Adjusting

28 July 2008 243 views 8 Comments

It still seems a little unreal to me: save the last two exams (which shouldn’t post a serious hurdle) I am done with college and I am working full time. After working towards this moment for the past nine years (since 11th grade) I can’t really believe it’s here now.

To get a grasp on what it means that this nightmare called college is finally over, I started to move all the stuff out I don’t need anymore for my last two exams. It turned out I had to make two trips to the attic where I store my stuff because I couldn’t carry everything at once. (And yes, klti, I am bragging, you know why ;) ) And this is only the stuff I needed for my last five exams. There’s about five times as much already in the attic, covering all the years of college and my final thesis. If you need a better reason than this to stay away from Sociology, I can’t give you any.

The Cat, of course, stayed with me.

Well. Now suddenly my pace of life has changed quite a bit and I am trying to adjust. For the past seven years, my day usually would be something like this: I’d get up about half past six or seven, then do college stuff or go to work and get home around six or eight in the evening. Then I would either do college stuff or work for another three to five hours, depending on what I did during the day; or I would do work for my distance learning course; or I would do some web design and programming. This didn’t change on weekends either. I always worked. Considering how much I had laden on my plate, I am still surprised I managed to pull everything off. It’s come at a high price, though.

But now I have only work. I go to work in the morning, do my eight to ten hours, depending on how I feel, and when I get home I suddenly don’t have to do anything anymore. I don’t have to stay up until midnight or later to finish homework or make sure a customer gets his projects finished in time. I can just come home and do … nothing.

And there the problem lies. I am not used to this. I constantly have a bad feeling, like I should be doing something. It takes all my self control to not remotely log into the company network and finish some tasks from my home desktop.

I never thought I’d feel the urge to keep working now that I don’t have to. It’s amazing what seven (nine) years of being in constant overdrive can do to you. For now, I will try to still the urge to work by reading three books simultaneously and preparing for NaNoWriMo. :)

8 Comments »

klti said:

Yes, your pile of paper is very impressive, I feel really dumb right now :P

I don’t have to stay up until midnight or later to finish homework or make sure a customer gets his projects finished in time. I can just come home and do … nothing.

You are aware of the fact that this is actually a good thing? :P

I’d suggest doing something you have fun doing (Read, write, reorganize your stamp collection, whatever :P ). But stay away from work. Seriously, working too much and especially stressing yourself too much with work will only frak up your health (seen it happen more than once).

And if you still don’t know what to do, start watching TV shows you heard much about or you have lying around ;-)

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Starstuff Reply:
July 28th, 2008 at 8:58 pm

You are aware of the fact that this is actually a good thing?
I am! It’s just so …new to me, I have to get used to it. But it’s fun and I think I could start to like it this way.

You are right about keeping a balance between work and private life. This is why I am making a conscious effort not to do everything at once. Thank goodness for the professional help I had to realize that this was something that could easily destroy me a couple years down the road. I love work, but I know that in order to deliver good results and to be happy with my life, I need to take a step backwards sometimes and accept that I don’t have to do anything on my own and right away. It’s hard ;) , but I guess I’ll figure it out.

And by those TV shows, you don’t mean DLM by any chance :P

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klti Reply:
July 28th, 2008 at 10:23 pm

And by those TV shows, you don’t mean DLM by any chance

Nah, never heard of that show :roll: :P

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Starstuff Reply:
July 28th, 2008 at 10:31 pm

Your memory must be worse than mine then :mrgreen:

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# 28 July 2008 at 8:31 pm

Matthias said:

So do you consider yourself a workaholic?

Seriously, how did you manage to watch so many TV shows and movies in addition to all your work? Your time management skills must be extremely sophisticated. I could use a little advise on this one because I always get the impression that the day is passing by too quickly. I guess it’s time-consuming to have a family… ;)

I guess you should try real hard to enjoy your current situation. Use the extra time to read some books, listen to some music, write plenty of blog entries etc. You never know how long you have the luxury of this extra free time of yours. :)

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Starstuff Reply:
July 28th, 2008 at 9:02 pm

Sadly enough, yes. But, like I wrote in my comment above, I’ve had professional help to realize that this had actually become a problem for me. Working for about 12-16 hours straight, for months and years at a time, is not a healthy thing to do and will sooner or later screw any relationship. That was what I traded in: private time for work time.

So, in the end my advice would be: feel happy about your work, but realize that there is a tomorrow when you can finish the task (of course, only if the task isn’t too urgent) and that doing more (e.g. working 14 hours a day) doesn’t really mean you’re doing good.

At any rate, you should focus on your family, I think it will get even more time consuming

And you are right … who knows how long this sweet freedom will last … which means: back to my books!

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Matthias Reply:
July 29th, 2008 at 9:26 am

[cite]At any rate, you should focus on your family, I think it will get even more time consuming[/cite]
Yeah, I guess you’re right. In February, when the baby is due, I will be real busy, I guess. And let us not forget the many years that follow February… ;) I will, however, gladly sacrifice my precious spare time for my offspring. :)

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Starstuff Reply:
July 29th, 2008 at 1:15 pm

So you say now :P

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# 28 July 2008 at 8:48 pm