Code-Shark101's Journals -- Fur Affinity [dot] net

The Long Road

General | Posted 3 years ago

Because DeviantArt doesn't have a journal tab on the mobile platform.

This one is sort of a mired self inspection, looking at all those different little angles in one's life and trying to make sense of the cords. Better known as, I am mentally exhausted and need to ramble to keep my sanity.

It boils down to working to much overtime say seventy six hours working eighty hours regular time. That and a particularly attentive boss who will hunt you down if your paperwork is even slightly out of order. Learned that the hard way. That and just dealing with exhausting coworkers, now roll all three into one and you have the lovely cocktail that I have chosen to drink each day.

This is all for a good cause, or so I tell myself, one, pay off all debt, two, establish an emergency fund, three, put down a payment on a house, and four, retirement.

All to put ones life in nice and neat order.

The only drawback, this overtime is killing me, I mean this metaphorically though I suspect it becomes more litteral each day. Pain behind the eyeballs due to sleep deprivation, that's a real killer as it eats away at your sanity as well as your health. Your reflexes are dulled, and temper begins to fray, little things that were easy to ignore become festering thorns to the point one needs to make a mental check just to avoid gnawing a fellow coworkers head off for trivialities. Worse yet is knowing how many days you can put up with these symptoms, and how far you can push before they become serious symptoms.

I would compare this to deep sea diving, like the sea the deeper you go, the more pressure you are put under, light fades and eventually you reach a point where you can't tell up from down or down from up. It is all just one crushing blur. I nicknamed this state of being 'The Dead Zone' as one can achieve this in a simple thirteen day period by working overtime.

While in this zone, nothing can touch you. The worst offenders are nothing more than dull shadows screaming to get some kind of reaction out of you. Coworkers become akin to being surrounded by zombies, docile enough and sometimes almost tolerable to be around. Sometimes.

When in this state you are untouchable. As I informed my coworkers, "If nothing is on fire, no one died, and/or there are no major lawsuits pending - then nothing happened that day.'

Worse yet is that the thirteen day cycle slowly merges all days into one. There is no concept of Monday, Friday, ext. It is all just one big day that lasts two weeks. On the one day you have off, one dedicates this to cleaning, washing clothes, and preparing meals for thirteen days. So even the free day is not free. When one is not setting to right all the little aspects of life, one is busy hammering down the parts outside of work that are unraveling. Or sleeping, if given the opportunity, it is best to spend at least twenty hours asleep. Something I had not expected to be humanely possible, but when the body is exhausted, the body will sleep. Waking only to take a piss, scarf food, and promptly pass out again.

And then, the cycle starts again.

What I morn truly is the loss of creativity, this overtime kills all creature thought leaving a hollow husk in its place. It is this loss of creativity that I write this post about, as I debate. Is it worth doing this much OT? At the loss of all you hold dear and treasure. But if one stops, what about the future, what about the practical? Is there a balance?

If you have any advice, please, send it my way.

Thanks for listening.

Yours,

C.S.

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