Life Is A Balancing Act

I work in the crappiest place. So much is expected out of you, yet you don't get any help or encouragement . . . it's a living nightmare. I came home for lunch yesterday and cried . . . how did I end up in this place . . . where did things go so drastically wrong?? I remember vividly the day I got this job . . . I was so excited! In fact I posted this very post . . . what happened to that feeling?


I've been feeling very sorry for myself lately, and I've found it hard to even fake a smile when people come around and ask me how things are going. I dread going to work . . . isn't that a completely horrible thing to say? But every single day I wake up and shudder at the thought of spending another day in that place. A place where people put in unimaginable amounts of hours yet seem to accomplish nothing.

And as I was wallowing in my self-pity I kept thinking about how bad I had it. Poor me . . . having two small children and being forced to try and balance the long hours at work with spending time with my family . . . and then today I realized something. You don't have to have kids to feel torn about where to spend your time . . . and there are many people there with either no children or grown children that deal with the same pressure that I do.


I was working with a girl today who is newly married - just over a year . . . and she was discussing how unhappy her husband gets when she has to work late. She worked late on Monday, yesterday she was at the office until after 8:00 p.m. and it was 4:45 when our boss came in and asked her how late she could stay tonight. When our boss left . . . this look of sadness fell across her face and she said how much she dreaded calling her husband and telling him she was going to miss dinner again tonight.


She called him as we were working and she got off the phone and tears were welling up in her eyes. He was mad . . . and so she made the decision that for this moment in time, her husband was going to come first . . . so she went to our boss and told her that tonight she had to be home by six. Well, now the boss was mad . . . and the frustration sets in . . .


How do you choose???? Your husband, your family . . . or your job??? Why does it have to be a choice??? It angers me to think of all the time I spend feeling guilty about spending so much time away from my husband and children and yet I also feel guilty like I'm somehow letting people down at work if I don't stay.


I have never in my working years walked off a job . . . but I have come damn close the last several weeks. In a way I guess it's poetic justice for me . . . I complained and complained about how much I couldn't wait until my boss was on maternity leave; now she is gone and all I wish is that she would come back - to ease some of this burden that has been placed on me.


So for now I will continue to be the juggler who balances plates on those little sticks . . . and hope like hell one doesn't fall and shatter.