!!Venting alert!!
I like helping people, I really do. I actually consider myself a people-lovin' problem-solver and thrive in an environment where I can solve random problems on the fly. Does it ever matter that I also have no clue, but am not afraid to let my fingers do the walking? Do I mind being asked about really high-level issues in my first week of work (I'm flattered that you think I'm so brilliant but seriously how am I suppsed to know what is wrong with payroll??!!)? Do I mind dropping everything to answer some totally NON-time sensitive query? Some might ask - is that not what the inter/intra-net is for? No, that is what I am for. Fine. I'm fine with that really. It probably sounds like I'm not, but I am. I was born to be Girl Friday.
What I'm having a harder time coming to terms with is that I seem to give the best parts of myself to my work, dropping everything to scramble, juggle and finesse to help people who I like but don't necessarrily love, only to get home and turn into Greta Garbo: "I just want to be ALONE". The people I love probably think I'm the most unhelpful person on the planet. My friends ask me where the restaurant is where we're meeting and I bitterly send the mapquest link thinking "can't you just look it up"? My SO asks me to return a movie when I'm already leaving the house anyway and of course I do it (I have to walk right by the video store to get to my original destination), yet still I wonder exactly when and how his legs were broken? What is my problem? Do I need to be paid in order to be helpful? Am I actually a Baby-Boomer trapped in the body of a Gen-Xer?
I feel like I already maintain a decent work-life balance, so maybe it's just a question of establishing a different sort of balance. It's not fair to be less than fabulous to the people who are basically required to love me, and be super nice and accomodating all the time to people who pay me or work near me, but where's the right give and take? I give so much at work that I don't even want a chance to take - I just want to be; unbidden, unrequested, unneeded, just for a few moments, honest.
2 comments:
ah the eternal dilemma. What do you do when your skill, your love, your passion is also USEFUL to others. The thrill of having the answers, of evoking the answers out of nothingness. It has nothing to do with being in control, or being a people pleaser. It's gratifying your own narcissism! That "Whee, I solved the puzzle!" I know it well.
I'm not sure if there is an answer. You may think you are balanced but being depleted and needing a huge RESET button are indicators that perhaps you aren't as chill as one would suppose. Perhaps you need to set up some boundaries for yourself to adhere to. Maybe it's "I will only resolve seven outstanding issues a day, ego be damned." I think it's the Gemini curse.
I spent many a day being you. I answered, researched, looked up, found and directed. I listened to dilemas that weren't directed at me and solved the issue before I was asked. I earned the nickname "Radar" at work. Although it is said lovingly.
I realized one day that I was surround by a ground of people who became known to me as Canya's. Canya tell me where the X is? Canya help get to X? Canya pick up X at school?
So what did I do you ask? Got rid of those Canya's and met a whole new group people.
The Will-yas
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