Friday General Chat

BeebopandBuddy · January 2015

So sorry for your loss @miss50. Hang in there.

amandad715 · January 2015

@miss50‌
I'm so sorry for your loss! Thoughts and prayers are with you and your family!

Hyaline · January 2015

tinyhumantoe said:

Hyaline said:

I thought I'd love being a SAHM, but it turns out I effing hated it. Seems the things I didn't like about working were much more about my office taking advantage of me and having a crumstastic managerial structure around me than with actually working--I love going to work. Ha. Joke was on me.

THT--I'm gonna be totally honest and possibly wrong but here goes--I agree that the stress you share here is work stress. But--gulp--much of it feels either self-inflicted or things that you allow to happen. That is--you have an "if I don't do X that invades me life totally the world will implode" attitude about many things that is either self-imposed or is NOT fair for a boss to put on you and you have not or can not stand up to it. If that's your stress MO, it's not going to go away with a new work environment and a new boss--ie, being at home with kids. Don't mistake a vacation from what you usually stress about to be a lack of potential stressors.

Not saying you might not be a totally contended SAHM, but I think you do have some "big picture life questions" to consider if the contrast between work and home is this stark for you.

Hmm I think that's probably correct in some ways, and wrong in others. I think the difference between being home and the pressure I feel at my job is that stark. 95% would go away with a new job.

The perfect life for me would be to go back to teaching. I loved everything about it; I think it lets you have a good family balance. The level of stress with that job was very manageable for me. It was "lower stakes" than my current job, just like being an ER doctor would be higher stakes than my current job, for me personally. I feel like I could appreciate everything about it after this job.

I never really know what to say when the responses to my (admittedly endless) work vents are - tell your boss no / don't do it / etc. It's just a weird situation all around- I am a company owner and will eventually be a majority owner of the company. My family is involved, which is a whole different fuck basket. I have an interest in the success of the company and a level of responsibility there. It's new technology so that brings other weird problems, and the places that use some of our equipment can't have it go down because of public safety.

Most "self-inflicted stress' isn't because I don't have the nuts to tell my boss no, it's because it has to be done and it sometimes literally comes down to me. We're all working like dogs, it's not just me. I feel like when I start to explain the situation a little, it makes me come across as really self-important. It's not that I'm super duper or something, it's just that there are a handful of things where I'm literally the only person who can do them, mostly because we're a small company with new technology. Small companies are stretched thin during periods of growth and we keep thinking there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but we've doubled every year for the past 6 and can't seem to catch our breath.

I'm kind of a bulldog at work out of necessity (I can be stern for the good of my company but struggle with it personally? Psychoanalyze that, ha), but I have to assume that some percentage of my stress falls within my personality. Someone who frets for days over what to say to a neighbor trying to sell them advocare is surely manufacturing some type of unnecessary stress at work, too. My guess is it's around 75/25 real vs manufactured. I would say in my personal life it's the inverse. 75% of my personal stress is due to lack of nuts.

I can appreciate all of this--my point is that the "stress traps" that exist in your personal life will have the potential to grow or to invent new ones if you don't identify what's triggering stress and how your personality feeds that and work on ways around it. For instance--the "it's down to me and it's huge" problem? I actually thrive on that. On deadlines, on lists, on knocking out projects, on it coming down to my work. I have a feeling that, had I gone into medicine, ER doc would have been right up my alley. (And maybe this is partially why SAH wasn't for me...) Not the case for you--and that's good that you're identifying that. But it doesn't disappear because you decide to be a SAHM or take a different job--you'll identify that the bathroom must be cleaned and ONLY YOU can do it and feel pressure from the mildew (ok, exaggeration...but you see my point

).

And I do get the "I have to do it and no one else can" issue--I was at a small company and, yeah. When there are four employees, three contractors, and the owner, everyone gets stretched thin. Then, when I worked for a large department in a huge university, and was still the only person who could do 50% of what I did (to the point that I literally was told I couldn't take days off because no one could cover my work), the problem was definitely crap organization and management. Though I didn't mind the pressure, it was stupid on their part--if I got hit by a bus they were screwed. It's a shit situation to be in.

miss50 · January 2015

I want to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers. We are finally home and now the reality of it all is really starting to hit. Thank you so much ladies, I am very happy to have all of you.

kelbel527 · January 2015

I'm so sorry for your loss @miss50.

melody921 · January 2015

miss50 said:

Sob story here, death mentioned. .. MIL passed away on Tuesday pretty unexpectedly 1200 miles away. DH doesn't fly so we headed out immediately. After rummaging thru her apartment and handling arrangements I am an exhausted mess trying to hold it together for him. I am just so sad for him, my daughter, and stepdaughters. Right now I am so thankful for the support we have at home and just grateful. Grateful for life. Rant over, in case anyone was wondering if I was still alive. Glad to hear all your holidays were so successful.

@miss50, just seeing this now. So sorry for your family's loss.

Pokedot · January 2015

I'm so sorry @miss50. I just saw. T & P's your way.

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