As I climbed into bed last night, I said to Nad, “I hate this.”
I was referring to my daily schedule. Let me give an example of my typical day:
- Alarm goes off at 5AM; hit ‘snooze’ for another 50 minutes.
- Slowly drag myself out of bed and by 6AM I’m getting ready.
- At 6:30 I’m in my car headed for the bus stop.
- The bus drops me off close to work at a quarter to 8AM.
- I work until 5:58PM, which is the second-to-last bus out of DC.
- I’m off the bus and back in the car at 7:20PM.
- At home at 7:30PM to make dinner and generally relax.
- I’m in bed by 11PM and am asleep thirty minutes later.
The above assumes that I’m travelling alone. When I’m with Nad, everything shifts back about an hour.
Every morning I feel worn out, often falling asleep again on the bus. Just this morning, I was seconds away from missing my stop (I’ve done that before and ended up at Capitol Hill, pretty far away). The evenings feel far too short, not giving me enough time to get anything of value done.
I’m tired of being tired all the time. I’m tired of not having enough time for myself. Don’t think that I’m trying to feel sorry for myself or anything. I know plenty of people whose daily routines are much worse and would love to have the above schedule. I just feel my body slowing down and having a harder and harder time with it. This is the same schedule I’ve held for the past nine months. At the beginning, it was easy, but now I feel my strength draining.
Any and all suggestions are welcome.
Edit: Fixed formatting issues.
I know how you’re feeling. I spent five years at Walter Reed. The first years were fun and new… The last couple of years were tireing. When the job gets monotonous, it gets harder and harder to go to it.
Suggestion:
1. See if you can add something new to your daily work load. This will give you something new to look forward to and make the “work” into a learning process.
2. See if you can cross train. This will have the same effect as suggestion #1.
3. Involve the people you work around in some office antics. The desk chair races have always been on of my favorites lol.
Hope this helps a little
I should probably say that I’m not bored with my job. I haven’t been here long enough for that to happen! If I was able to stay with Prometric for five years, I can work anywhere for much longer. Besides, I get paid to do one of my hobbies. How could I complain?
The only two things I can imagine as better jobs is developing video games or D&D campaigns.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: move into the city! I know that may not be feasible, but seriously – a very long commute is one of those things that can drive you away from a good job in spite of all the good things about it. If you like your job, I’d say try to rearrange a different part of your life to make it easier to do your job. Maybe look into telecommuting 1 day a week? Why do you need to get to work so early? Could you come in later?
I come in early b/c I often travel with Nad, and she typically has to report for formation at 6:45AM.
I made this post all about me, and how I’ve been dealing with it for the past 10 months. Nadia’s schedule/commute is worse than mine, and she’s been doing it for over three years!
The idea of telecommuting sounds great. I’d work from home on Wednesdays, to break up the weekend.
I agree with Joe. If you can’t get up in the morning and say to yourself “today, I’m doing something different or going a different path”, don’t bother. I Can’t agree with Jordan. Experts say its the winding down commute effect that saves a person from:
a. Bringing home the work and raising stress levels
b. Coming home, getting the gat, and spraying his/her friendly neiborhoods
It cools you down going home and warms you up going to work. Its always around that halg way point that you get that feeling. So hang in there Will. You of all people should know how to utilize the mind to make reality a little more pleasing. Today, I going to Bulgaria without leaving New York. Think about it.