So, a few weeks back I had a discussion where I stated what I needed to succeed and I was reassured that it was possible. Yesterday I was told it wasn’t possible and I would have to accept the original agreement made at a time when things were lacking and I was trying to be a helpful little bunny or I would need to step down.
Stepping down means dropping to minimum wage. If I work at minimum wage I would have to work my current hours in order to make what I would make on the modifications at the reduced hours.
So… it’s step down for the sake of my mental health.
Or keep going and keep my head above water while not gaining the volunteer experience or peer experience I want to get from my schooling. Not getting back on track with my writing which… I mean, come on, it’s the only thing I’ve got that I still do for me anymore.
But if I step down I won’t have enough money which means I can’t afford anything which means…
Which means I am in full blown meltdown mode.
And I should probably say, my modification request was made after considering what I’m supposed to do. I didn’t ask for less that what is expected of a body filling my position. And I wanted the reduction because I’m getting more and more overwhelmed and stressed out and it’s started this spiral of destruction which affects my ability to work.
Know who’s lippy when tired and stressed out?
This person.
I was in pain yesterday so I took two pills for that and still had sharp, sudden pains in my back. Not in my rib cage or I would have gone straight to a hospital. A coworker commented that I was motioning to about my kidneys. She thinks kidney stones.
I’d go to my doctor except I don’t have one. And I can’t go to emergency because the wait for a bleed or broken bone is six hours. Also, I just don’t have the time, I mean, I physically do not have the time. Between work and school and sleep I think I figured I had something like 45 hours a week that isn’t dedicated to something. And two and a half or those hours are the first half-hour of weekdays when I’m making coffee and breakfast and getting everything situated for the day. Almost five of them are showering and dinner at the end of the day.
It might sound like I have a lot of time, but I’m actually pretty certain I messed up in my addition somewhere because… because I have an hour Monday and maybe two hours Tuesday where I have nothing to do. So where in the heck are the other 32 hours? Because I can’t find them.
I should be editing right now. I was so close to getting into the edit of Grim Travels and then the second discussion happened and my mind just completely shut down.
It didn’t help that my “career advisor” or whatever they want to call them at school, told me to go hand out resumes at doctors’ offices for my on the job training… directly after I told her I am interested in the hospital.
She said to go to her if we wanted to get in somewhere and she would tell us what we needed to make it happen, make phone calls, help us out. It reflects well on her if we get jobs, especially if we get the jobs we want and we are then happy alumni to pass on that bit of information for her.
And then… that.
I need people to stop telling me one thing and then doing another.
It’s not hard. “Everyone in the class except Aya can come to me and tell me where they want to go and I will do my best to get you in there.”
Bam. Done.
I’d be like, “Okay, lady, that’s kind of mean but I’m usually on my own so let’s do this.” and off I’d go getting all the job offers to show her.
Yeah, I’m a spitefully successful type of person.
Even if the conversation went:
“I’m interested in the hospital.”
“Okay, few people get in there. I’ll put you on the list and as soon as they approach us about next year, I’ll pass on your name to them. In the meantime, I’d suggest you also hand resumes out to doctors’ offices, just in case a lot of people want to go to the hospital and they don’t choose you.”
“Okay, I’ll do that, I was planning on doing that anyway, as I know not everyone gets in to the hospital.”
Even though last year’s class, everyone who applied and passed the application process got in from what I heard. Then they all got hired.
So… ya’know…
People I know who have worked for the hospital keep telling me I’ll get in but it’s not a magic job land where I can throw resumes at them and eventually they’ll let me in. If it worked like that I’d already have a job there and most of my stress from this past month would be solved and I wouldn’t be upset with an instructor who I’m pretty certain likes me the least out of all my instructors and just so happens to be our career advisor person… thingy.
I want to be happier at school but work has me in meltdown mode constantly because for almost the last year work has been in constant meltdown mode. Which is why I asked for a modification, so I could go to school like I have for the past two weeks and not felt like I’d be crushed under the weight of my schedule.
First it was no pay raise for the higher position last year. Then it was need to lean on you because this person is leaving and you used to do her job and we need that extra help. Then it was work these extra hours to make this work. Then it was pick up the pace to make this work. Then it was work six weeks in a row without a single day off or time to yourself because it’s our busy season. Then work through Christmas. Then it was you can’t make those changes. Then it was why aren’t these people succeeding? Then it was well… maybe we can work in a regular day off. Then it was this other person left and that person left and the whole place is on fire so lean on you some more!
And now it’s: if you can’t work the previously given schedule at the same rate you were earning without the higher position, you need to step down, revert to minimum wage and we will go without or struggle until a replacement is found and trained.
I feel they would rather not have my position filled than make accommodations for my mental health, of which I was told what I asked for were just to be reduced to the hours that my position is allowed/expected to work.
It’s kind of like saying, “Hey, I drove you crazy (pretty near literally) but you’re being a bitch, so fuck off. No, I don’t want to problem solve. Go away.”
Which I’ve also heard in the past.
I suppose I also feel betrayed and used and that likely is spinning into my seriously downed mood. Someone asked me how my day was and I started crying. That is not the answer to “how’s your day?”
I know when I get stressed out without a break, I go off the rails. I flight right off of them and land in crazy down, then light that bitch on fire and go cackling through the streets. Normally with a bottle of wine in one hand and a cat tucked under my other arm. I know this about myself.
I’m also pretty certain I’ve been saying right along that I need a break, that I need this over here as a break. That I need this week off without being called in and with pay, for my sanity. I need this. I need a day off. I need people to support what’s being done or I need to not be doing it anymore.
I never expect people to look at me and know, “Oh, if she doesn’t eat, she gets cranky.”
I tell them.
Then they laugh and are like, “Oh, you get hangry.”
No, I have snapped at a store manager that I needed food, he snapped back at me and my response made my customer tell me to go eat something while she looked at the wall for five minutes. Hangry is a cutesy term.
I turn into a crazy lady and I tell people that.
Basically it all boils down to: I am stressed.
I need a break and/or a new job that pays above minimum wage and doesn’t want full time hours unless it’s over the summer, then please, yes, throw the hours at me, I will roll around in them like they’re a bed of money, with as much delight as if you made me a bed of money because there’s something about working that just gets everything else working.
Eighty days to Mexico.
This is going to hurt and be bloody.
Aya DeAniege 