From liking to disliking work

I used to like my job.

I used to think it fulfilling – stimulating, challenging, always keeping my brain on its toes (that’s when I feel most alive – by keeping the brain active, ever-expanding, forever learning new things). It was interesting – and no matter how difficult it was at times (think: working unpaid overtime for months on end, high levels of stress, inability to sleep as a result etc.), I still went back for more. I actually thought that’s what I wanted to do not only now, but in the longer term.

Since then, the new, exciting, forever-learning aspect has become old and as a result, not interesting. Days are now defined by a tired wariness – cramming in far too much boring, non-interesting stuff into the confines of the working hours.

It seems that this is the rule, not the exception – most people dislike their job. I however do not accept that ‘this is the way it is’. What a waste of one’s life it would be!

Disliking work is good. It’s a driver for change, and for claiming back what is yours.

Life = bringing the self to the place where it can be free.

Privacy? What Privacy?

The BF and I went to a colleague’s leave-do on Friday night. As always at these type of things, there was one person that had a digital camera and took pictures throughout the evening.

By Monday, they had uploaded said pics onto the work  server, sending round an email to people with a direct link, as well as uploading them to Facebook (they asked me if I had deleted my profile as they had tried tagging a couple of pics with my name).

There are three things wrong here.

1. distributing pics of myself willy-nilly without prior permission

2. attempting to name-tag the pics, without prior permission, thus violating my privacy

3. distributing pics of B. willy-nilly without his permission

Especially the latter is of concern. He is NOT one of the work colleagues and, he went to great lengths to delete any profiles etc. online that he used to have as his online privacy is very important to him (you won’t find any pics/profiles of him if you google his name).

I didn’t pull the colleague up on it this time. There were ‘only’ two photos of me / me and B., and as I’d already deactivated my FB profile she won’t have been able to tag me. Still.

It just means that I won’t allow anyone to take pics of me in the future.

Back at Work Tomorrow

And I have to say that, despite the stresses involved there ATM, I’m looking forward to it.

I’m just not the kind of ‘sit on my ass and do nothing’ – person. It’s good for a few days, but I need to be productive and do things. The good thing about work is that it ‘organises’ and structures my productivity, whereas otherwise I have to organise the activities and things I do myself 😛

Either way – I’m fairly relaxed and ready to give it my all, which no doubt will last only a couple of days, by which time I need another holiday 😛

lenina sorely needs a holiday

I will be off from the 24th Dec, PM, until the 2nd January inclusively. As the bank holidays fall very conveniently this year, it will feel like a longer stretch of holiday than it actually is:

Wed 24th – PM off (toil)

Thur 25th – public hol. (Xmas day)

Fri 26th – public hol. (Boxing day)

Sat 27th/Sun 28th: offski anyway

Mon 29th: hol

Tue 30th: hol

Wed 31st: hol

Thur 1st: public hol

Fri 2nd: public hol

Sat 3rd/Sun 4th: offski anyway.

= for 3 days of my holiday entitlement (plus 0.5 TOIL), I get 11.5 days off!! Amazing 😀

In fact it’s good that I’ve listed it – I’m sure that, when I gave the holiday form to my manager, I entered ‘5 days’ instead of 3. I.e. it means I can carry an extra 2 days across to the new year that I wasn’t even aware of 🙂

Starting a Time Sheet at Work

Due to increasing levels of ridiculousness of demands at my work, combined with being told that ‘once you have learned to multitask, you will be able to do the job and handle your workload’ (interpellation of incompetence, which is extremely off the mark), I will start keeping a timesheet at work.

I’m also joining the public sector union. My ‘manager’ doesn’t have an understanding of the workload and whenever this issue is raised with her, she comes back with negative interpellations of my own incompetence. Considering that my team is completely understaffed (only 3 out of 6 positions filled) and has been underresourced since I joined, this is very dumb.

As I don’t want to risk getting too stressed, and am not one that puts up with any old shit, I shall slowly strengthen my position as a worker and becoming fully aware of my rights. Some stuff definitely won’t get done over the next few months, and I need to be able to have ‘proof’ that that is the case because of the ridiculous demands on my time and the non-understanding of the ‘manager’. That way, my position is secure and she won’t be able to do anything about it (e.g. give me a warning or whatever for ‘not doing my job’).

Arbeiter aller Laender vereinigt euch! 😛