Work Has Been Really Much Lately

So since my co-worker retired, we have had to fill in for her.  We have, or at least I have, realized I need to refresh my memory on how to do things, and there are new things I either haven't done in ages, haven't done at all even though I was trained to do it, or have not been taught how to do.  On top of that, there has been primarily only one person assigned to The Third Department every day, and the work is not manageable enough for only person to do all day.  Well, it can.  I've done it a few days a week this past work week.  It's just that I have had to stay an extra hour, or two.

I used to call The Third Department my favorite department because it was a difference in both task and environment from the first two positions I got trained in.  But with no one who's been at the job for years to lean on anymore, we are fending for ourselves, and even though I guess I am getting by, it's been overwhelming, particularly this week.  I cannot call this department my favorite anymore.

Yesterday/Friday was an indication of how bonkers it gets.  We get our shipment of forms every morning flown in from the South.  As usually happens once in January, a snowstorm down south prevents the shipment for that day.  That happened yesterday/Friday: A flight was cancelled, and we got a third of the forms we were supposed to get.  That meant that all the people out in data entry (My Main Department, although I think I might have to change that designation because I work in the back a little more often nowadays) got done very early.  (They might have to make up for it, by the way; the shipment that got delayed might come as early as today/Saturday, in which case they will have two days' worth of work to do over the course of one day.  I am on call in case that delayed shipment comes in, and yes, I might be doing data entry for several hours this afternoon if need be.)  But, and maybe I should have realized this earlier than I did, the work they get does not come from the same sources from which I get work in The Third Department.  While all the keyers left, I got flooded with things I needed to do -- so much so that I stayed an extra 1:45 minutes yesterday/Friday.  That was on top of the extra 1:15 or so Thursday.

Work so far in 2025 has been so stressful, and has me so strung out, that after work both Thursday and yesterday/Friday, once I came home, I eventually got really groggy and conked off to take naps deep in the evening -- about 90 minutes Thursday night, maybe a half-hour just this past evening.  I wanted to stay up to listen to both College Football Playoff Semifinals on SiriusXM, but I just couldn't.  I fell asleep to both Games and woke up after they both got done, even though I may have woken up just long enough to listen to Drew Allar throwing that Game-losing Interception for Penn St. and Jack Sawyer's scoop-and-score for Ohio St. to seal their Win before I fell back asleep.  Or maybe not.  I don't remember the last time work has physically beaten me into unconsciousness.

Now, a part of the general weariness I have leaving work is that this lab closing continues to flood the company with work I have had to deal with in The Fourth Department, which is also not a picnic.  That is supposed to subside at some point this month.  The work in The Third Department will not.  The workload that has been will continue to be.  The big problem, and I don't know if my supervisor or boss sees this, is that The Third Department is not a one-person job.  It may not be a two-person job -- I still wonder whether my co-worker back there was simply laid off over the summer in a cost-cutting move -- but it sure as hell is not a one-person job.  I should add that yesterday/Friday, the person holding down The Fourth Department helped me with an important task I should have gotten to well before the mid-afternoon but simply couldn't.  Without her coming to rescue me like an angel from on high, I would not have been able to finish all the work I absolutely had to do before I had to leave ten hours after I bleepin' started work.  She said that she was busy with work too, and she was surprised she put in a full day when many other departments scrammed after only a half-day.  I'm still shocked she still had time t help me.  And if she can get through her day of work in that position faster than I can ... well, my higher-ups might have questions as to why she can get done faster with her stuff faster than I can.

And, well, that's my saving grace in all this.  I might be inundated with all this work, but the company wants the work to get done, so I am racking up the overtime.  Yeah, I don't know if I have mentioned this, but my boss has not bitched at me about OT since around Easter.  I think my co-worker getting let go (or fired) has resulted in a paucity of workers to do all the work that has to be done.  Maybe others can do their job at 40 hours a week, but I can't, I haven't, and I haven't heard any crap for it.  Maybe I will hear more blowback now that the holidays are over and overtime is priced at time-and-a-half and not time.  (By the way, that might change now that That Fucking Guy will be installed as President again.  I think he and Republicans are proposing a change that allows companies to spread overtime thresholds over a whole month instead of a week.  Stupid damn MAGAts).

My boss is going to have a meeting late in the month about how The Third Department is working out now that there is no one full-time back there.  I don't want to lose work per se, but I really don't want to be overworked and abandoned back there, so I am going to tell him that it's too much for one person.  That might bring about meaningful change ... or it might bring about me losing my job.  Who knows?