I'm back at work tomorrow after a few weeks of not being in the office. I'm not really looking forward to it, but not for any kind of mental health or stress reasons, just fatigue. And fatigue because of my neighbour's TV habits. I think it must be now about 4 or 5 nights in a row where she's watching TV until well after 1 AM, with the volume being quite loud.
Luckily, my work are not bothered about my start time, so if I need an extra hour in bed, I can take that.
I'd say that 90% of the work is now done. And that's all of the work internal to the house. Some bits and pieces to finish off outside, and that'll be this stage of the work done.
For some reason when the last guy left the house about an hour ago, the stress just left. I don't know why. I didn't feel that stressed. I mean, yes, I was stressed (I have posted as much about it this week), but I thought only a little.
And horny too. Is that weird? Is there a link between stress and horniness? Literally, the second the guy drove off, the stress left and I got horny as hell.
There's still work for me to do: the entire house needs cleaned, vacuumed and mopped. While it wasn't as messy as I'd expected, there's still a fair amount of dust and rubbish generated. I also need to move some furniture around to compensate for my lack of usable space in the kitchen. But I can't be bothered with that right now. Those are jobs for tomorrow and the weekend.
I've been feeling very overwhelmed today. There's a lot of stuff going on and I'm useless at adulting. I'm semi-regretting agreeing to do KfW2 a favour, though this is about me and other things I have going on, nothing to do with KfW2 herself.
The house stuff is already stressing me out and it's not due to happen until around the start of August. There are a few unknown factors in there, and that stresses me out. The family stuff has been ongoing for a couple of weeks and show no signs of ending in the near future. I've a phone call scheduled for Friday around the family stuff and it's stressing me out. I'm useless at phone calls. I prefer to do things over email or instant chat where I have a record of things or things written down.
But for some reason, it all hit me today and that resulted in me being overwhelmed.
I'm feeling out of sorts for the past while. A funk like I've not had in a long time. Loneliness is a factor, the time of year is a factor - I've never made it a secret that I dislike Christmas (or rather then expectations that come along with this time of year) and work is a factor.
I have that much annual leave still to take that I'll be on a 3-day week from next week and it can't come soon enough.
There's stress from the house stuff too. The move from Tuesday to Wednesday, given my plans on Thursday is causing stress. It shouldn't stress me too much. If the work needs two days instead of one, cancelling my plans on Thursday should be trivial, even if I don't want to do that.
Am I feeling like this cos I'm worn out and my defences are down or am I worn out because I am feeling like this? I think it's the former - all the stuff is hitting me at the same time, when I am tired and in need of some downtime.
And hopefully once I get the work done on Wednesday, that'll make things easier and will free me up for a very long weekend of recharging.
The workmen haven't arrived yet, but the guy from across the street has already knocked on the door to say he hasn't forgotten about his second car, but he's lost his keys and there's a tow truck coming. That alleviates some of the anxiety/stress.
I still need to knock on my neighbour's door and ask her to move her car, but I am aware it's still early, so I'll leave it until 9 AM.
I've no idea when the workmen are due to arrive, but hopefully it won't be until after the neighbours have moved their cars.
[Update: 915] She's still not out of bed, which is frustrating because on any other day, she'd be up and about by 8 AM. By my reckoning, I've tried to talk to her half a dozen times since mid-afternoon yesterday. Sigh.
[Update 2: 940] The tow truck has just arrived. At least that's one problem solved, and the workmen haven't shown up yet.
[Update 3: 1000] The tow truck guy couldn't help - there was no space to hook up the car, so the best he could do was push it back a few metres. And my neighbour still isn't out of bed, otherwise he could have pushed it back quite a bit and made loads of room. However... the workmen have turned up and the lack of space is inconvenient but not a blocker to them doing the work. All that stress and effort for nothing.
If there's one thing I hate, it's people's inability to communicate. The family stuff took another turn at the weekend, and stress levels have been high because the people we deal with should have shared information with us about three weeks ago, and didn't.
They also refuse to use email, citing GDPR, so it appears they don't know what GDPR is either.
My sister and I met with them yesterday and they have apologised profusely (and sincerely from what I can tell), which I have accepted on the understanding that they use this failing to update their processes. They claim that the process improvements are already being looked at, but only time will tell.
But I've spent the last few days really wanting to slap someone.
Just when you think you're getting a handle on things, something pops up just to fuck with you. This was the case earlier with another twist in the family stuff that's been stressing me out since late last year.
It's not life threatening, but it is somewhat urgent and it is financial in nature. It needs sorted out within the next few days, so it looks like I'll be taking some time off tomorrow afternoon if I can, to try and make a few calls to get stuff sorted.
I hate speaking on the phone. I'm useless at retaining information and I'm starting to lose my hearing a little. I'd far rather do everything by chatbot or email, but they're always slower than just speaking to someone.
Still... let's see if the boss gives me tomorrow afternoon off.
I'm going to be taking some well-needed time off in a few days and I had hoped that this week would be a matter of completing the stuff on my 'to-do' list and winding down. Sadly, this is not the case. With a few of the senior members of the team being out, it's been falling to me to look after stuff and it's stressing me out. I have neither the knowledge nor the time to deal with most of the stuff that's come through.
Roll on Thursday evening!
I don't know what it is, but I've been so tired over the past week or so. I suspect it might be at least partially linked to my unhappiness with work at the minute that's causing a little stress and anxiety. I've yet to sit down and decide what it is I want to do, and how to go about it.
