Went car camping with some friends for a night over the weekend. Felt great. The new IT director called me while I was on my way up there and then texted me. Then I told him I was losing reception and I would be unavailable this weekend and that was that.
Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m just a cynical fuck these days. But that shit pissed me off. I don’t want to be contacted off hours on my time. I don’t want to be thinking about work or whatever BS is going on. I’m VERY strict about my boundaries with work and my personal time. That’s MY time, if you’re not going to compensate me for it either by paying me overtime or giving me a significant pay bump while moving up to salary don’t bother contacting me. I’m seriously debating talking with him this coming week and telling him it’s not ok and he should absolutely not expect me to be available. I will not fall into that role again where I “help” at the expense of my own mental health, fuck that. I do my job and that’s all they get from me. Even if they did give me a huge pay bump I wouldn’t take it. That’s how much I value my work-life separation. One of those things America tends to really fuck up. I’m all for it if you’re passionate about your job and in alignment in it, but sadly for a lot of people a job is a means for survival. I show up on time, all the time, do a good job, and you want even more from me? No. You need extra help? Hire someone else.
You don’t keep a good worker by saddling them with more and more responsibility. Don’t give me this rah rah team bullshit, the satisfaction of solving complex problems is gone for me. I realized I craved that to justify my own self worth and now that I’m deciding I don’t care about it I only do what I was hired to do and perform at the level they pay me. Call it a shitty attitude, bad employee, whatever, I’m tired of being taken advantage of and I don’t care.
I really hate that me standing up for myself, looking out for myself, that my first instinct is that I’m the bad guy and I’m doing something wrong. That I should be more open and flexible, a team-player, that I’m selfish, that my perspective is negative and I just have to be more positive. Still ingrained with that goddamn nice guy programming where I feel deep shame putting my needs above someone else or feel like I have to bend over backwards for everyone because I’m less important. And I hate people that want to continue to keep me in that programming because I make a good tool for them.
Despite all that, I kept my mind off work all weekend and it was absolutely liberating. Being completely away, in a place I’ve never been, it’s like a detox. Got me thinking about this career. My push for more certifications, learning new knowledge, trying to get into a specialty field, etc. Over the camping trip I was just like “fuck all this shit, why am I doing this? I clearly don’t want this. Why the hell do I keep telling myself this is the right path to take? I know it’s not”.
I don’t know if it’s a term but I’m gonna coin it “panic planning”. It’s when you’re afraid so you put a plan together to quell your fears, but the plan is bullshit. It’s a safe, well worn path with certainty, but you don’t actually want it. But you tell yourself it’ll be good for you. Plans are only effective if they are carried out from a position of alignment and true desire, otherwise they are a distraction and worse a long ass detour that you eventually have to swing back around from.