The Upside of Stressful Days

I love my job because it’s challenging. The pace is fast. The workload is heavy. The demands are high.

But it’s not boring.

Most days, I feel like my time disappears from me. I go to work, and it’s time to leave again. Lately, it seems the time’s been disappearing faster, with so much to do and so little time. I’m sneaking in extra time in the morning, putzing with work stuff (by choice) on lunch, thinking about ways to improve my department while I sit in my pajamas at night. There have been a lot of frazzled moments, and, since I can be honest, I’m exhausted.

Today our shared network went down, and, without going into too many specifics, let me just say that it was not good. On top of needing to get a lot done, we had no way of recording our work in a shared location. I started using post-it notes, and some other people just gave up keeping track. There were several moments where I put my head in my hands, if you catch my drift. It’s just one example of the little glitches that make things … interesting.

It really does make things interesting, I remind myself on days like these. I mean, I’ve done the whole sit-quietly-at-a-desk-and-read-all-day thing. I’ve done boredom and clock-ticking slowness. This, if nothing else, is never that. I can count on my job to throw curve balls at me, whether it’s a complaint, a mistake or a computer malfunction. And I can count on it to keep my attention and make the time fly.

(Photo borrowed from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Sciences)

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