I decided to call it Monday Reds instead of Monday Blues, because there's nothing melancholy about Mondays. I usually start off the morning battling emergencies. I actually find it to be a bit of a joke that I am in the software business and I spend more time putting out fires than a fireman, and more time doing triage than an emergency room doctor.
Going back to my previous post,
Just Plain Looney, I ended up not having to feed my neighbor's horses. It really wouldn't have been a problem. My frustration had more to do with the timing of so many people giving me tasks to do all at once. Had she contacted me at some other time when I didn't have two bosses talking at me through instant messaging, I would have been much more welcoming and friendly.
Anyway, on Saturday I was so wiped out that I refused to answer the phone. Someone called really early while I was still in bed and that set me off. Certain retired people in my life wait all week to call us on Saturday mornings to ask for favors, not considering that they are interfering with the one day we have available to sleep in. So, I made up my mind that the phone could ring itself off the hook, but I wasn't picking up.
It turned out that one of the phone calls was my neighbor telling me that she didn't need me to feed her horses after all. She was coming home early from her trip. I had hoped she didn't change her plans because she worried about me not being able to do the job. She stopped by my house when she got home, thanked me for agreeing to do it, and gave me a big hug -- something she normally doesn't do. I'm sure she picked up on my stress level and felt bad for me.
I also wasn't picking up the phone, because I figured my boss was trying to get a hold of me to ask me to work through the weekend. I let him believe I was out of town while I took care of some of my personal needs, like having a clean house and food in the fridge.
Though I don't have a good plan to get out of this miserable work situation, I did make up my mind that I would not start work earlier than 8:00 AM, nor work later than 5:00 PM, and I would make sure I get an hour lunch break regardless of what emergencies are swirling around me like tornadoes. You see, I used to start work at 5:00 or 6:00 AM, because it gave me a few hours to complete tasks that I normally cannot complete due to people interrupting me all day. However, this new boss has started contacting me the instant the he sees me log in to my computer. Of course he gives me some urgent task to do, which pulls me off the tasks I intended to do, and I feel like I am perpetually behind in my work. Since I am no longer receiving any benefit from working that early in the morning, I'm just not going to work that early anymore.
Sure enough, as soon as I logged in at 8:00 AM, my old boss sent me a task to do that wasn't even in my area of responsibilities. I got angry and forwarded the message to my new boss, telling him that I'm tired of having too many supervisors all giving me different tasks. I asked him to make it clear to everyone else in the company that he is my one and only supervisor, and that all task requests for me must go through him. My new boss ended up basically telling my old boss that his task is not a priority and has nothing to do with the company's current goals. That brought me some relief. This old boss had a habit of using people in my department as if they were all his personal assistants. He'd give us tasks that were his responsibility, but that he didn't want to take the time do himself. I felt more like a secretary working for him than anything else.
I thought my new boss and I had an understanding that I am overworked, but he kept contacting me every 15 minutes with another task he wanted me to do. Unfortunately, people in my department are getting burned out by this new boss, and they are starting to drop like flies, so I have to work quadruple-time to make up for all the sick, missing bodies. Anyway, I told my boss I need a lunch break. He acknowledged that, but still insisted that I do the task.
Once I completed the task and attempted to take a lunch break at 1:00 PM (I normally eat at 11:30 AM), he gave me another task. I said that I still hadn't had my lunch break, and again he acknowledged that, but insisted that I get this other task done before I take my break. So, I started on that task, finished it, and just as I was about to take my break at 1:30 PM, he contacted me with some other urgent task. By now I was pissed. I shut down his instant message, marked myself as being AWAY, and I went outside to muck out the stalls. I knew the phone was probably ringing the entire time I was out there, but I didn't care. It is dark when I start work in the morning and it is dark when I end work at night, so the only time I can clean stalls is on a lunch break. I don't have electricity in my barn. I need daylight.
I also need to be able to eat a leisurely lunch without having to shove something down my throat while typing as fast as I can. Not to mention that for years now I have been promising my doctors that I will spend at least half an hour of my lunch break exercising. I always gain a lot of weight in the fall and winter, because the days are so short that I spend my lunch hour cleaning stalls and paying bills instead of exercising. I'm already up three pounds.
However, with my determination to get a lunch break, I did get some exercise shoveling manure at a record pace. My neighbors probably thought I was nuts throwing all this manure straight out the stall doors onto the ground. I didn't even care if I made the basket. I just wanted to get those stalls cleaned as fast as possible. When I came inside, I jumped up on the treadmill and ran as hard as I could to get my anger and frustration out.
I returned to work, finished the latest batch of urgent tasks, and of course, right at 5:00 PM another emergency arose. Instead doing what I would normally do, which is hang around my desk all evening waiting for word that what was broken is now fixed and I need to put the new code through its paces, I shut down my computer and stopped answering the phone.
I actually got to read a few chapters in a novel under some warm covers in bed. It was wonderful. And now here I am at 6:00 in the morning writing a blog post instead of being herded around by too many bosses. It's amazing what you can do with a couple of free hours. On a spiritual level, I've been praying for my workload to lighten up. So far the answer has been no. I see no signs of it getting better -- only worse. Apparently, I'm supposed to go through this. I just wish God would expedite the process by telling me what I'm supposed to learn from all this stress, instead of dragging out my suffering.
The sad part is that management is too blind to see that they are merely driving off their good employees by piling everything on them, and not even putting a dent in the problem with the slacker employees, because the slacker employees just continue to avoid work and don't let anything stress them out. The company is going to lose the people they need by the way they treat us, and probably fail for it. They can't make money if the only people left working for them are people who only show up to work to collect their paychecks.
I am going to try an experiment. I'm going to mimic one of the slackers today by taking a break every 15 minutes for a good 20 minutes or so, and see what happens. We've got one employee who spends more time on the toilet and outside smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and reading science fiction novels, than he spends at his desk; and he spends more time at his desk surfing the Internet than he does working. We have another employee who falls asleep in his car, and upon waking up, drives himself to the pub. He's usually MIA for several hours during the day, then comes in staggering and stinking of hard liquor. Both of these guys never deliver on their tasks. I mean, if those two guys haven't been fired yet, what am I worried about? In fact, they are the reason why I have to put in so much overtime and give up my evenings, weekends, and lunch breaks. I'm constantly having to do their tasks after they fail to do them. If I became one of them, who would management shift their attention to? Who would become the next me?
Actually, I'm way too responsible and care too much about my job performance to pull off a stunt like that, but my thinking does give people some insight into human nature. I have learned the those who work hard, but make mistakes get humiliated and punished, while those who do no work at all are left alone to do as they please. There certainly does seem to be more incentive to be a slacker than there is to work hard. It's just sad that I have to train myself to slack off more for the sake of my health.