But it's in those hours of stress and suffering in which I notice moments of grace. And I gotta say that my co-worker, one who works right next to me, saved my ass when I felt so lonely yesterday. Now, I have to point out that there was not a whole lot of new stuff that came in yesterday; it was as few as it was on Monday, so that was a big weight off my shoulders. All the unique problems I had to deal with pushed all the new stuff I needed to tackle later in the workday than I would have liked, so having so few things to do then was very alleviating. But my co-worker, probably sensing my stress, took half of those new forms off my plate, which made the end of my day much easier. Furthermore, she noticed that a lot of those forms that were sent to me could have, if not should have, gone to her and my other co-worker in My Favorite Department instead. That raises the possibility, if not probability, that I have been doing too much on my end back in The Fourth Department for far too long, and that somebody is giving me more work than I should be doing.
I have come across several articles about the workplace environment changing since the pandemic began -- The Great Resignation, "quiet quitting," steadfastly not making friends at work, etc. That last concept is an idea I have largely believed ... when I do believe it. What I think I mean by that is that I vacillate on the idea. Work, especially this week, is so fucking overwhelming that I usually do not want to associate with anyone even tangentially connected to work, and specifically a space that causes me distress and anxiety. If I'm getting yelled at by you at work, why in the hell would I want to know you outside of it? But that sets up an antagonistic mindset, one where it's you against other people when the "enemy" might not be those other people, but the work itself. Just writing that gives me pause; if the other people I work with recognize it's the work that's the "bad guy," they wouldn't be yelling at me, for fuck's sake.
But it's times when work is at its worst where you could use a co-worker who empathizes with you, and even shares your burden. And hey, not only did she take some of what I thought were my responsibilities -- which, by the way, allowed me to get out of work only an hour earlier than I should have instead of two, and that's a big goddamn deal -- but she seemed to care about what I was going through. And for yesterday and today, there is no authority figure hanging around where we are working; our supervisor is taking the rest of the week off. Oh, I should circle back and say this: These unique problems I had to deal with yesterday morning? I relied on her to help, massively. And she did. And so I ... well, looked, and look, to her as a supervisor. She has saved my ass time and again ever since I started work back there.
It pays to have an ally. It pays to have a co-worker whom you can ask for help, and with whom you can feel as though she's on your side against the work, if not other co-workers who appear to be bitching at you for no good reason. That may not be socializing at work. But the idea that you should completely separate your work life from your personal life seems absurd when you need somebody to help you at work. I personally like her. I really do! And she's going to help talk to my supervisor next week about this looming problem of me getting work that should be going to her and her co-worker. That's ... being a good person. An ally. So ... yeah, maybe yesterday wasn't a bad day after all.
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