When I signed on the dotted line, I was aware that I have lost the right to take my vacations as and when I like to, which is perfectly fine and completely reasonable to me.
What I missed out was that I have lost the right to fall sick as and when my body decided that it is high time to rebel and completely screwed up my body system so that it can finally get some badly needed rest. It was unfortunate but my body has decided to strike at a most inappropriate timing. How inconsiderate of it to break down the very day that my dear colleague has decided to take a day off to support our very own GSS and boost the economy.
tsk..tsk…tsk…how very inconsiderate of me to fall sick and deprive GSS of making some very important sales. And really, to make up for the very audacity of falling sick at all, I really should be making calls to the office every hour to prevent the inconveniences of having my colleagues make the calls. tsk…tsk…tsk…And really, how could I bring work home and neglect to make some sense of the string of words floating dizzily around in my head? That is so critical for timely submission.
Now that I have wilfully given in to my body’s signal to call in sick and spend the day at home popping pills and texting colleagues. Maybe, I can now successfully convince my body that it is really really unacceptable to breakdown. With all that reports due and colleagues all desperately needing to clear leave, it is a bloody inconsiderate & selfish act to fall sick now. While I am at it, maybe I can convince my body that falling sick is rather pointless since it is rather impossible to get proper rest with all that texting anyway. And really, getting sick is such an outdated act cos we are all too bloody busy. Worse when you are new and fumbling all over the place. From now on, please throw out all pathetic excuses of sickness. If there is a need to, then, be sick in office. Then at least, we can save some of that needless texting time and use it to clear some work.
Well, I have a little confession here. I will probably have dragged my body to work and floated around the office doing the wrong things if not for 2 things.
Incident One: I sent out a very stupid email last week. An email that announced this person has obviously stopped functioning and is currently in need of a thorough brain examination. Or, in short, the sender is an idiot! It was fortunate that the recipent, despite being someone in a position to tell me off as I deserved, was nice enough to shrugged it off good-naturedly by telling me, “When I read it, I thought that you must have been really tired when you sent this out.”
Incident Two: P declared to me when we had dinner the night before, “J! You look like shit! Are you even functioning anymore? You look really tired and brain dead. Are you sure this is what you want?” I could only shrugged cos she was right. I had reached a point where my brain was too overloaded. I have to admit that I barely knew what I was doing anymore. Somehow, my ability to adapt seem to have paled significantly. Not to mention the memory lapses that I am suffering from. I am not just forgetting things at work, I am forgetting things in all aspects of my life. She followed up the point with her msg later that night, “Hey! It is just work, you know. Get your priorities right!”
With the email incident and P’s comments ringing in my mind, I decided to concede that I am barely functioning. I do need rest badly and I need to get well first before I make even dumber mistakes at work. Or send even dumber emails. I may not be so fortunate the next time. It is probably hard for my colleagues to understand but only I can know my own boundaries. When I need rest, I need rest. And, that is all there is to it. I can only try my best and not give myself too much undue stress. I do need time to adapt and learn. And I need to set up my own system cos only then can I function better.
Meanwhile, I still have P’s question of “Is this what you really want?” to contest with. That will to be for another time when I can get myself to function and have cleared enough backlog to stay on top of work. The hastily formed reply to myself now is to think long time. Yes, the opportunity to acquire experience and skills for long term is worth this mind numbing transition period.
Although, looking at my boss, I doubt things are going to get better in the form of working hours and stress as I go along. Somewhere in my mind, there is already a nagging doubt of how am I going to find my worklife balance? The little dreams of picking up a new language, photography, continuing with my course, even travels. When am I ever going to find the time to fit them in? In a couple of months, work seem to have taken over my life so completely that I sometimes wake up in the mornings wondering if my sole purpose in life is to work. And how meaningless is that? Then,” I will whisper to myself that it is only for now. Just bear with it for now and it will be worth it eventually. This is a necessary phrase to moving on.”
P.S. I can barely believe that, this time, last year, I was in Europe doing absolutely nothing except to eat, sleep and romp to my heart’s content. How I miss the joy of freedom.
