It finally hit me today and with a great force that has knocked me for six all day.
I’m completely mentally exhausted.
Following on from the last post, I woke up this morning not feeling to happy. I woke early feeling like I was still asleep. As usual, I thought this would pass as it often does and my day would go according to plan and without a hitch.
Looking back, I can tell that was probably not the most conversational person during my lift to work. I haven’t shaved in days. My eyes were like pin pricks and, most unlike me ironically, I wasn’t giving anyone the time of day.
Then, I as soon as I got through the doors at work, it hit me like a slap in the face. The exhausted feeling; the cause of the exhaustion; the reasoning behind my mistakes in my job. It all suddenly fell into place and I needed to leave as soon as possible. This wasn’t the place for me and, if I stayed, I was only going to do myself more damage.
Pointlessly, as a matter of routine, I signed in at reception and immediately went in to see the Head. As I was explaining what was wrong, not only was it informing my boss of the situation but each word was shedding light on the way I’ve been feeling, thinking and acting the past few weeks. Everything became clear and I knew I had to sort it out now.
The cause? – The Local Authority and their wondrous Job Evaluation process.
Consciously, I know it’s all going to be sorted out by work and everything will be fine. Unconsciously, since the process started, my mind has been going through some sort of decline when it thought about the possibility of losing pay or losing my job completely. It’s been eating away at me for this long and, me being me, knew it would sort itself out and therefore haven't addressed it when I should have.
Little things have shown me that I should have paid attention to it earlier – deadlines I’d promised which I was determined to meet when it was quite clear I couldn’t; a colossal schoolboy error last night during an upgrade where I deleted an essential folder instead of copying it and had to perform an emergency restore.
Yes, I should have paid attention to it earlier and now I’m paying the price.
There is only today and tomorrow before the beginning of the summer holidays.
I think I need to take today and tomorrow to rest and get myself back up to speed before starting any work again.
I’ve learned from this. I’ve learned to listen to myself when things aren’t going the way they should. When they’re not, something must clearly be wrong. Address things early thereby avoiding doing damage to yourself.
BYL.
