Surprises

Life is full of surprises, apparently. There’s the nice ‘expensive jewellery in your cupcake’ kind of surprise and the bad ‘poisonous spider in your shoe’ kind of surprise. (Also known as the ‘surprise visit by Count Olaf’ kind of surprise - sorry, I’ve been playing a “A Series of Unfortunate Events” custom game this weekend.)

I received a ‘poisonous spider’ surprise on Thursday - as I’ve already written. (I also received one of those on Sunday before Eastern, when my PC broke down.) Today I received the other kind, the ‘cupcake’ variety.

I basically went to work to tell my boss ‘I quit.’ Not that I don’t like my job - or my colleagues or my boss, they’re all okay. But I’m finished. I’m steps from a burnout syndrome, if I’m not already there. I thought that was the only way I could at least save some of my health.

My boss didn’t like it one bit, of course. He didn’t want to lose me - as I’m a good and reliant employee, it seems. Still, I was set on going through with it. Then I went over to the office in order to tell my colleagues goodbye. They didn’t want to let me go, either. And one of them had a good idea. They talked it over with me, then we talked it over with my boss and now it seems things will take a different course.

I stay at home this week, just as planned. Of course, it would have been better not to have had the stress I had with my decision this weekend. I’m probably going to stay home during the next few weeks, too - mostly on unpaid leave. I will recuperate, I’ll gather new energy and afterwards I will take it slower at the office for a while, go back to 30 hours a week, maybe 25. My boss will help me with this, as long as I stay.

This is a whole new experience for me. I’ve never worked in a company where I was appreciated like that. I was a call-center agent before. The bosses there basically give you the feeling that you should be honoured to work for ‘the coming thing’ - and probably bring money to work instead of expecting it on your pay check at the end of the month. It was a good feeling to see various people try their best so I could and would stay. And, of course, a great ego-boost, too...