Breaking up is hard to do
So, that was a little longer between posts than I’d originally intended. Sorry. Stuff has been happening. Stuff of an un-fun nature, about which I don’t want to say a hell of a lot. This is meant to be a humourous blog, after all. (Remember back in the days when this was a humourous blog? Really? Do ya? Go to the archives and check out 2004. Ignore January.)
But I will say this (and I want you to pay close attention because your welfare is my concern):
Never, never, never put your job before everything else in your life. Do not. I don’t care how much you love it. I don’t care that you believe it was the job you were put on this earth to do. If your job is worthwhile and benefits the human race or a small part thereof, and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy … I’m still not caring. Do not put it first. Because when you burn out (and believe me, you will), and yet still keep going (because, let’s face it, you’re an idiot), one of two things will happen:
1. You will have a complete breakdown (this didn’t happen to me).
2. When you’re still approximately two bad days away from a complete breakdown, your body will take matters into its own hands and give you a warning in the form of the mother of all panic attacks while you’re at work (this did happen to me). You find yourself walking out the door, getting into your car and driving home, all the time screaming inside at yourself and trying to ignore the little voice that’s telling you to drive headlong at speed into oncoming traffic.
And here’s the outcome, tidily summarised for you in a convenient, arrow-pointed list:
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You turn into a shaking, crying, terrified wreck every time you even think about your workplace (this lasted a month).
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Your brain shuts down whenever anything to do with your workplace comes up, so that five minutes after you’ve had a phone conversation with someone work-related, you can’t remember anything they said (so did this).
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You’re pronounced medically unfit to go back.
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You grieve for your job like a motherfucker because you loved it with all your heart and you still do … but all this other physical, mental and emotional stuff takes over and you have no control over any of it. It’s almost like you’ve developed an allergy (this is still going on, two and a half months after the original attack).
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You finally get to see who your real friends are — especially among your former colleagues — and that, dear superheroes, is perhaps the biggest revelation of them all.
Oh, and here’s the funniest bit. This bit is just jinky! (I made that word up. Can’t see it catching on.) After two months, you’re starting to feel a little better. You know … not wanting to be dead all the time, starting to contemplate what you might do next, almost beginning to enjoy your freedom … and then you get a phone message, with “some news you’ll just LOVE!”.
The Mornings show you presented, an outside broadcast you presented on location last year and the radio station where you’ve worked for two and a half years (and managed for eight months) have all made the finals of some national awards! Woohoo! “We’re all very proud of you!” Yay! “It’s a shame you won’t be there to collect anything if you win!”
I don’t know if anyone’s ever died from a surfeit of irony in their lives but I’m starting to think I’m a serious contender.
Anyway, before I leave this subject, about which I didn’t want to say “a hell of a lot” (see beginning of the post … yeah, all the way up there near the top of the page), here are a few very special circumstances under which you should never make your job the #1 priority. Yes, you shouldn’t do it anyway, but I can’t emphasise this enough:
1. After you’ve been diagnosed with cancer
2. After a death
3. When there’s something really good on TV
4. Ever
Note that I’m not telling you to leave your job. I’m just saying you shouldn’t put it first. But if a day ever comes when you realise you’ve divorced people for less shit than the amount you’ve eaten at your workplace over the years … then get the fuck out of there. Right now. You have my blessing.
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17 comments
phew - its your job thats gone, I was worried that the title indicated the Dreamboat was gone…I’m relieved!
I’ve always been one to work to live rather than live to work, I’m an unashamed cliock watcher, I just think life is too short to spend more than 8 hours a day in the office. (or maybe I just dont like my job enough?)
Ditto Kirses’ comment about the Dreamboat.
I’ve wavered there and back a number of times. The one thing that cured me was finding something else to obsess about. Unfortunately for my other half, it wasn’t him
I hope you’re on the way up. Your readership is cheering you on!
Darlin’s, there’s no way I’d let the Dreamboat go. Given that he’s the only one around here interested in helping me pick up all my pieces, I’m holding on to him as tightly as I can. And I’m trying to show him how much I appreciate him (through food, which always works).
K: You’ve obviously got the work/life balance thing down pat. Good stuff. I think what spurred me on to stupid lengths where my own job was concerned was that it had been my dream to work in radio for 25 years and it finally came true. Oh, there were wonderful things about that job, no doubt about it, and that’s why it’s so hard to leave it.
C: Thanks for the good wishes. Yeah, it’s getting better — at least I can write about it now, which must mean something.
Given your ’something else to obsess about’ comment, I suspect you and I are cut from similar cloth.
double phew. I thought the same thing at first…even though my head was going…oh, hell no. No way. No effing way that happened.
But I’m so sorry you’ve been through the mill. Reading this confirms what I discovered last year when I walked out of the cubicle and said no more. I hope you find work that gives you what you need without taking you to pieces. I’m on the road to that myself and while it’s a big job learning to trust myself…it’s so good to not feel like I’m in a meat grinder.
xo to you dear… have missed your voice out here…goodness…you’re one of the very first blogs I read when I started back in the late 90s…lifetimes ago.
Ahh… sweet irony. What a bitch it can be. You need to know it’s not you. Many people in the last days of the former Queen have gone the same way…..
The South (and maybe the north) shall rise againg
I actually thought, from the title, that you were breaking up with *us*, your loyal blog readers. Whew.
When I worked at my previous job, I was pretty fed up with it. My strategy was to do as little work as possible until I got laid off and could collect severance pay. But that didn’t work; I eventually just had to quit.
