Don’t stress over things that are not my responsibility. This comes from my workweek last week. Remember I said I’d get back to why I hadn’t posted for two weeks? Well, the first week was when Boston happened. After that, I’d come home and keep checking all the news info and did not have any urge to write at all. The second week...well, that was because of work. No, not my travel agent work-my HR/Payroll/Benefits job.
Don’t get me wrong-I love my job. I get to do a wide variety of human resources stuff from payroll to benefits to government compliance reports with a bunch of other special projects thrown in. I am constantly busy which is great since the workdays usually go by pretty quickly, and I like the people I work with in my office (doesn’t hurt to have cool bosses too). Last week just was a bit crazy as in addition to the fact that it was a payroll check week, I was helping part of our department catch up on some stuff that was getting pretty far behind (me along with another woman in our group I should say). And so every single day I was there late for a couple of hours (except Friday, I was darn determined to go home on time and I actually finished one minute before clock out time). Which is great from the perspective of extra money for the overtime. But the other part...
When I start a project, I want to make sure everything is done completely and correctly...forms with all the spaces filled in (and please, don’t sign above the box, sign in the box, that drives me nuts), all emails sent out, spreadsheets complete, cross those to-do’s off my huge dry-erase board that hangs on my wall, all mail sorted and checked...etc, etc, etc. I can get a bit anal when my mild OCD starts really kicking in. So I push and push to make sure I get to a good, COMPLETE stopping point each day, trying to get as many of the candidates processed as possible for the stores (I’ve been helping with applicant/new hire processing) as I can. All this while still thinking in the back of my mind, “Don’t forget, you still have to process your own stuff, benefits enrollments, 401k packets to send out, spreadsheet to finish for the district managers...OMG don’t forget that other thing and this other thing and....”
You get the picture.
And so by the time I get home my brain is fried-like well-done fried. I would open my laptop, check email and Facebook and then just crash for the night...all week. When Friday came around I pushed hard all morning so I could get out on time. Once my weekend was here I made sure to relax, enjoy and catch up. Relaxed on Saturday and got a bunch of blog posts started (posted 3 on Saturday alone, 2 here and one on thedisneyworldfiles.com). Had a fantastic day Sunday with my mom with lunch out and shopping (scored some GREAT Disney stuff for giveaways on my other blog!), then when I came home I did some more blog post work. Felt great to be more or less caught up again.
So what did I learn? While it’s great to help others out when they need it, don’t let trying to help someone else with their work (while only barely staying caught up on your own) stress you out. Ultimately, their work is not your responsibility. If you can help a lot, that’s great. If you can only do a little, well that’s more help than they would have had without you. Don’t let your own work suffer or stress yourself out trying to make sure your own work doesn’t suffer.
Oh, and be sure to take time for yourself to relax and recharge. I’m counting down to Memorial Day weekend when I’ll have a nice 4-day weekend to do just that ;-)
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