So for those of you who don't know, back on May 13th I started my first job since graduating college. I'm not superstitious, but I think maybe the fact that I started on the 13th might have been a sign that things were about to get crazy.
The job itself is fairly simple and straightforward: drive to various hospitals and medical centers to pick up samples and bring back to the labratory. Rinse and repeat. I went in to the interviews pretty excited, because I love to drive, and getting paid for it seemed like a pretty good deal. I still had some extreme apprehensions: this job had no potential for progressing into something more, I was per diem meaning that I was basically "on call", and it wasn't anything remotely related to my degree of study. Once I was hired, the anxiety built to excessive levels and the job consumed all of my thoughts. Negative thoughts and emotions I have not felt in many many years began to return.
My first day went about as well as it could. I sat in the passenger seat while my trainer did all the driving and explaining. The second day involved me driving up to Denver for training with another new hire. That day lasted 10 hours and by the end of it I just wanted to go home and sleep. Day three and four were nearly identical to day one, except this time I drove everywhere. Three days of work, and then that friday I had a day off. I have never ever in my life been so grateful for a day off as I was for that day. I spent the day hiking Mt. Herman with my friends, and then watched Star Trek. It was much needed, but I will admit I could not truly enjoy the day off for the thoughts of my job were constantly weighing me down, distracting me from the present activities.
Day four of work was a new route with a new trainer, and was a 10 hour excursion to Pueblo and Cañon city followed by much traveling around in town. I don't know if I was very clear earlier when I said that I had some apprehensions. Beyond those apprehensions came feelings of extreme anxiety and nervousness. After the ten hour day on saturday, I was to a breaking point. As I worked through the week I began to see the people who worked for this company: the majority of them well over the age of 40, who had began working years and years ago and were still in the same position. I had always wanted this to be a temporary job, 6 months to a year at most, but I had a sort of wake up call and a strong feeling that I needed to quit. I needed to move on before I became too comfortable with this job and ended up spending ten years of my life not progressing towards anything bigger or better.
It was a scary thought, and I tried as much as possible to push it to the side. I couldn't quit, because I knew how much they would need me in June to fill in for all the guys that were taking vacation. I felt obligated to stay at least until July. So that was the decision I made: go until July and then quit.
Week Two began with me training with a third person doing the what was considered the easiest yet hardest route. It's the easiest because there is a lot of driving and very little time spent inside hospitals or doctors offices. It was hard because there is a lot of driving. I calculated how far I go on this route, and by the end of the day I have driven over 300 miles. To give you an idea of distance, driving from Rexburg to Provo is only 280 miles. It is almost 300 miles exactly from Salt Lake City to St. George.
Now imagine spending 2 days straight in a car driving over 600 miles with a 35+ year old with a rat tail who had the some of the worst (both morally and musically speaking) rap music blairing, telling stories about hating police and friends in the prison system, and in general just being weird. I couldn't handle it. I nearly walked in after day two with this man and called it quits.
Day three of week two was my first "real day". I had to do everything by myself for the first time. I had the route fairly memorized but there were still issues with not knowing where each location was. The first half of the day went really well and I loved not being in the car with someone else for 8 hours. Before it was as though I was back on my mission stuck with a companion who followed your every movement, inescapable. I don't miss that about the mission at all. Anyways, as I was saying the first half of the day went great, and most of my anxiety about the job had gone away. Then after lunch it went from great to good, and good to "oh my heck, kill me now" in a matter of about thirty seconds. They called and informed me of a bunch of new stops that would be added to my route. Places and buildings I had never heard of and had never been to before. So I spent the day navigating stressfuly around a city of half a million people, entering buildings and desperately asking front desks where I needed to go to pick up their lab samples, all the while trying to stay within the schedule that was allotted for the normal route.
I decided I don't like that, not one bit. Time has always been a downfall for me, and it is the reason that for 95% of my life I have been an hour to half hour early to every church meeting or activity I've ever been to. It is also the reason I wake up at 5:00am to go to work at 6:30am so I can be there 20 to 30 minutes early. The pressure of trying to stay on time with these new added stops was just too much. When work was over I went home and immediately went to sleep to try and forget about my day.
Thursday I trained again on the pueblo and canon city route. The final training. I mostly had to sit there and be patient and wait for the day to end. When
it did I once again went home and slept. I slowly became lethargic and saw being awake as a punishment, where bad thoughts and anxiety flowed freely, with a constant worrying about work.
Friday was my second day by myself. It went much like the first day by myself; starting off slowly and rapidly increasing into a terriblely busy day. All I could do to finish was think about the weekend. Strangley enough, during one of my last stops the phlebotomists had the radio on and the song "Everbodys Working For the Weekend" came on. It made me chuckle on the inside, because that song has never been so true as it was right then.
I made it through week two and the first two days working by myself. It was beyond stressful and the thoughts of needing to quit had never been so strong.
They were so strong to the point that I was unsure if the spirit was guiding me or if it was just my own idea. I just knew that if I continued like this, I
wouldn't have much of a life. I would be making money sure, but I would be drowned in misery and that money would do nothing for me but remind me that I am a slave to my job.
That weekend after the second week was amazing. We went to the drive-in theater down in Pueblo and saw Iron Man 3 and the new Fast and Furious. It reminded me of my days in Rexburg going to the drive-in. It was such a blast and for a moment I seemed to have forgotten about my job. That saturday was spent shopping with my friends in Castle Rock, followed by going to my all time favorite resteraunt entertainment experience in Denver: Casa Bonita. Sunday a bunch of us in the ward had a pre-memorial B.B.Q bar-b-que. We grilled chicken and corn and sat and talked for hours. Then on Monday, Memorial Day, we went down to Bishops Castle. It's this giant castle that one man has been building since the 60's or 70's. It's an amazing piece of arhitecture and a unique (and scary) experience to climb the spires. Keep in mind no blue prints were used, and there have definitely been no safety regulations followed. After that we had the big Tri-Singles-Ward F.H.E Memorial Day B.B.Q/Water Kickball Game, which as Ward F.H.E co-chair, was responsible for helping out with. It was a great activity if I do say so myself, and we had a ton of fun.
