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work crabbiness
Feb. 8th, 2012 11:33 pmI'm just so tired of things at work, and for some reason, it's all hitting my stress fan tonight. I'm glad I have Monday off.
Part of what it comes down to is that I miss Gaelyn terribly still. I miss her as a friend and confidante at work, and I miss her as someone who would always share the workload with me. It was so easy to share the workload among three people when two of them were me and Gaelyn. Now, with Gaelyn gone and Christina in her place, it feels like more of the work is shoved on to me, especially when it comes to the physical tasks. Lia and Christina, the other two main staff during the day, both have chronic pain conditions. And while yes, I'm very grateful not to suffer from chronic pain, part of our job requires that we do some physical tasks, and these days, they're dumped on me much of the time. Gaelyn and I were so good about it, about sharing the work, and now all I'm good at is taking on more work because I either know that my co-workers can't handle it, or that they'll just bitch about it so it's better worth my time to do it myself. Grocery shopping, for example- Gaelyn and I traded off doing the shelter's shopping; we each went every other week. When one of us had a conflict, we'd work it out between the two of us. Lia did the food inventory and told us what we needed to buy each week. Now, Lia still does the inventory, but I do the shopping, every single week. And granted, I told Wendy to have me do it- it wasn't worth it to me to watch Christina struggle with it. And Lia gets some sort of automatic pass on it, I guess. Once, when I was gone for a whole week at a conference, Wendy had Lindsay (one of the awesome and great overnight staff) come in during the day, do the shopping, and then Lia met her with the credit card at the grocery store. And I didn't mind the shopping for a long while. But somewhere over the holidays, it quit being a good excuse to get out of the shelter, and it started being a real chore. It's not that I don't have time for it, or that it's hard for me to do, but I resent the fact that it's entirely on me. I fill up the two carts, load up the van, unload the van onto the cart back at the shelter, and then put the food away. Lia used to help put things away, but she doesn't really anymore. Gaelyn and I would help each other out, and when we didn't, it wasn't a big deal, because I was doing it half the amount that I am now. And then there's picking up dinner for the residents. We need to pick up dinner every night from the hospital kitchen nearby at 4:45. Saturdays, we have a weekend staff do it. Sundays, nine times out of ten, a volunteer group brings dinner, so Christina doesn't have to go get it. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, every week, I get dinner. It's not hard- bring the trays and tubs from the night before into the van, drive a few blocks, get the new pans of food, bring them back. Twenty minutes or so, counting serving up the plates. I get dinner three nights a week because I'm the only person working at that time. Lia, four days a week, is off at 4:30. On Tuesdays, Christina's pretty good about getting dinner, since she knows it's really the only day she has to do it. But on Thursdays, the only day when Lia would possibly ever have to pick up dinner, I still do it half the time. And again, I play into it- I try to do it because I know it's hard for her. Because I know that I don't have fibro, arthritis, etc, etc, that Lia and Christina face. And the physical tasks aren't hard for me. But sometimes, I just wish they weren't always expected of me, every single time. I want Lia not to whimper about having to get dinner twice a month. I want Christina to not take a day off each week because she's always sick or in pain. They both play the "Whose Pain is Worse for 400, Alex" game, and when they each constantly complain, it makes it even harder for me to ask anything more of them. But I'm tired, is what it is. I'm tired of not feeling like I'm able to ask anything of them. Gaelyn and I were such a good pair, and always gave slack to each other, and took it up for the other. If I had a crazy week, or she was out of town, we just switched grocery weeks, and it was no big deal. She and I split the dinner duties evenly between us- each of us taking two days a week for sure, and basing the other day off who had more time for it. I know the schedules are different now, especially since Christina works weekends (Sundays) when Gaelyn didn't. But Gaelyn and I also both had flexibility with our schedules- if one of us needed a night off, we'd often trade shifts with each other, so that person could have a day shift instead. But Christina's schedule is more fixed, because of her kids, and Lia's schedule if fixed because as Joe puts it, she's a diva (when she actually plays the martyr, not the diva). Lia works one evening a week (I work three, including Fridays), and recently, when she didn't have any clients who needed evening case management, she bitched about why she had to have a late shift when the clients didn't need that from her. Gee, I don't know Lia, because I don't want to work every single evening anymore? It's so hard to ask anything more of either of them, really.
Maybe I'll talk to Wendy about it. I don't know what she can do besides boss people around. I probably need to talk to Lia and tell her she needs to be responsible for dinner pick-up on Thursdays more. I can't accommodate it all the time.
