Dreamer’s World July 6, 2017 – Slowing Things Down

    When another day starts out rainy and blah, it affects my mood as I begin work. It is only natural that the weather has some impact on how I feel. Time seems to slow down on days like this, and it made me think about this week in general. With the holiday on Tuesday, and my taking Monday off like so many other people, this week at work is only 3 days long. Sadly, too many people try to pretend that they are now faced with the dilemma of cramming 5 days of work into only 3 days. This is a trait that I cannot agree with, we have holidays and days off for a reason and that is to prevent burnout.

    It is at times like this that I find myself deliberately going into “slow” mode. I don’t mean that I am not working, I just try to get to the important things first and place a much lower priority on everything else. This helps to maintain my sanity and my enthusiasm for the job. Too often, I find myself dealing with the people who cannot, or will not, accept this. I am grateful to work from home so I can deal with them remotely. 11 years have taught them that I work best with my own approach to things, and that pressuring for no real reason generally gets no real change in results. Obviously, I can do this only because I have the full confidence of those I work with. Sometimes, I think that they just go through the motions of attempting to apply pressure so they can see that it is OK to say, “Slow down” after they talk with me. I probably should get a charge code as an amateur psychologist for this reason.

    It really helps that I have never been a Type A personality. While I would much rather everyone else slow things down without my help, I suppose that I fulfill a necessary role for them by encouraging them to do the same. I can live with the responsibility of helping them to calm down.