.  For example, we were scheduled to be moving offices to another part of the building.  I could not get any kind of informed response from anyone about what and when we were meant to be moving until the day before the move.  At the same time, we had two new staff members recruited, of whom I knew nothing about until we moved location and I was told “the 2 new people will be sitting at those desks”.  At no time had anybody even mentioned new people to me.  Small things, but it contributes to the whole disconnect/not being part of the group when I don’t know what the hell is going on.

So all of these things have combined to leave me feeling awry and off-kilter.  I think each time something has occurred which has reinforced one of the above points in my head, I’ve been doing a good job of just brushing it off, taking a deep breath and starting over.  But then on Monday at work it all just snapped, and everything that I thought I had been dutifully ignoring had, in fact, simply been piling up into a big pile of doodoo and leaving me feeling like “What the f— am I doing here?!?!?!?”  It had just needed one incident to be added to the pile to leave me questioning my sanity.

So I have been asking Dr Google for his/her kindly advice.  Is it bad to quit a job after only 6 months?  Will it look bad on my CV?  How can I break this tactfully to my manager?

Obviously, there is not right or wrong answer.  Generally, most experts seem to agree that you can only do this once.  If you do it again you look like one of them there dreaded jobhoppers.

But here’s the thing:  I am not in this for the career.  It’s a job to support my lifestyle.  It doesn’t make sense to continue at a workplace where I can’t even feel comfortable.  In fact, it seems idiotic to spend such a large amount of my waking hours working somewhere that makes me feel miserable.  Especially when feeling miserable about my job has a large impact on how much I’m able to enjoy the rest of my days.  I can’t help it; I’m just wired that way.

So, in short, the answer is, I believe, to quit.  This evening shall see me drafting my resignation letter.

The quick fix

I am a big one for instant gratification.

Maybe that’s why I drank, instead of becoming a drug addict. Sourcing drugs probably would have required.too much planning for me. With alcohol, I could just walk into any bottle shop, pub or hotel to get my fix. Easy-peasy.

Similarly, getting sober is easy. I decide: I do. It’s committing myself to staying sober that’s the hard bit. I had 18 months sobriety a couple of years back before I relapsed. Because I thought I might be better.  Because I thought I could handle drinking again. Because I thought the things that made me drink in the first place were no longer issues. Because I thought I was cured.

Perhaps the reasons that I drank were just not what I thought. I dunno. But I was feeling secure in my recovery. I had made great strides. I had prepared myself for re-entering the workforce after years of being at home with kids, and followed up with successfully re-entering the workforce.  My life was so dramatically improved that I thought I had left all the bad stuff behind.

But I hadn’t.  I had just opted for a quick fix.  I chose one small aspect of my life that I could easily  improve, and did precisely that.

Don’t get me wrong; my quick fix has benefited me in many ways.  Being employed in paid work outside the home has done wonders for my self-esteem.  Repaired a lot of the damage that constantly feeling like a failure as a parent had caused.  And it has done this by providing me with a wider worldview, enabling me to see that, in fact, I *wasn’t* a failure as a parent; actually I was reasonably good.  Not the best, but not the worst either.

But it was a quick fix, nevertheless, and fixed a symptom, rather than a cause.

And now, 30 days into my 3rd stretch of sobriety, I’m seeking a quick fix again.  After vacillating for months and months over my chosen career path, yesterday I decided I would concentrate on developing my skills in my current field, rather than trying to switch.  I’ve subscribed to various professional newsletters and tips, and signed myself up for a professional membership of one particular group.  I spent a while at work considering my career path and which course would best enhance it (fortunately, it’s been a pretty quiet week so it was the perfect time to be doing this).  I enrolled myself in a year-long, part-time course which will (hopefully) further my current skills while providing me with a springboard to expand into other areas.

That all sounds sensible, right?  Yes.  Except that when enrolling in the course, I got stuck when it came to processing the payment.  Their system wouldn’t let me progress.  Last night, I emailed the educational institution, explaining the situation, and left it at that, fully expecting that they would contact me some time today.

