I’m putting a huge amount of pressure on myself. For school, since I effed up and skipped an entire multi-part question of the exam (that I totally knew, and probably would have gotten full points for!), largely due to pre-test shenanigans, I feel like I have to buckle-down extra hard. I’m studying at 4 AM, after work and before class, and after class until 8 PM–only taking breaks to eat, work, and sleep. But the pressure doesn’t end there. I’m normally a fairly effective employee at work–but I’m trying to take it to an even higher level since my schedule changed.
BECAUSE all my co-workers and the doctor(s?) hate it, and hate me as a result. So I’m trying to do the work of multiple people in order to prove to everyone that a) I’m not a lazy $hit-head b) the new system is helpful & worthwhile and c) I should get to keep this new schedule–please let me keep it!
I so badly want to remain on the schedule that I’m pushing myself to get to work by 5:30 AM so I can prep charts for the receptionist, do all the cleaning, finish all the laundry, re-stock all drawers, PLUS at least one big cleaning/organization job, tend to the house-cats and plants, take vitals and medicate and clean all hospitalized patients, type up all the hospitalize notes for the doctors, set up the I-131 room for the week, and set up for surgeries and drop-offs and to-go-homes for that current day. I aim to get this done before anyone else comes in 7-7:30 AM. It’s a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. And I’m rushing to do it–I want everyone to walk in and see EVERYthing is already done for them, so I’m really killing myself to do it. Mostly so I can keep this schedule. I’m almost sure that everyone will vote that the change doesn’t work and revert me to my old, horribly stressful schedule.
Except, as you know (and I know) perfection is impossible. I’m running myself a little ragged, and I’m not sure anyone even notices all the cleaning and prep work I’m accomplishing, and–I get pretty tired early on and don’t get to leave til 10 AM. Of course today, I ran into trouble over it–which was bound to happen sooner or later. I was working on a task, and before I was finished the doctor hustled over to check my critical patient. What she was doing was important, and my mind wandered to that–derailing me. Stupidly, I dropped the task and waited for her to evaluate the cat so I could resume. I guess my tiredness, forgetfulness, and general stress about doing EVERYthing got to me, and as she was there for quite awhile–I forgot to finish my task. I wandered off to finish something a co-worker had started, which ironically, annoyed me a great deal. Why can’t people finish what they start?!
So of course, this unfinished task of mine was ultra-important and could have had dire consequences. Someone else caught it, luckily. I felt terrible and ashamed. It’s not like I tried to forget or didn’t think anything would come of it–I’m just so worried about doing everything and being perfect that I made a big mistake. So I felt sad it had happened, stressed about the mentality that had lead up to it, and super-frustrated that instead of looking like an awesome worker deserving of my new post as I had intended, I looked like the worst, most untrustworthy loser ever. What made it worse was that I got lectured in front of coworkers (of course, and per the usual) which totally sucked. Add on that I was stigmatized and embarrassed.
Moral of the story–Though I’m trying to do more work than one person can do alone, I need to remember the patients come FIRST. Everything else takes a back-seat to the kitties. But I also hope everyone’s anger at my schedule change blows over quickly so I can just work at my normal-fast speed instead of hyper-fast crazy-early speed.
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