I have experienced some massive changes and disruptions in the workplace over the past 5 years. I have changed jobs, been bullied out of jobs and experienced major management changes but this story is a little different.
I recently started a job at the beginning of the year as a Marketing Assistant with a really cool company, which seeing as I applied for an unpaid internship, I was ecstatic about being offered a paid role instead. The team at this company are super supportive, really creative and all help each other out continuously which is just a dream as you can imagine. I was especially keen to show them my skills and develop them as well as grow as a person in this role, which is part-time. The company is based in Sydney which is sometimes a two hour drive one-way with traffic which can be taxing when you just want to be home and unwind at the end of a big day.
I was putting in some big days and trying to manage uni, looking after myself, going to the gym, cooking and house work, and manage some type of social life. Needless to say that I couldn’t manage it all. I was struggling to keep up with uni and going to the gym and even manage house work was being neglected altogether. Let alone a social interaction? Hardly, I would talk to my house mates and that was all I could fit in.
“Michael White (1997) then introduced the term ‘re-membering’ into narrative therapy
Russell & Carey, 2002. Remembering: responding to commonly asked questions.
by developing the idea that people’s identities are shaped by what can be referred to as a
‘club of life‘ “.
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com.
My family started to realise the impact it was having on me, even from living five hours away. My two closest club of life members, my Dad and my partner, started to ask me how everything was going and I just broke down. I thought I was managing it okay until they asked me this. I also had someone ask me “So you’re doing all of this, which is amazing, but when do you have time for play, for you?”
This question really stuck with me for a few days and I began to reflect really hard on the workload I was taking on and I realised if I kept going I was going to, not only miss out on making memories in my last semester of uni, but that I was going to burn-out completely.
I decided to externalise these thoughts and feelings with my Dad, which I then explained that I didn’t want to have to cut my uni down to part-time because I am almost finished and it would be silly not to get it done when I am so close. But I also didn’t want to cut down hours at work because I wanted to impress them in order to hopefully gain a full-time position when I graduate. My Dad listened and talked it out with me and offered a number of different perspectives to look at this from, one being, if I do all of this work for this company and they don’t offer me a position at the end of the year, I’ll regret slogging myself into the ground and not enjoying the little time I have left as a uni student.
My Dad allowed a space for me to look at my values and priorities and what is important to me.
“The taking of experience and attending to it and pondering it and putting it into a form means inevitably that we are taking a past, and taking a past that we agree—within ourselves or with others—has consequence. We are saying that our affairs matter, that we have not only a past, but because of that we have a future.”
Barbara Myerhoff, Stories as Equipment for Living (2007)
Having to call my boss and tell them that I was going to cut down my hours caused me a great deal of anxiety because I didn’t want them to think of me in a different light but the emotional labour of taking on a workload that you can’t sustain to the point of burn-out is a worse emotional toll. But I was finding it hard to even handle these emotions at work and not resent my amazing work colleagues because I was feeling overwhelmed.
Ultimately, my boss was really supportive and understanding about the situation and said that she was glad I spoke up when I did and didn’t allow it to get too bad that I couldn’t work at all.
My club of life helped me externalise the conversation of struggling to stay above water and allowed me a place to discover different perspectives of the narrative moving forward into the future chapters of my story. I am almost 2 weeks into cutting down my hours and am so much happier, fulfilled and feel like I can do basic tasks for myself again (uni is still crazy but at least I’m keeping up)!
Moral of the story, overworking yourself to the point of neglecting your priorities is not worth the ‘potential rewards’ you seek. You can still get to where you’re striving for by taking a step back and looking after yourself. These values I have now, of looking after my mental health first and foremost, I hope to continue to take throughout my professional journey into the future.
References:
- Russell, S. & Carey, M. (2003). ‘Remembering: responding to commonly asked questions’. Accessed 25th August 2022. Available at: http://narrativepractices.com.au/attach/pdf/Remembering_Common_Questions.pdf
- James, N. (1989) ‘Emotional labour: skill and work in the social regulation of feelings’. Accessed 25th August 2022. Available at: https://web-s-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=80e78364-c32a-4650-9047-3e879a295d27%40redis
- Myerhoff, B. (2007) ‘Stories as Equipment for Living’ Accessed 25th August (via BCM313 Lecture Slides)
chats with chels 