I guess I feel better after trying to shift my focus.
Though work is insane, I am glad I have some colleagues who are of the same frequency as me.
I asked one of them, is it normal to have never-ending tasks to do. She said yes. And she told me she realised she lost time & friends, as she had to spend lots of time at work during weekdays, and 1 of the weekends to sleep to replenish rest.
I guess the things that are keeping us sane in midst of these insane tasks, are our passion and support we get from each other?
I am not sure about other fields, but very often I realised people from my field needs to be positive, dedicated and passionate about what we are doing, and have power to “multi-task” (which I am still learning! haha!).
When I was in my first job, I often got into conflicts between my work and personal life, simply cos family & friends are not able to understand. I still remembered my then-manager-now-turned-good-friend advised me not to take their comments too personally and just do what we think is right.
I find it so uber useful now, and I am thankful for being in my first job few years back, that shaped me into a determined, positive, cheerful and strong person now.
My close colleague mentioned that we are, perhaps, employed to sort out the messy-ness, and to put things right. It’s tough on us I guess, given that most of us are only in our mid-20s.
Sometimes I feel drained having to cope with my own work – admin, coordinating, executing, communicating and planning – while meeting requests by others. I have yet to reach planning, simply cos the daily “fire fighting” leaves me brain dead before the end of the day.
Just imagine running an A&P department of an “MNC” alone – of coz la, my boss oversees my work and helped me when I am flooded with work that I overlooked.
Yet, after talking to my boss about my feeling that I am not able to cope, she mentioned that perhaps I am giving myself too much pressure. I felt comforted although friends said perhaps she didn’t want to see me go ;p
Perhaps I am too overly concerned about maintaining the brand image and delivering to customers – this is what I am employed for, ain’t it?
Part of my job requires me to communicate effectively and be tactful – which I really really enjoy. This doesn’t come in-born for me, but I am glad these 4 years of working trained me to be a tactful person who considers others’ feelings while we talk.
But I was surprised, and I guess I shocked everyone else who were still in office yesterday night.
We were rushing for the email blast to be, well, literally BLASTED out to the database. Yet I had to stay and verify the contents (which is also my fault as I didn’t ensure timely submission of info).
I was supposed to meet the boyfriend around 7 plus at Tanah Merah. Yet I was still in office at that time, and my colleagues could literally see my face breaking down as I was frantically trying to refresh my inbox every 10 secs.
I was still held up, when it was close to 8pm. Yet I couldn’t speak to my boss cos she was on the phone talking about some tacky issues.
I stood up and declared I am going off. All my colleagues stared at me wide-eyed.
I didn’t care what they will think and what my boss will think. Of course I still delivered what I had to.
I checked my emails and the web on my mobile phone and tried coordinating everything on the cab and while the bf drove us to the SITEX. I was amazed, and my boss decided to leave after I left.
She said thanks for coordinating, and I am glad that she wasn’t angry, cos I left without saying much to her.
I “continued” work this morning as I left things undone yesterday – as I lugged information into my heavy bag yesterday (hahaha).
Haha, so yes, this is A&P for retail business. But, boy, I am glad to be part of the dynamic team (as cheesy as it can sound ;p).