Anyways, the point of sharing all of that is to get across the point that for the first time in two weeks I enjoyed myself and in many ways I began to feel like I belonged in Colorado again. But at the end of the night, when I realized how late it was, all I could think about was waking up at 5:00am and how much the next day was going to suck.
And suck it did. I'm not sure where to start, but basically from the get go it was all downhill. I woke up, barley. The last time I felt that unmotivated to wake up was when there was two feet of snow outside and I had to walk a mile from The Ridge to the Spori. I didn't leave the main hospital until maybe 20 or 30 minutes after I was supposed to. This made me anxious and aggrivated, ruining the mood for the rest of the day. At least I was alone this time and wouldn't spend 6 hours listening to rap about killing cops and smoking weed though. I tried to focus on that positive note and listened to my iPod.
The first trip down to Pueblo and Cañon City went according to plan with no real hiccups other than being super late to everything. Luckily that isn't a huge deal, but it still made me unsettled. The second trip down to Pueblo went smoothe, but then I got a call to cover for a worker who is based out of Cañon City. It wouldn't be too hard because I had already been to everywhere on that list, except for one place in Florence. I wasn't worried about that because Florence is a city of about 2,000 people and is on a grid system. The place I needed to go to was on 5th street so I figured I'd just jump on 5th street and go until I got to it. So that's what I did. Or rather, that's what I tried to do. I got on 5th street at the edge of town and strated heading down it. Dead end. I turned left to go over to 4th street then headed back up and go onto 5th street after a block or two. Followed 5th street for maybe 4 blocks and entered another dead end. Did the same thing again and diverted myself back to 5th street and started going again. I got maybe 100ft before the road was closed because of school being in session.
It was at that point I decided to use my phone to look up where this place was at. Luckily I was actually only about 50ft away from the building. After making the stop at this new location, I headed across the street to another location, and unbeknownst to me, had my phone fall out of my pocket into the road. Had I not looked for the location on my phone, the phone would have stayed in the car in the front seat like it had all day, and I wouldn't be in the position that I am now.
So to make a long story short, I didn't realize my phone was lost until it was entirely too late to turn around and get it. So on top of all of the other small and annoying things that happened that day, I had lost my phone. At least I was finished with work. Oh wait, no I wasn't. I forgot I had to spend an extra two hours at work to cover for my original trainer. Working was the last thing I wanted to do and finishing that day was a challenge.
When I got home I had a message from my dad that some guy had found my phone. I was stoked. I called him up and arranged for him to drop it off at the medical center that was right next to where he found it. I hung up without getting his name or any information on how to contact him. That was a terrible mistake that I regret to this day.
I went the next day to work and had all sorts of issues. Supplies weren't where they were supposed to be, we had ran out of dry-ice for the frozen specimen bags, etc. I tried not to worry or care though because at least I was getting my phone back today. I went out and did the route like normal, and when I was in Florence asked both places I went to to check if they had a phone. No dice. I told them if they did to just throw it in the company lockbox and I or someone else would pick it up. They said sure thing. I went about the day and at the final stop in Florence I checked thelock boxes. Empty. I was crushed. It's just a phone, but in todays world it's about the only way to be invited to things, to invite people to things, and to keep in contact with those you care about. The day only got worse as I had to cover again for my original trainer and add two extra hours on my schedule. Except it was even worse cause they called in a lot of extra additional unexpected stops.
I could not handle it anymore. I had reached a breaking point. I had so many small things happen that day, as well as losing my phone, that I felt I had no other choice. I had a meeting with my manager and told him my intentions to quit. I gave him my two weeks notice and that was that.
I went home and it was as though a great weight had been lifted off of me. I felt peace for the first time in nearly three weeks. It was such a relieving feeling that it fully awakened me to just how stressed out and just how emotionally draining the job truly was. I finished the week and things seemed to go much better, although I still had no desire to be at work and it was a struggle to finish the days. I still had tons of things happen to ruin my day: alarm clocks becomming unplugged and having 15 minutes to drive 20 minutes to work, unsuccessful phone retrievals, and banged up fingers; but at the end of the day, I had peace. I had reassurance that things will work out. I had, and have no plan for what to do next. I have had an interview with a Q.A. testing company and it seems promising, but every interview always does. I'm supposed to have another interview with them this week. I have my expectations low for that one, just so I don't worry about it if I don't get it.
So this is my life as of right now. I forgot to add that as a side affect of working in hospitals and handling medical materials that I have been sick for the last 8 days. I have been coughing up all sorts of nastyness, and it's one of the worst illnesses I've had in years. I think that also added onto my already long list of reasons I needed and wanted to quit.
I know many people around here will judge me for quitting. I'm okay with that. If I wasn't me, I'd be judging me too. I spent the last 12 months looking for a job, became underemployed in a field unrelated to my schooling, and then quit after only a month of work. Without having the experiences myself, I'd probably have all types of negative things to say about that individual.
I don't know where this path I'm taking is heading, I simply know that I must keep on walking. One day I will be able to look back with a new perspective and put the puzzle pieces together. These three weeks have been three of the hardest weeks in my life, but I am sure that there is something valuable to learn. I just don't know what that is yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment