Day off....

So I did something today that I rarely do. Something that this will only be the third time I've done this this year.

Sadly, it's not get laid. It's taking a day off from work.

I've developed a reputation around work (that I'm quite proud of) for not taking days off. Since January, before today, I've taken two days off - one to get my cat spayed, and one to drive up to NJ for Easter. We get 3 personal days every year to take off, and I lost them this year because I didn't use them by the deadline. We also get 2 weeks of vacation, but once we hit that we stop accumulating time off, so I've lost that. I think I'm actually entitled to another week of vacation, since I've been here for over 5 years, but I haven't bothered calling HR to ask about it since I wouldn't use it anyway.

The reasons I don't take time off are many but similar. Mostly, I feel bad about it, especially of late where I've been falling behind on the stuff I'm supposed to get done. If I can't do my job when I'm at work every day and occasionally working overtime, it seems stupid to not come to work. I feel like I don't deserve time off if I can't complete my assigned duties. I hate having to make my coworkers cover for me when I'm out, or telling people I have to put them off because I'm not in. I suppose some people might take the view that time off is an entitlement, and that I should take it and let the organization sort it out. If I was more confident in myself, I probably would take this view - and hope that the fact that stuff wasn't getting done would be a sign that we were overtasked and understaffed - but I'm not.

The other thing I figure is that I really don't NEED to take time off. I mean, it seems silly to be sitting around doing nothing when there is work to be done. I don't have a significant other or kids to spend time with, my family is several states away, and I have few hobbies. Why should I take time off to do nothing when there is work to be done?

But my boss has been bugging me to take time off (which I think is completely stupid since I'm already behind on my duties - he should be prohibiting me from taking time off) and I do have a few errands I need to run like renewing my license, and a few things around the house I should do, like cleaning my basement. Monday was slow - lots of people took this week off, so it's hard to get open work orders done - so I decided to take today off. Of course, that meant that Tuesday equipment started coming in and other stuff started piling up. Which means I'm going to be even more behind when I come back on Monday (we get Thursday and Friday off for 4th of July).

Of course, I'm an hour and and a half into my non-work-day and so far the only things I've done is write this blog post and drive to Chic-fil-a for breakfast.

I've really started to hate my job of late. My responsibilities and workload keep increasing, I've got people from other departments asking when I'm going to get stuff done, and I keep having to make decisions about what gets done and what doesn't, which means someone is always mad at me. And I'm mad at myself for not doing a better job of keeping up with my job, wishing I was better at what I did so I could get more done. I wake up in the morning late, probably because I dread going into work. I feel sore, I have heartburn, I find myself angry and sad pretty much all the time. I guess part of the reason I took a day off was I figured I needed a break, but I don't think it's going to help - it's just going to be worse when I come back.