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Aug. 12th, 2011 01:11 pmI'm only a bit less grouchy this afternoon than yesterday. People around me keep forgetting to do things (or forgot while I was away) and I have to solve the resultant problems. It's all urgent stuff and a lot depends on it.
This is not normally a big deal, but right now I need a couple of days off. I need to hang round and watch my French superhero series, or read my BD, or talk on the phone without work resulting. In other words, I need a weekend to sort myself out after so much very hard work while I was overseas. I also need two days in bed, but that's not going to happen until my body finally realises that Australian time is where it needs to be.
The good news is that sleep at the regular time really diminishes the pain levels. The bad news is too many people are dumping things in my lap. Discovering more and still more work that I laboured hard to get under control before I left that is now not under control because people forgot while I was gone is not helpful. I don't want to have to remind people that I was ill while I was away. In fact, I shouldn't have to. Or that I wasn't on holiday.
I have made significant inroads on some crucial tasks: I've done the minimum amount of work so that I won't be thrown out of my PhD; I've done 2/3 of the urgent follow-up paperwork from my trip. All this would be great, if more stuff didn't keep appearing and if it wasn't all stuff that I had set up to happen without too much effort from anyone while I was away. Everyone who rings or emails thinks that they're the only person who has forgotten something and that it's only the one thing. All of them are blithely unapologetic. After all, I just had a month off. Or away, which counts as off.
I didn't even get to watch TV for an hour anytime this week without a phonecall or work intervening - this meant that a friend who rang last of all and just wanted to catch up got an earful, which was so not fair on her! (although I did disappear to Woden Plaza on Tuesday - 6 glorious hours without problems!)
Anyhow, I have made a decision. A Big Decision. I am taking Annual Holiday this year. A few days. Up to a fortnight. It will be at a time convenient to me and to no-one else (except maybe my mother). I will not follow up on emails during that time. I will not organise anything. I will not remind anyone of anything promised that hasn't arrived or check the work of anyone else to make sure it's OK. I will not act as an intermediary or do paperwork.
What's more, I'm not going to tell anyone when this holiday is happening until I'm actually on leave.
When I went on my very work-filled trip I let everyone know and checked that they all knew what had to be done and that I'd done everything to make it possible, after all. And I came back to a month's work in several areas that didn't quite happen, quite a bit of which I had to do myself (that list I made the other day of work I had done was somewhat incomplete - I did 100 hours of work my first eight days back, much of it sorting out other peoples' problems). So this time no-one gets warning beyond this post. And this time I'm not working while I'm away. I will take a break.
Thank you to all the friends who told me to rest, yesterday. I have to sort out the time difference problem (and why I have it) - dcotor's orders. I can't just sleep. And I don't have much recourse for the stuff that's happening now, because it's all running late and it's all time-dependent. I am doing the best I can, honestly - I don't want to be ill again.
The good news is that the inflammation from the flights went down considerably yesterday. I slept much better last night. I'm much slimmer than I was the whole time I was travelling. It all hurt as it went down (of course, this is a week when things hurt) but in an hour I lost two inches around the waist and a whole shoesize. This means that in a day or two I will be through the painful part of my own body cycle (remember that one day a month when everything hurts beyond bearing? that was yesterday) and it will be easier to deal with what life throws at me.
In fact, (since I rather like hard work) life will be significantly better from tomorrow. Just as long as other peoples' crises stop happening and I can get the eight hours remaining on my own urgent thingie (due tomorrow) I will be able to stop whingeing and start getting on with living.
This is not normally a big deal, but right now I need a couple of days off. I need to hang round and watch my French superhero series, or read my BD, or talk on the phone without work resulting. In other words, I need a weekend to sort myself out after so much very hard work while I was overseas. I also need two days in bed, but that's not going to happen until my body finally realises that Australian time is where it needs to be.
The good news is that sleep at the regular time really diminishes the pain levels. The bad news is too many people are dumping things in my lap. Discovering more and still more work that I laboured hard to get under control before I left that is now not under control because people forgot while I was gone is not helpful. I don't want to have to remind people that I was ill while I was away. In fact, I shouldn't have to. Or that I wasn't on holiday.
I have made significant inroads on some crucial tasks: I've done the minimum amount of work so that I won't be thrown out of my PhD; I've done 2/3 of the urgent follow-up paperwork from my trip. All this would be great, if more stuff didn't keep appearing and if it wasn't all stuff that I had set up to happen without too much effort from anyone while I was away. Everyone who rings or emails thinks that they're the only person who has forgotten something and that it's only the one thing. All of them are blithely unapologetic. After all, I just had a month off. Or away, which counts as off.
I didn't even get to watch TV for an hour anytime this week without a phonecall or work intervening - this meant that a friend who rang last of all and just wanted to catch up got an earful, which was so not fair on her! (although I did disappear to Woden Plaza on Tuesday - 6 glorious hours without problems!)
Anyhow, I have made a decision. A Big Decision. I am taking Annual Holiday this year. A few days. Up to a fortnight. It will be at a time convenient to me and to no-one else (except maybe my mother). I will not follow up on emails during that time. I will not organise anything. I will not remind anyone of anything promised that hasn't arrived or check the work of anyone else to make sure it's OK. I will not act as an intermediary or do paperwork.
What's more, I'm not going to tell anyone when this holiday is happening until I'm actually on leave.
When I went on my very work-filled trip I let everyone know and checked that they all knew what had to be done and that I'd done everything to make it possible, after all. And I came back to a month's work in several areas that didn't quite happen, quite a bit of which I had to do myself (that list I made the other day of work I had done was somewhat incomplete - I did 100 hours of work my first eight days back, much of it sorting out other peoples' problems). So this time no-one gets warning beyond this post. And this time I'm not working while I'm away. I will take a break.
Thank you to all the friends who told me to rest, yesterday. I have to sort out the time difference problem (and why I have it) - dcotor's orders. I can't just sleep. And I don't have much recourse for the stuff that's happening now, because it's all running late and it's all time-dependent. I am doing the best I can, honestly - I don't want to be ill again.
The good news is that the inflammation from the flights went down considerably yesterday. I slept much better last night. I'm much slimmer than I was the whole time I was travelling. It all hurt as it went down (of course, this is a week when things hurt) but in an hour I lost two inches around the waist and a whole shoesize. This means that in a day or two I will be through the painful part of my own body cycle (remember that one day a month when everything hurts beyond bearing? that was yesterday) and it will be easier to deal with what life throws at me.
In fact, (since I rather like hard work) life will be significantly better from tomorrow. Just as long as other peoples' crises stop happening and I can get the eight hours remaining on my own urgent thingie (due tomorrow) I will be able to stop whingeing and start getting on with living.