I learned a valuable lesson in professional behavior today, and it came in a wholly unexpected form: my boss told me to go home early because I work too much. When I told her I still needed to finish these last few projects, she said, "No, you don't. That's my job. Go home."
It's peculiar how, over the years, while my employers have gotten progressively more approachable and accommodating, I have become proportionally more neurotic about doing my job. This means getting the projects done at all costs with minimal lunch time, minimal blinking, minimal breathing, and you can just plain forget about ten-minute breaks. Yes, technically I'm required by law to take full breaks throughout the day, but tell that to my brain.
I've made plenty of mistakes in past jobs, and each one has made me more determined not to make the same one again. When one combines this with five months spent unemployed and living off peanut butter sandwiches and crackers, not to mention my last semester of college spent learning how employers are basically itching for an excuse to replace me with someone better, of course I'm going to rush head-first into work. Of course I'm going to hyperactively request projects and finish them in a blaze and come home at the end of the day utterly exhausted because I felt taking breaks would be a sign of laziness and thus make me more expendable.
It's a difficult thing to digest: being told by my boss to work less, having convinced myself, preposterously, that anyone who is happy in the workplace isn't putting enough energy into their job. It wasn't until last week that I found out I could actually leave by 5:30 if I only had a half-hour lunch. I also found out that it's okay to pour myself a cup of tea using the company's supplies. Even then, I still feel like cutting out at 5:30 is slacking and using company supplies is freeloading. Now I'm not sure what to do with the free time or how to convey that it is technically free time and that I'm not just being lazy, or whether that really even matters. I guess what I'm trying to say here is... cool! Let the ten-minute relaxation commence!
It's peculiar how, over the years, while my employers have gotten progressively more approachable and accommodating, I have become proportionally more neurotic about doing my job. This means getting the projects done at all costs with minimal lunch time, minimal blinking, minimal breathing, and you can just plain forget about ten-minute breaks. Yes, technically I'm required by law to take full breaks throughout the day, but tell that to my brain.
I've made plenty of mistakes in past jobs, and each one has made me more determined not to make the same one again. When one combines this with five months spent unemployed and living off peanut butter sandwiches and crackers, not to mention my last semester of college spent learning how employers are basically itching for an excuse to replace me with someone better, of course I'm going to rush head-first into work. Of course I'm going to hyperactively request projects and finish them in a blaze and come home at the end of the day utterly exhausted because I felt taking breaks would be a sign of laziness and thus make me more expendable.
It's a difficult thing to digest: being told by my boss to work less, having convinced myself, preposterously, that anyone who is happy in the workplace isn't putting enough energy into their job. It wasn't until last week that I found out I could actually leave by 5:30 if I only had a half-hour lunch. I also found out that it's okay to pour myself a cup of tea using the company's supplies. Even then, I still feel like cutting out at 5:30 is slacking and using company supplies is freeloading. Now I'm not sure what to do with the free time or how to convey that it is technically free time and that I'm not just being lazy, or whether that really even matters. I guess what I'm trying to say here is... cool! Let the ten-minute relaxation commence!
No comments:
Post a Comment
You may add your condiments here.