(no subject)
So, I haven't done anything creative in an awfully long time. It's been so frustrating; I don't like feeling the way I have felt for some months - not being able to express myself, and not even being able to daydream. My personal opinion is, that if I cannot imagine things, then I am not really alive.
I went to the doctors about a week and a bit ago, and had a chat about things - I know that the lack of writing is coming from how I am feeling in myself. I've been feeling pretty down for a while, and when I went to the doctors, we decided to up my anti depressant meds again to see if this gets me back on track. Fingers crossed this will start to show soon, because I really WANT to feel better, and I really want to start writing again :)
One thing that seems to be getting me down lately is my job; I thought it was just me being, well, me, and getting over emotional about things that have been happening there over the past months. But, after speaking with some of my close colleagues, I am not alone in how I feel. This is interesting -- I don't know what we can actually do about how we feel, because there are several issues that are at hand. But, I think we must try and stand up to the system.
I wanted to mention one particular work incident that has flamed me right up recently. Without going into boring details about where I work and what I do, I'll be brief. Where I work, I am at the very bottom of the ladder. However, for about 18 months, myself and 6 others have been more or less self managing a new workstream that came to our office. Its a very public thing, and there is a lot of pressure involved. The 7 of us - all of us the lowest band in our area of work - have been seeing over it, doing everything from rotas, to organising and delivering training/mentoring to other staff, dealing with IT problems, dealing with other offices etc. We are like porters, cleaners, post sorters, IT bods, admin, management all in one. Myself and a friend have in particular have been dealing with the queries and complaints/fraud side of things, and have a lot of contact with 'customers' and management teams.
Anyway, we have been doing all of this on the same pay band (even though we have been told we should be at least 2 levels higher up on the payscale than what we are), and have put in a lot of extra hours and commitment. And for over a year, we have been ignored pretty much by the rest of the building, who seem to collectively have a low opinion on the work that has been sent to our office, as though it is a hassle that interrupts the status quo.
I'm quite sure that all of this has not been helpful to how I have been feeling. I've been frazzled for a bit, and have been getting steadily more depressed for a while. But, a few months ago, we finally thought we were at last getting somewhere, when two other colleagues and I got nominated for an award for our efforts. We got told that we had been chosen to receive an award (yay!). Sure, it was just a bit of paper, but at least it was better than a smack in the face.
Well, we got told that on a certain day, the big bosses would come for a visit, and while they were there, they would give us our awards; we got told to dress smartly and be ready.
And guess what -- the big bosses came to the building, sure enough. But, while FOUR of them were around for about 7 hours, not one of them had two minutes to spare to come and see us. They wandered around everywhere else, and enjoyed generous hospitality from the canteen, but come and say hello to us they did not.
And that is a rather good portrayal of how we feel we have been treated for 18 long months. Ignored and undervalued.
We fumed! I felt volcanic! I don't really care about a piece of paper with my name on; it was more about these high managers, who constantly go on about how they want to be on 'our' level and so on, couldn't find the time to say hi to a team that they know have done far more than is expected. The next day we were duly called to our manager's office, to get some apologies and an assurance that she would be phoning the powers that be to say how disappointing this whole thing had been. Afterwards, we were told that we would be getting an apology via e-mail from one of the chief execs.
This was over two weeks since, and we are yet to get an e-mail. I'm not even surprised at this.
Lately, I've been feeling slowly more and more apathetic about being at work. I don't like feeling this negative, but after all of this ^^^ it is hard to motivate myself. The 7 of us have started to write a sort of complaint thing, although we don't feel so optimistic about where this will get us. Its got to be worth a try, right?
I went to the doctors about a week and a bit ago, and had a chat about things - I know that the lack of writing is coming from how I am feeling in myself. I've been feeling pretty down for a while, and when I went to the doctors, we decided to up my anti depressant meds again to see if this gets me back on track. Fingers crossed this will start to show soon, because I really WANT to feel better, and I really want to start writing again :)
One thing that seems to be getting me down lately is my job; I thought it was just me being, well, me, and getting over emotional about things that have been happening there over the past months. But, after speaking with some of my close colleagues, I am not alone in how I feel. This is interesting -- I don't know what we can actually do about how we feel, because there are several issues that are at hand. But, I think we must try and stand up to the system.
I wanted to mention one particular work incident that has flamed me right up recently. Without going into boring details about where I work and what I do, I'll be brief. Where I work, I am at the very bottom of the ladder. However, for about 18 months, myself and 6 others have been more or less self managing a new workstream that came to our office. Its a very public thing, and there is a lot of pressure involved. The 7 of us - all of us the lowest band in our area of work - have been seeing over it, doing everything from rotas, to organising and delivering training/mentoring to other staff, dealing with IT problems, dealing with other offices etc. We are like porters, cleaners, post sorters, IT bods, admin, management all in one. Myself and a friend have in particular have been dealing with the queries and complaints/fraud side of things, and have a lot of contact with 'customers' and management teams.
Anyway, we have been doing all of this on the same pay band (even though we have been told we should be at least 2 levels higher up on the payscale than what we are), and have put in a lot of extra hours and commitment. And for over a year, we have been ignored pretty much by the rest of the building, who seem to collectively have a low opinion on the work that has been sent to our office, as though it is a hassle that interrupts the status quo.
I'm quite sure that all of this has not been helpful to how I have been feeling. I've been frazzled for a bit, and have been getting steadily more depressed for a while. But, a few months ago, we finally thought we were at last getting somewhere, when two other colleagues and I got nominated for an award for our efforts. We got told that we had been chosen to receive an award (yay!). Sure, it was just a bit of paper, but at least it was better than a smack in the face.
Well, we got told that on a certain day, the big bosses would come for a visit, and while they were there, they would give us our awards; we got told to dress smartly and be ready.
And guess what -- the big bosses came to the building, sure enough. But, while FOUR of them were around for about 7 hours, not one of them had two minutes to spare to come and see us. They wandered around everywhere else, and enjoyed generous hospitality from the canteen, but come and say hello to us they did not.
And that is a rather good portrayal of how we feel we have been treated for 18 long months. Ignored and undervalued.
We fumed! I felt volcanic! I don't really care about a piece of paper with my name on; it was more about these high managers, who constantly go on about how they want to be on 'our' level and so on, couldn't find the time to say hi to a team that they know have done far more than is expected. The next day we were duly called to our manager's office, to get some apologies and an assurance that she would be phoning the powers that be to say how disappointing this whole thing had been. Afterwards, we were told that we would be getting an apology via e-mail from one of the chief execs.
This was over two weeks since, and we are yet to get an e-mail. I'm not even surprised at this.
Lately, I've been feeling slowly more and more apathetic about being at work. I don't like feeling this negative, but after all of this ^^^ it is hard to motivate myself. The 7 of us have started to write a sort of complaint thing, although we don't feel so optimistic about where this will get us. Its got to be worth a try, right?