Actually, I might be able to hone in on something. It may not be the crux of my problems, but it's a problem. I have gotten obsessed with leaving work -- in particular, I am now trying to avoid leaving when everybody else leaves. That is around 3:30, when apparently the majority of people on my campus clock out. In the past I have left when everybody else has left. That creates a bottleneck of cars on the way out, as you could probably imagine. But there's also this: Our buildings have only one way in and out. So, when everybody's leaving at the same time, you can see sometimes half a dozen cars, maybe more, lining up where the end of the property line and the intersection meet. And if there are enough cars, and if some of them don't get a move on, or if traffic coming from the other way stops them, we would move up and have to wait through yet another red light. That's a goddamn hell when I don't have to hurry home. When I have only so much time to eat and sleep before I start my second job, waiting for two and even three lights is unbearable and unacceptable.
So, what's my solution? In the past, I have chosen to stay a bit later and let the wave of cars itching to leave pass by me so I don't have to go through the stress of waiting with other people. But I can't do that while I have a night job, plus there are some weeks, such as this week, where I cannot get overtime, and therefore I have to make sure I top out at 40 hours or I will get in trouble. So if I can't stay late and I don't want to leave when everyone else is, my current solution is to stay late on Monday, when there are fewer people at work so leaving just past 3:30 isn't that big a deal, and then make that up by leaving early the rest of the week. I can beat the traffic leaving work -- right?
That's not happening this week. For the past couple days I have been in the lab. And the unwinding to get out of the lab -- it consists of putting things away, putting other things in other places, having someone open the door for me, then tossing the lab coat into a hamper -- is as long as a Japanese kabuki ritual. It also does not make me look good when I leave earlier than other people in my group; not only are people thinking I'm skipping out from work, but the people in the lab really, really dislike getting out of their desks just so they can enter a code for one stranger to leave the lab because inevitably another stranger will ask to leave a minute later. It takes time to find someone, then some more time to herd the other people in my group to amass at the door, before we can leave.
I thought I had built in enough time for all those contingencies, but for the past two workdays I have not been able to leave as early as I wanted. Therefore, I am keyed up and I have been ... let's just say impatient with other people as I am trying to get out the door. And by the time I start my car, I am in the thick of other people leaving simultaneously. That gins up more feelings of bitterness and aggression in me, so I respond by gunning my car through the green light as soon as the coast is clear, even if my co-workers think they have the right-of-way.
That's what I've been doing this week because that is how I have been feeling this week. Yes, this makes me look like a dick. But since I've got shit to do, I want to get home as early as possible. And yet what I have tried to do in order to get home as early as possible has not been enough, and it's upsetting me. And unfortunately, this won't change unless I get OT or until my test scoring project is over. I guess I could leave the lab even earlier, or not care about being stuck in the traffic on the way out of campus. But that ain't me. That might make it more difficult to deal with me. But hey, I gotta be me.
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