You dread your day from the minute you open your eyes. It's a problem when you can't even picture your day going well before it starts. Dragging your body over to the bathroom you contemplate the idea of calling in “sick” but you know you can't do that because you already used a sick day last week. While brushing your teeth you can already hear the nagging of your supervisor “where's that expense report Deborah?”
As soon as you get to the office, your primary goal is to move at an incredibly slow pace so that the first hour of your day consists of sharing weekend stories and getting your first cup of coffee. Your second hour will consist of checking voicemails and emails. And of course by emails, you mean your personal account.
The next few hours will be a time management game. Try to plan out where and what you are going to eat for lunch. Your intent is to go out of the office building so that for an hour your day you can escape that claustrophobic environment. You plan on making at least four different trips to the mail room downstairs: one to check your mailbox, two to bring back any wrong mail delivered to you, three to put a couple of bills in the outgoing mail slot, and four to drop off the FedEx envelope with all the checks that you should have dropped off a couple of hours ago.
When you see the clock hit four o'clock, your mind is fully consumed with a countdown. You try wrap up whatever project you have been working on for the day and hope that your supervisor doesn't come by at fifteen minutes before five and asks you to generate a report for the last quarter because you know that means it will take you over an hour to do.
Five o'clock comes around and you feel like you can breathe again. You go and meet your friends for dinner and are relieved to know that for the next few hours you are free of reports, deadlines, emails, voicemails, and fake hellos. However, the thought of having to do it all over again tomorrow is so overwhelming that you become noticeably quiet and withdrawn. Now you and your friends know it's time for a change!