But they didn’t.  I wanted the instant gratification of enrolling in the course, being accepted and then having the reason to distract the hell out of myself with busyness and getting ready for studying again.  Didn’t happen.  The reasoning part of my brain is telling me, “They probably give it at least 2 business days before dealing with an enquiry because I bet people enrol all the time on the spur of the moment.  After a couple of days, the majority of people will have had a chance to rethink their enrolment and cancel it.”

So now I am edgy and irritable, because I didn’t get my quick fix.  People are getting on my nerves.  I’m fortunate that I had such a quiet day at work, because it would have been hard to maintain a polite facade.

And you know what this edginess and irritability is like?  It is exactly like when you plan to have a drink, or buy some wine or other alcohol, and your plans are somehow foiled.  Because a kid got sick, or you didn’t get there in time before the bottle shop closed, or some people come over and you end up having to share your precious, precious booze with them.  And you get edgy, because you know are not going to get your hit, and you are snappy and short with the people around you.

That is what it’s like.  And that’s how I know this whole career-planning exercise is just a quick fix.  Oh, sure, it has it’s benefits.  I’ll be educating myself, improving my career prospects, keeping my brain busy, and god knows I will have to stay sober to get through a year’s study while working full-time and parenting 3 kids.  This is all good.  But it’s still a bandaid solution.

That said, a bandaid solution is probably better than none, right?

Little to say

I have had trouble organising my thoughts, lately.  I’ve drafted several posts, but they remain unfinished because I’ve run out of words after a couple of paragraphs.  Maybe the medication has sapped my ability/willingness to write.

I have a job.  I start on Monday.  It’s the job I so desperately didn’t want to go to the interview for; obviously the mask I donned for the interviews was suitably impressive.  It’s full-time, while I really wanted part-time work, but beggars can’t be choosers.  

My body seems to be adjusting to the medication.  Like I said a few days ago, it’s as if I had been sad, but I can no longer remember what that was about.  A kind of amnesia.  I feel evened out.  Ironed out.  So there is no longer that low, but I’m not sure if I can laugh, either.

Today is my last “at home” day.  I am taking the opportunity of finalising my work wardrobe.  I need some decent shoes.  Obviously, I have plenty of shoes, but they are not good, comfortable shoes.  I relish my comfort these days.  

Today was also the last day I was able to walk the kids to school.  My 6-year-old’s teacher took me aside  and told me that she has never, in all her years of teaching, encountered a child who was as good a speller as my daughter.  She is a mighty good speller.  And a voracious reader.  I didn’t tell the teacher that she gets it from me, but she does.  Except, magnified.  I was always pretty gifted with words as a child, but my daughter leaves me for dead.  I was also quite gifted with languages as a teen, but no-one ever told me so.  My daughter learns French as a language at school, and she shows signs of being gifted in that regard, too.  I make sure that I point out her talents to her, because I don’t want her to grow up not knowing what she’s good at, like me.

I do that to the boys, too.  I make sure I point out their strengths, without going so far as pushing them in any direction.  I want them to feel like they have something they enjoy and are good at, rather than just be an aimless wanderer as I am. That way they are more likely to feel like they fit somewhere into this complicated structure that is our society.

Radio silence

I wonder if my hoardes of readers have missed me?

This is what happens when you have children. They get sick and you take great swathes of time off work and hope you don’t catch whatever it is they’ve got. Then you go back to work and people ask you, sneeringly, if you had a good holiday.

I’m dreading returning to work today. And not just because I fear I’m going to get a summons to school to pick up another sick kid. My middle kid has been trying to bung a day off this week, although I suspect he’s not actually unwell.

Last week I at least caught up on my studies. An achievement in itself because my motivation is currently incredibly low. My plan is to use the studies to springboard into another field, but at the moment it all feels rather pointless. I can’t see it helping me at all. I also spent some time last week looking at future employment prospects, and I can’t say that anything really thrills me. Just more and more drudgery.

Possibly I’m tying my self-worth to my employability a little too much, but at this point in my life I don’t really have anywhere else to tie it.

Yes. Not really a happy camper this week.