The weather was nice, so I went for a walk with Nerdy Girl. From an exercise point of view, it was great. I walked just over six miles (though due to a GPS failure it's only recorded as 5 miles). We did our usual route of going from CB Bar, through a local park, out to some tourist attractions and back again.
But part of the conversation we had was Nerdy Girl teasing me about my anxiety from last year. I was facing potential redundancy last year and interviews were causing panic attacks. I was sharing this with NG who was laughing.
Interesting. I called her on it.
"I'm not entirely impressed that you're finding my anxiety issues funny. I was stressed out for pretty much all of last year."
I think it hit her when I said that. I've often mentioned anxiety issues, especially around interviews and stuff. She apologised immediately and that was that.
So, six miles later... more blisters. I've tried different shoes and socks and I still get blisters. Maybe it's just the distance and my feet are broken?
KfW2 sent me a message late last night. Was I awake?
"Barely," I replied.
I was awake, and reading a book, but it was near midnight. What did she want?
I eventually drifted off to sleep with no further contact. When I woke this morning, WhatsApp was silent.
So I replied to her asking what was up. She immediately called.
It turns out that she's looking for a new job, and not within the company. It was funny, cos even though she was recently promoted, I had a gut feeling she was looking for change. She wanted me to proofread something for her, but she decided that as I had said I was barely awake, she wouldn't bother me. It put me in mind of CH, who asked something similar of me a few years back where I effectively filled in an application form for her and got her an interview.
Back to KfW2 though. Looking to a brand new company is a big thing for KfW2. She suffers (or at least suffered) from the same type of anxiety that I do regarding interviews, so moving jobs was a big thing for her. This is an extension of that. This time, though, I don't think the desire to move is about money. It has been almost solely her driver in the past, despite her protestations to the contrary.
This time, it's about work/life balance. Traditionally, our company has been at the forefront of WLB in the industry in my city, but the pandemic and lockdown have seen that advantage eroded as other companies have been forced into adopting similar policies, probably much quicker than they might have done ordinarily.
KfW2 is adamant that other places now offer much better WLB. I'm not entirely sure that she's correct, but she won't listen. Plus, this is about workload more than anything else. I don't know that moving to another company is going to make her workload any less.
She admitted that, when she first moved into a new job back in 2018, she took some time off for stress because she didn't feel that she had any direction and was left to figure things out for herself. This is news to me. It seems that she's recently admitted, more than once, to taking time off due to mental health reasons, but never shared that information at the time, and I never picked up on it.
I think part of that is the ever-growing distance between us that started when she took that first step away in 2018 and has steadily grown wider since. I've no insight into her life any longer. We've seen each other three times in the past 12 months, and one of those times was a write-off as she had a complete mental breakdown in front of me. The others amount to a total of a couple of hours, with her kids in tow.
I'm concerned. If she's been stressed and has current mental health issues as well as confidence issues, I'm not sure that looking to move to another company is going to be good for her. I don't know if I should bring it up. She knows I care, but she's also a very stubborn woman when she's made up her mind.
Since I joined a new team and department at the start of the year, I've found myself doing a lot of the things that, IMO, my manager should have been doing. Additionally, my co-workers have been very standoff-ish, if you can be standoff-ish when you're remotely working. This has fed into my feeling of isolation that's been lurking over the Winter months.
But my expectations would be that my manager would have a "new guy" plan, for training, learning the new processes, getting to know my team-mates. Somehow, though, this is all on me and doesn't already exist.
KfW2 is surprised at how hands-off my manager is but, as she explained, "you're really good at this, make this your own". And she's right. Despite being shy and introverted, I am hugely inclusive. Writing training documentation and sharing knowledge and information is something that I excel at, and in my last role, I was brilliant at bringing new team members on and getting them integrated.
But I kinda feel, almost, that this is going to be pulled out from under me, that my new manager will all-of-a-sudden say that I am not learning things fast enough, that I should be more advanced etc. It's probably baseless, she's seemed OK so far when we have interacted, but by the same token, I should have had a meeting with her, to talk about my year-end scores and any potential pay rise and bonus.
In theory, managers have until the end of February to do the meetings, but my pay slip will be sent, via email, in about an hour. So it's entirely possible that even if I do have this meeting, that I will already know the numbers, but given my experiences so far, I'm not ruling out not having the meeting at all.
That'll be concerning, and something I can raise at my fortnightly checkpoint, which is on Thursday.
This month has seemingly been both the shortest, and longest, that I can remember. My days are long. Settling into a new role at work, but have been left somewhat isolated with little to do. My evenings go by so quickly. That's felt weird.
I'm apprehensive about the new role. There's low level anxiety there. Nowhere near the amount I was experiencing before Christmas, but still there. But I'm also kinda optimistic about it. There are going to be hard times ahead until I get settled though.
Despite my best intentions, I'm not seeing KfW2 this weekend. Time just got away from me this week. I will call her and chat, but it'll probably be next weekend at the earliest.
Following on from yesterday's chat with Nerdy Girl, it looks like I won't need the backup option and I may have something sorted in my current workplace.
So, the current stress I feel will go away to be replaced by a different stress, but hopefully more manageable. It means that at least the start of 2022 will be very busy, as I adapt to new things and people.
There is an element of luck to getting this new role, but that was offset by the bad luck of needing a new job in the first place, when I'd spent probably two years creating a new role for myself and others.
However, that's for the New Year. Now, I can relax, take the last of my annual leave (I only have six working days left this year once I hit the end of this week) and chill out.
Oh, and CC didn't show up last night. I'm unavailable tonight, so I'm pretty sure she'll show up around 6 PM.
