Categories
Work

Exhaustion…

…in which I talk about how friggin tired I’ve been lately.

I feel like for the past two months, my life’s been going a million miles an hour. When the new semester started, I was ready to get back to it and start working on that MFA again after taking a “new baby hiatus.” Unfortunately, the universe has conspired against me and while I was having a hard time finding the opportunity to photograph, things have gotten considerably more difficult to the point that I don’t even have the energy to think about anything other than what I’m doing at that very moment. Pre-planning is a thing of the past and almost everything is suffering from last minute realizations that I’ve forgotten something.

…in which I talk about how friggin tired I’ve been lately.

I feel like for the past two months, my life’s been going a million miles an hour. When the new semester started, I was ready to get back to it and start working on that MFA again after taking a “new baby hiatus.” Unfortunately, the universe has conspired against me and while I was having a hard time finding the opportunity to photograph, things have gotten considerably more difficult to the point that I don’t even have the energy to think about anything other than what I’m doing at that very moment. Pre-planning is a thing of the past and almost everything is suffering from last minute realizations that I’ve forgotten something.

So the first month of the semester went alright. I was attending class, I was thinking about photographing (even if I wasn’t actually doing so). Mid-February, my co-worker had his baby (okay, really his wife had the baby, but he was there) and he went on paternity leave for the next month. This meant that I now had to cover a lot of his duties in addition to mine. This was a level of additional work dedication I had not been thinking about, even though I knew his wife was pregnant. It just didn’t really occur to me until I was doing it. On top of this, we were preparing for a large server migration to occur the week after spring break, in mid-March. As the date for the migration got closer – and I was still doing my job, plus my co-worker’s job, plus the extra work required for the migration – my boss developed a bad case of pneumonia. This left our entire office staffed by myself and our student worker for the better part of three weeks, and we were still trying to get ready for this migration, in which my boss played the most major of roles. To add to this, I had three road trips lined up for late February and March (my trip to Arkansas, then my trip to Houston, and finally my trip to North Carolina).

And while some people will claim that its the oak pollen that’s making everyone so tired, I tend to think I’ve got some extenuating circumstances that are the cause of my overwhelming exhaustion. Did I mention that this year was the first year that the University actually took away our spring break, on top of everything else? So while the students and faculty got the week off in the middle of March, the staff (which include my wife and I) were all still working. So we didn’t even get the vacation in the middle of the semester that we’re used to. I’ve decided I really need a vacation, even if its just a week off at home – or heck, maybe even a four day weekend. I’m going to have to talk to my boss about that, because I’m dying here and I just need a couple days to regain my sanity.

6 replies on “Exhaustion…”

I completely understand the feeling — the universe conspired against me for most of this year until last weekend, when I finally said, “No more waiting.” Since then, I’ve been on a tear of productivity that’s leading to great, sleep-filled nights, relaxation, and overall peace. Just keep your head up and it will come around.

I completely understand the feeling — the universe conspired against me for most of this year until last weekend, when I finally said, “No more waiting.” Since then, I’ve been on a tear of productivity that’s leading to great, sleep-filled nights, relaxation, and overall peace. Just keep your head up and it will come around.

I work for a university too and staff have never gotten spring break off in the decade or so I’ve been around. Every fall faculty come back and want to ask me what crazy and exciting things I did over the summer (they even do this after spring break) because they have some story they want to tell. The wind seems to get knocked out of their sails though when I tell them I showed up for work every day.

I work for a university too and staff have never gotten spring break off in the decade or so I’ve been around. Every fall faculty come back and want to ask me what crazy and exciting things I did over the summer (they even do this after spring break) because they have some story they want to tell. The wind seems to get knocked out of their sails though when I tell them I showed up for work every day.

Chalupa: this was the first year that they took away our Spring Break, so we’re probably just not used to it. We do, however, have the same conversation with our faculty every May, August and December. 😉

Chalupa: this was the first year that they took away our Spring Break, so we’re probably just not used to it. We do, however, have the same conversation with our faculty every May, August and December. 😉

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *