Oh dear.

While I've not done anything that's terribly productive with my week off, I have not been in the office, which is a good thing. Recent "political" movements in work have re-enforced a belief I have about the management playing favourites and Stalky Guy being the constant recipient. He's good at his job, but no more than anyone else in the team. So it's confusing and unlikely that, in a team that's so closely matches, skill-wise, that one person reaps the rewards.

Over the past few years, I've tried my best to narrow the gap in grade and salary between me and Stalky Guy (he earns roughly a third more than me), partly for some professional pride and partly because wage parity would be HUGELY beneficial to me.

It's tremendously frustrating to see long hours and hard work count for nothing at the end of the year. It's partly why KfW2 moved to another team. She was in the same position with getting little recognition although her gap with Stalky Guy is much less than mine.

And, if I am being honest, I'm a little obsessed with this. Getting a good score means a good pay rise, but despite the company policy, this is not in my control. The obsession leads to frustration which leads to stress.

I also think that the frustration comes from me being further into the autism spectrum than most* A supposedly objective system is anything but that, and I find it difficult to get my head round this. Maybe it's because I know that a fully objective system would see me score as well as Stalky Guy as I am doing all the right things.

Anyhoo... a conversation with KfW2 yesterday, as well as a WhatsApp message from another colleague (ex-teammate) has brought all this back to the fore again, which has annoyed me after a stress-free week off.

When I go back to work next week, I need to speak to my GP, talk to my optician and start looking for jobs, at least internally.

*Again, as I've posted previously, I'm not claiming to be to be classified as fully autistic, but I do exhibit quite a few traits that I see in my diagnosed nephew. The "hypocrisy" of my company declaring an objective system that is subjective actually hurts my head. It genuinely feels like pressure building up because I can't figure a way around it.