Bad day....

About 6 months ago I almost died. I was hospitalized for a week and then closely monitored for the three months that followed. I have to be careful now a days and not let things get to me and put me right back into that situation. I made some changes in my life, but I still have a long way to go. Can't change 30 years of behavior overnight.

One of those changes is no longer taking responsibility for my family's problems. My mother is great and making me take charge of her life and take care of all her problems. As do my two younger sisters and some of my close friends. I never realized how much stress and strain I was dealing with until my body completely shut down.

Another change is to not work so much...take personal time for just myself. Unfortunately I am a perfectionist and I tend to give 250% of my time & energy to my work. This constant need for being the best is very unhealthy. Plus with my particular job, no matter how good you are at it there is always someone there to point out your flaws. Basically good work is not praised, but mistakes and poor job performance is magnified, studied and shown to everyone that happened to miss it.

Well, today I was still feeling really bad but I went into work anyway. It started off with me seeing that I am not being paid for 12 hours this week. Instead of allowing me to code my sick time as vacation or whatever, they coded it as sick. Because I have not been with the company long enough, I do not get paid sick time. Plus the days get counted against my attendance record.

Then as the day progressed, I continued to feel worse. Knowing I cannot afford to lose those 12 hours of pay let alone 20 hours, I stayed until my incredibly long (okay it just seemed that way) shift ended. Towards the end of my shift, I tried to pass my work to someone else to complete. However, the 3 males I was working with would not volunteer to take over my work. I ended up staying 20 minutes after my shift trying to tie up the loose ends.

Since we are under strict budget restraints, overtime is not being approved. Well, one of the guys realized I was still sitting there and asked me why I was still working. I explained to him that no one volunteered to take over my work so I had to finish up. He started yelling at me about how he is not going to get in trouble with our boss because I stayed. And that I needed to just give my work to this one particular guy because he has not done anything so far today. Needless to say I did not take too kindly to being yelled at, especially since I still feel like shit. I finished what I was doing, made the necessary notes and then handed my work over.

As I was shutting down my work PC, the same mofo that yelled at me began questioning why I was still there. I did not respond. Once everything was shut down and locked up at my desk, I silently gathered my things and left.

On the drive home I pondered my day and decided....I HATE THIS JOB. No matter how hard I work, it does not seem to matter. Now not only may I be written up for poor attendance, I may also get disciplined for staying past my shift today. I thought back to when I was hospitalized and monitored those 3 months. The one thing they kept drilling into me was, "YOU ARE NOT YOUR JOB..." I kept repeating that to myself like a mantra as I drove.

Realizing that I cannot continue this way, I came to a decision. I am no longer going to try and be the "model" employee because frankly it does not exist. Nor am I going to interact with my fellow co-workers because they are all crazy and cause unnecessary chaos. I am going to attempt to adapt a new attitude towards my work. Because if I don't I could end up where I was 6 months ago. And if I died, it would not matter to my job anyway.

I AM NOT MY JOB!!!!!