It looks like you’re getting your priorities straight now. Chin up, sweetheart! You know we’re all rooting for you. (Though I’m not sure if I should be rooting for your show to win the award, or rooting against it out of spite for your former employers.)
Kelly: Always so generous with your support and encouragement, even though you have more than enough on your own plate. Thank you, sweetheart.
I think you and Ms Kirses are ‘hot water’s’ longest-serving readers and yeah, you’re right … a lot’s happened in that time. Cool that we’re all still blogging, eh?
BBQ: Haha! Thanks for stopping by and for the reassurance. I understand what you’re saying. Here’s to resurrections.
Ken: Ooh, you’re a clever man. Back in those first awful weeks, I did decide to shut down the blog. I even announced this intention to the Dreamboat. But come the point … I couldn’t. I hated the idea of ending what was originally supposed to be a humour blog on such a sad and sour note. So ‘hot water’ is safe for now … although if/when it gets funny again, watch out.
Thanks so much for the warm wishes, my friend. And as for those awards … behind every good show is a good producer and it’s very much a team effort. Much as I’d love to take all the credit, I can’t. So for that reason, I hope we do win.
I did think twice about commenting, but as I knew you first from this blog before as a colleague, I decided I would.
You are absolutely right on the money. No job is more important than your health - or I would add - the health of your family.
In the end, if we love what we do for work, we’ll find a way to do it… or something like it… and the skills that we gain in one job will enhance whatever comes next.
And I hope you do win. You put 100% in when you were at work and deserve to.
xx
Thank you, Ma’am :).
I appreciate all the encouragement and support you’ve given me but I know you already know that.
Onwards and upwards!
Never a truer word spoken…..such a shame in the process people hurt and when you think it won’t happen to you as you see others go before you or see hurt happen…wham……..
People are far more important than work….friendships should never be put before any job and family time is another no compromise cos at the end of the day……..the “they” you are showing misguided loyalty to will find someone else to fill the space you leave and will cut ou like a knife for many months after.
tread lightly…….then go foward, heal and mend the bridges and people you may have sacrificed while put “work’ before all else.
You will be okay and you will be stronger.
I especially enjoyed your list of four.
So true.
Hang in there.
Thank you, Julies. Good advice. Will do.
It’s a tough time but will get better.
Look at the people who supported you, sounds like a long journey and perhaps you will find there was more love given to you than not and loyalites you gave to your old company or business may have been placed in the wrong order.
Now that is always a bummer.. I have experienced something similar and I found my fastest path to feeling better about life was to go back and say the sorries that I needed to and did I need to!!!
Now THAT was hard as i judged former coleageus and made their life hard but, I fixed that and we have talked and I feel better so do they.
The company however, not so forgiving and for all the bucket of blood and sweat and time i gave, it was the people I accidentally hurt who have shown me what dignity and strength really are. I thought I was being responsible, doing the right thing and all the time I was missing out on precious time with my friends and family and for what in the end???
Plus, Whoever convinced you to go back to work 5 minutes after cancer was not looking after your best interest what a shame there was nobody to say take time out, cancer is a life altering event and you need support through that and a cushion to say it’s okay..but you need TIME to deal with it, that is what someone who cared would have done and your job would have been there when you were ready (one hopes but by the sounds of it I am not so sure).
Anyway….back to me…so after a few months, it taught me a valuable lesson and despite my tears and sleepless nights, I know that making a couple of phone calls to say sorry was very hard but the rewards are so so worth it and now I have two former workmates who are now my dearest friends who are there but, as far as my old company and the heirarchy goes….not a word in fact, now that was the breaking up part that was hard.
It does get better but the journey begins with you taking the first step and it can be hard and you may feel very humble, and taking some responsibility of things that go boom is not an easy dessert to stomach but the healing that comes is liberating and you can hold your head high and move forward.
You are made of tougher stuff than you give yourself credit for…. you can do this.
I am so glad i found this page, life does stuff like that, hooks you up with the right people at the right time.
at least I know I am not the only one
J, you’ve obviously been through a lot and it sounds as you’ve risen far above the situation that put you through so much grief. Thanks for your encouragement and good wishes. They’re reciprocated.
Niki,
glad to see that you’re over the hump. came pretty close to a nervous breakdown myself, though i don’t particularly love my job. blogging was a good “out” for a while, i ended up getting myself a demotion and being a lot happier for it, still not perfect, but happier.
seems like you’ve gone through worse though. if i had the wisdom to spare either you or me from that crap, i woulda, but i don’t.
glad you’ve still got Mr Dreamboat. i must admit i cringed when i read the title, a lot. i was very relieved to hear it was just nasty work stuff which has also caused me pain.
i’m gonna visit my sister in west oz sooner or later, and go swimming with whale sharks and take photos, and do some diving there too which i’m told is quite good. that’s my little carrot onna stick. i realise west oz is spread out like all of vic, nsw and qld, and karratha is about a million miles from broome (sister) and exmouth (souther) so might just have to have a “shit, came this close” virtual beer with you both
regards
rat
Rat, darlin’ … have you been and gone? Or are you yet to make the trip? If you’re still planning to come over, let me know. Karratha’s mid-way between Broome and Exmouth, so it’s a logical place to stop. You’re very welcome to come here and sample our hospitality
Glad things are better for you. Thanks, as always, for the encouragement.
xx
gees i really should visit more regularly
going to be in Broome from the 21st sep to 29th. was going to travel up and down, but now i think i’m going to drink a lot with my sister hehehe but you never know
my next trip however, i am planning a big drive up the coast of w.a. and was gonna bug you for a visit and say g’day to the pair of you
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