A Long Lament About the Effects of Overconsumption

Lately I've been distressed for a few reasons, but I think an underlying one is really a lack of proper rest. The trip to Canada was lovely in many ways. But aspects of it were harder than I expected, e.g. going to places where Papa used to take us when we were children; and also meeting with friends and relatives whom we last met ten or more years ago sometimes made me feel that in some ways I'd become sterner, older and harder. Well, the 'older' part is obvious and not necessarily bad. For the first two days or so after the trip I was in a bit of a fog, like a variant of Robert Burns's 'My heart's in the highlands' — in spirit I was taking walks along the seashore and gazing up at Douglas firs and surrounded in the rainy mist of autumn on Vancouver Island, which made me feel happier and more relaxed but also remote. So I had trouble readjusting my mindset to work.

The heavy workload ahead of America Thanksgiving is intermittently bearable now. But it is still more than we can do. This time I don't have much reason to blame the project managers. They have tried to accommodate the team I am in after I raised my protest — indeed have been awkwardly tip-toeing around me for a while, and one of them has (for reasons best known to herself) been making a beeline for a colleague who is roughly as stressed as I am — and understand that the work is too much. They are under pressure themselves and cannot change the influx of clients, which as the manager has said is a good problem to have. The other teams are also all suffering now; I have to make sure that I am not demanding special treatment.

We have been asked to come in if we wish on Saturdays for overtime work (paid double) to help tackle the work. I feel that this is not right for me. First of all, whether accurately or not, I feel rather fragile, and I have to respect my boundaries. As the Black Friday season piles on additional pressure, and five days per week of Black Friday pressure are already too much for me, I don't need six. For the past month or two, whereas at one point I could leave at 6:30 p.m. often with an easy conscience, I have done about 9 to 13 hours of overtime per week whenever I was not in Canada. I count on Saturdays and Sundays to 'decompress' so that I can return to work on Mondays with renewed spirits and a sharper brain. Now I need them especially. I don't care to earn extra money for stunts like Saturday work. I have the income I need to cover the basics, and want any pay raises to be allotted if I develop more skill at my work generally.

But being a team leader, of course, requires pitching in alongside the colleagues in the team and being a decent example. So I agreed to come in every second Saturday. Also, I had the feeling that saying that I couldn't handle coming in because it was too exhausting — which I more or less did — was seen by the manager as an indulgence of weakness rather than as a statement of fact. So I felt that my pride was challenged to show that I wasn't completely fragile.

So I came in this past Saturday. The way I felt during and after bore out my reservations, and not because I went into it so skeptically that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Working on a Saturday for 3 hours on a whim as I described in the last blog post is, indeed, nothing like working on a Saturday for 8 hours out of obligation. I was also worried because of bad news I'd had unrelated to work. At any rate I was grumpy, sad or giddily cheerful by turns, had wobbly legs at times when I stood up from my desk, and cried more than once. (Hidden from the view of others, and silently.)

One of the managers had also come in for noblesse-oblige-y reasons, alongside more than a handful of colleagues including Gi., and they didn't look like they were overflowing with happiness either.

Besides I feel less sure of properly listening and responding to colleagues, or handling anything that requires intelligence, because I'm too saturated to think straight.

Aside from objections on grounds like health and poorer job performance, I am also opposed to this from a moralizing and religious perspective. Thanksgiving — if one abstracts it from the historical context of invading the Americas — is about being thankful for immaterial goods and material necessities, not about exploiting human labour and the environment in a reckless orgy of spending (and returning). The Christmas season is also not just about 25% sales. And I want to be able to telephone people if I want to, see my family, dance ballet, and look at trees and grass and flowers in daylight instead of crawling home after dark.

Anyway, today was a day off because of the Day of German Reunification, and next Saturday is a day off. Also, I should not let one aspect of work make me miserable; and I should take things more easily, also because people do generously worry about me and don't enjoy witnessing self-destruction.