As many of you already know, work for me lately has been just that…work. The variation in my day to day job I loved when I started 5 years ago has slowly eroded until I’ve found myself sitting in front of my computer tracking data 8 hours a day–day in day out. It’s not even so much the tracking data that’s gotten to me, it’s that all of my options for doing something “different” still involve staring at the same computer screen. All the computer time has taken a toll on my body. My neck and back have had somewhat ongoing issues and I’ve gotten grumpier, fatter, and more disillusioned with work over the course of the past year or two. I updated my resume recently, and realized the last time I felt this way (and thus updated my resume) was July of 2009. In my annual performance review this year my boss wrote that I am an “invaluable asset” to our lab. I didn’t tell him at the time, but I couldn’t feel more like a cog in a wheel.
Time to change something. Anything.
So I updated my resume, searched job postings, and even sat for an interview. I made lists, trying to weigh the positives and negatives of my current predicament, as well as my wishes for future employment. I analyzed what I could change about my current situation to make it better. I got permission from my husband (more than once) to quit my job, considered starting a family, and considered dropping out of school. If anything I was thorough.
So what did I decide? I decided that for a number of reasons I don’t enjoy working in the lab anymore and made this clear to my boss. We’ve agreed that I need to reduce my hours this Spring to finish school…not just pretend to reduce my hours as I’ve previously tried. Once my thesis is finished, I’d really like to go back to training athletes and helping in the office…this made me the happiest before, and hopefully will once again–at least in the short term. I’m going to stop trying to guess what I’ll be doing 5 years from now, and just work on 5 months from now. After all, if 5 years ago someone would have told me I’d end up in Utah married to a nice Mormon boy I would have laughed in their faces.
I don’t know if this new direction will work in solving the frustration I’ve been dealing with lately, but I don’t think it can hurt. Only time will tell. Thanks as always for all the support.
S.~