I don't know. I'm just tired tonight. And I still have to do grocery shopping this week. Gross.
Part of what it comes down to is that I miss Gaelyn terribly still. I miss her as a friend and confidante at work, and I miss her as someone who would always share the workload with me. It was so easy to share the workload among three people when two of them were me and Gaelyn. Now, with Gaelyn gone and Christina in her place, it feels like more of the work is shoved on to me, especially when it comes to the physical tasks. Lia and Christina, the other two main staff during the day, both have chronic pain conditions. And while yes, I'm very grateful not to suffer from chronic pain, part of our job requires that we do some physical tasks, and these days, they're dumped on me much of the time. Gaelyn and I were so good about it, about sharing the work, and now all I'm good at is taking on more work because I either know that my co-workers can't handle it, or that they'll just bitch about it so it's better worth my time to do it myself. Grocery shopping, for example- Gaelyn and I traded off doing the shelter's shopping; we each went every other week. When one of us had a conflict, we'd work it out between the two of us. Lia did the food inventory and told us what we needed to buy each week. Now, Lia still does the inventory, but I do the shopping, every single week. And granted, I told Wendy to have me do it- it wasn't worth it to me to watch Christina struggle with it. And Lia gets some sort of automatic pass on it, I guess. Once, when I was gone for a whole week at a conference, Wendy had Lindsay (one of the awesome and great overnight staff) come in during the day, do the shopping, and then Lia met her with the credit card at the grocery store. And I didn't mind the shopping for a long while. But somewhere over the holidays, it quit being a good excuse to get out of the shelter, and it started being a real chore. It's not that I don't have time for it, or that it's hard for me to do, but I resent the fact that it's entirely on me. I fill up the two carts, load up the van, unload the van onto the cart back at the shelter, and then put the food away. Lia used to help put things away, but she doesn't really anymore. Gaelyn and I would help each other out, and when we didn't, it wasn't a big deal, because I was doing it half the amount that I am now. And then there's picking up dinner for the residents. We need to pick up dinner every night from the hospital kitchen nearby at 4:45. Saturdays, we have a weekend staff do it. Sundays, nine times out of ten, a volunteer group brings dinner, so Christina doesn't have to go get it. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, every week, I get dinner. It's not hard- bring the trays and tubs from the night before into the van, drive a few blocks, get the new pans of food, bring them back. Twenty minutes or so, counting serving up the plates. I get dinner three nights a week because I'm the only person working at that time. Lia, four days a week, is off at 4:30. On Tuesdays, Christina's pretty good about getting dinner, since she knows it's really the only day she has to do it. But on Thursdays, the only day when Lia would possibly ever have to pick up dinner, I still do it half the time. And again, I play into it- I try to do it because I know it's hard for her. Because I know that I don't have fibro, arthritis, etc, etc, that Lia and Christina face. And the physical tasks aren't hard for me. But sometimes, I just wish they weren't always expected of me, every single time. I want Lia not to whimper about having to get dinner twice a month. I want Christina to not take a day off each week because she's always sick or in pain. They both play the "Whose Pain is Worse for 400, Alex" game, and when they each constantly complain, it makes it even harder for me to ask anything more of them. But I'm tired, is what it is. I'm tired of not feeling like I'm able to ask anything of them. Gaelyn and I were such a good pair, and always gave slack to each other, and took it up for the other. If I had a crazy week, or she was out of town, we just switched grocery weeks, and it was no big deal. She and I split the dinner duties evenly between us- each of us taking two days a week for sure, and basing the other day off who had more time for it. I know the schedules are different now, especially since Christina works weekends (Sundays) when Gaelyn didn't. But Gaelyn and I also both had flexibility with our schedules- if one of us needed a night off, we'd often trade shifts with each other, so that person could have a day shift instead. But Christina's schedule is more fixed, because of her kids, and Lia's schedule if fixed because as Joe puts it, she's a diva (when she actually plays the martyr, not the diva). Lia works one evening a week (I work three, including Fridays), and recently, when she didn't have any clients who needed evening case management, she bitched about why she had to have a late shift when the clients didn't need that from her. Gee, I don't know Lia, because I don't want to work every single evening anymore? It's so hard to ask anything more of either of them, really.
Maybe I'll talk to Wendy about it. I don't know what she can do besides boss people around. I probably need to talk to Lia and tell her she needs to be responsible for dinner pick-up on Thursdays more. I can't accommodate it all the time.
I don't know. I'm just tired tonight. And I still have to do grocery shopping this week. Gross.
