2023 Xmas + Review
Man, I'm really behind in my blogs.
Welps, another year has come and gone.
Almost right up to the holidays of 2024, work was pretty crazy busy. In fact, I don't think it was till the Thurs or Fri right before Xmas when things calmed down. And before then, I asked around: "You've been at this company for a while. Was it THIS busy last Dec?" And most of the replies were no.
It's probably mainly because the company is a lot bigger now. But yeah, I was eagerly waiting for things to calm down during the holidays. I didn't take any time off b/c I wanted to save my PTO. And plus, I was looking for some calmness between Xmas and New Years, during which most people were out on vacays.
And during that time, I knew that things would get crazy busy once the new year hit. So I should therefore cherish the quiet days at the office while it lasted.
And guess what? I was right. Jan 2024 is over, and it's been a really busy time at work. It's going to be a very busy 2024. I'm already worried about getting burned out with work and EMTing on the side. Last year, I was already very conscious of this and it's carried on over to 2024.
On a plus side, I got my annual review for 2023. My boss gave me an 'Exceptional' score! And with a 4.17% pay raise. Hey, most standard raises are like 1-2%, maybe 3%. So although my salary is still much lower than I'd like compared to my previous job, I'll still take the 4+%. (Again, with career changes usually comes pay cuts.)
I'm glad that I got a great review b/c I worked my butt off last year and there were times when I worried that I was disappointing my boss. Thankfully, that didn't turn out to be the case. But now I feel like I gotta keep this 'Exceptional' performance up, which will be tough, esp with more EH&S members on my team. They're great folks and I'm thankful for them for their help, but lets face it - I'm kinda in competition with them. So I feel like, in a way, I gotta work harder to get a great review next year. This is another reason why I'm worried about burning myself out. TBH, a 'Successful' rating isn't all that bad if that's my performance rating next year.... it's just not 'Exceptional'.
Oh well, let's try not to worry about this too much. No good stressing about it. I just gotta continue to work hard and hope for the best. And try to enjoy everything while I can. Nothing good lasts forever.