Tuesday 26 January 2016

Work, Family, and Covering Vacations

This week (Tues til next Tues) my co-hort and fellow pharmacy technician is off for a vacation.  I'm very excited - and jealous - that she's getting away and taking time off and all that, but I'm not looking forward to the extra work that means for me.

If anyone out there reads me faithfully you know I take Wednesdays off - a hold over from when I used to work every other Saturday.  I liked the day off in the week so much that once I got away from working Saturdays I just kept the Wednesdays off as well.  It's been working so far.

Tomorrow, being Wednesday, would be my "catch up" and sometimes "me time" day.  This week, not so much.  As I said at work today: "It's no skin off my nose to work extra once in a while."  I stand by this statement but it doesn't mean I have to enjoy it fully.

We actually have a great work environment at the store - my co-hort and I have the more "tedious" tasks divided up fairly equally and we alternate "jobs" pretty well so it works for us.  Before she left we did a bit more intense work so there wouldn't be so much for me to try to stay on top of while she was away.

It's going to run very smoothly, of this I have no doubt.  Today was a bit hectic as there was a very time-consuming task that took one of the pharmacists away from the regular work for more than an hour.  That got us behind a bit, but we persevered.  I definitely felt the strain though.  When I'm leaving at 5 I want the people who have to stay that last hour to not have to catch up my tasks I didn't get to, you know?  Usually one of us is there until close so it's not an issue.

In a normal week I can get the kids to the bus 3 mornings without feeling rushed because I either don't go to work (Wednesdays) or I don't start until 9:30.  That's not in the cards until next Wednesday.  I can already feel the morning strain - especially if I want to sneak in a shower before work!

The girls get on the bus about 7:45 and I have to leave at 8 for the "early" shift.  But there is no way I can get them up earlier so I can, say, start their breakfast sooner so I can jump in that shower for 15 mins while they're eating.  They're not ready yet to get seconds or get another glass of milk themselves.  The kids are pretty time consuming.  Even when I'm not on "primary morning parent" duty they still can't get through 15 minutes without asking me for something while I'm in the shower.

I'm going to miss my quiet Wednesday tomorrow.  But the day will fly by, and luckily it's off week for dance (me and the girls) so there's one less stress - Emma doesn't have to be ready to leave for dance class at 5:30, which is the time I get home from work.

I've got a bet with myself as to which night I crack into a bottle of wine the minute I get in the door.  I'm thinking I can hold out til Friday (that's normal wine drinking day, isn't it?) but I almost uncorked a bottle tonight.  It might also depend upon how much fighting goes on with the kids over the week as well.  Tonight was all right - dinner was in the oven when I got home!  That was a splendid surprise, although the part where the furnace wasn't working quite right detracted a little from the excitement of not having to prepare dinner.

For the next week I have to remember to stop and take a breath.  If I don't get every little thing done it's not the end of the world - in fact it'll be there for me to do tomorrow.

Any tips or tricks for staying relaxed at work?  Share, please, in the comments.  Or just comment so I know you stopped by.  And thanks for reading!

~Jess

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