Renton
04-09-2007, 05:36 PM
So, lately, I've had a few sleepless nights where I couldn't go to sleep because I was stressed out or I was just randomly worrying about work. So, last night, I went to sleep at about 3 in the morning. At about 5am, I started having strange nightmares about work. I started seeing shapes and Adobe Illustrator menu bars. I kid you not. It wasn't the type of imaginary imaging that would be considered "inspiration". It was more of a panick attack and a paranoid hallucination. Shapes were being drawn, moved around, resized, and everything. It felt as if an unknown voice was telling me to move this, resize that, change this color, etc, etc. I don't think I was controlling either, it felt like I was being controlled. I had a panick attack and I couldn't tell if I had woken up or I was still sleeping.
Being so scared shitless, I couldn't go back to sleep when I did realize I was awake. I had work at 9 in the morning and had set my alarm to wake me up at 8. I wanted to squeeze out that extra 1-2 hours of sleep, but I failed miserably. It felt like late summer, the blankets felt too hot to sleep in. I was tossing and turning. I had this numb, tingly feeling in my arms and legs as if I had too much caffeine. Before I knew it, it was 6 AM already. By that time, I've already had enough, and decided I needed more than just the weekend to recharge. Just moments ago, I had called in sick at work. It's a very small office (like...4-6 people working there reguarly). Being that all of us wear different hats in this start-up company. I was worried that things won't get done. I'm no workaholic by any means, but just worrying about it freaks me out.
The 9-10 (or sometimes even 11-12) hour days are constant and I have to handle software QA, customer service (phone and on field tech support), researching SEO, on top of my design duties. I feel as if I'm breaking down really badly. I've been out of school since 2005 and working at design jobs for a couple small companies for a year a piece (counting my current job). Never have I felt such anxiety, stress, and getting so mentally exhausted. I've never lost this much sleep before with any job. Maybe once or twice here and there working other jobs throughout my life. I don't know, the long hours and crap is really getting to me. I thought since I'm 25, I'm freakin' invincible to mental and physical fatigue, but I totally am not.
So I decided to just take a day off. It'll help a bit. I think the art director I work with (who's 4-5 years younger than I am) has a thicker skin when it comes to this tiny little company. Bare in mind, this person got the title because this person was the first employee of the company hired to do design work. Parts of her attitude at times has gotten me into this mental state. Stern. I mean, who the hell tells you that you can't listen to music while you work because it's a distraction? Vocally expressing opinions or anything needs to be written and proven with facts. Rubbing in peoples' faces, "I know that's how companies do it, I did my research." whenever it came to establishing the work environment. It's more like what she think is right based on "research" rather than what the people who work here actually want.
Even though she insists that I ask questions, everytime I do, I get this slight chunkling, sarcastic "omg, you're such an idiot" tone when she responds. I've told her that discourages me from asking anything when she brings up that I don't ask for something as much as I should. I don't know. She uses the same tone when she tells me something, in that sorta "duh" tone. There are days where I can work with the person and everything's peachy-keen. Then there's the 2-3 days out of the week where I freakin' hate her guts. The other few (including the owner of the company) are some of the coolest people I've worked with. Unfortunately, none of my projects involves any of them and my schedule/workload, obviously has to revolve around the art director. That tiny little loft that we work in is getting awfully cramped.
There's a lot more I can elaborate about this person, but I really have mixed feelings about working with her. There's just a lot of things about her attitude that's abrasive and too overly blunt. When she asks for something, it sounds more like a demand than a simple request. The owner of the company is equally demanding, but he has a softer way of requesting something to get done and is more sympathetic. When someone approaches me like that with something that's troublesome to do, it's fine because of the gentler tone. I always feel as if I have to torture myself over every project I do. Just because she puts in an insane amount of hours into her work, I feel obligated to do the same, but I can't. I'd probably get burnt out if I kept forcing every single thing I do and squeeze every drop of creativity I have left.
I'm not hourly, BTW. It's gotten to a point where I'm considering quitting in August to go back to school to learn digital audio recording, taking classes that I never had the opportunity to take in art school, and tapping into other venues instead of putting up with that bullshit. The money just doesn't seem like it's worth it anymore if I'm always coming home depressed, mentally drained, and I have panic episodes like the one I had this morning. I'm the type who needs breaks. An hour or two shorter work days. Call me lazy if you want, but I don't know how I can survive in this business.
I'm a pretty emotional person, so I think stuff like this is going to royally kick my ass early on. I would have gone to work today, but then I'd be just chugging along, and I'd probably feel worse off than I did when I woke up. I'm just not in the mood to be in the office today. If you'll excuse me, I have some sleep to catch up on and a bit of work to do so I'm not just slacking off being "sick", even if it's a tiny bit of work. It's hard to get my mind off work when I'm not in the office, when I'm at home, or out with my friends. I really don't know why. A couple of my friends think I'm just being too hard on myself. Maybe I am or maybe I'm not. I really don't know. I just know I'm going to need some time to regroup.
I feel kinda bad that I'm mostly lurking around here and the only posts I've contributed were bitch fests. -_- Anyway, thanks for reading.
Being so scared shitless, I couldn't go back to sleep when I did realize I was awake. I had work at 9 in the morning and had set my alarm to wake me up at 8. I wanted to squeeze out that extra 1-2 hours of sleep, but I failed miserably. It felt like late summer, the blankets felt too hot to sleep in. I was tossing and turning. I had this numb, tingly feeling in my arms and legs as if I had too much caffeine. Before I knew it, it was 6 AM already. By that time, I've already had enough, and decided I needed more than just the weekend to recharge. Just moments ago, I had called in sick at work. It's a very small office (like...4-6 people working there reguarly). Being that all of us wear different hats in this start-up company. I was worried that things won't get done. I'm no workaholic by any means, but just worrying about it freaks me out.
The 9-10 (or sometimes even 11-12) hour days are constant and I have to handle software QA, customer service (phone and on field tech support), researching SEO, on top of my design duties. I feel as if I'm breaking down really badly. I've been out of school since 2005 and working at design jobs for a couple small companies for a year a piece (counting my current job). Never have I felt such anxiety, stress, and getting so mentally exhausted. I've never lost this much sleep before with any job. Maybe once or twice here and there working other jobs throughout my life. I don't know, the long hours and crap is really getting to me. I thought since I'm 25, I'm freakin' invincible to mental and physical fatigue, but I totally am not.
So I decided to just take a day off. It'll help a bit. I think the art director I work with (who's 4-5 years younger than I am) has a thicker skin when it comes to this tiny little company. Bare in mind, this person got the title because this person was the first employee of the company hired to do design work. Parts of her attitude at times has gotten me into this mental state. Stern. I mean, who the hell tells you that you can't listen to music while you work because it's a distraction? Vocally expressing opinions or anything needs to be written and proven with facts. Rubbing in peoples' faces, "I know that's how companies do it, I did my research." whenever it came to establishing the work environment. It's more like what she think is right based on "research" rather than what the people who work here actually want.
Even though she insists that I ask questions, everytime I do, I get this slight chunkling, sarcastic "omg, you're such an idiot" tone when she responds. I've told her that discourages me from asking anything when she brings up that I don't ask for something as much as I should. I don't know. She uses the same tone when she tells me something, in that sorta "duh" tone. There are days where I can work with the person and everything's peachy-keen. Then there's the 2-3 days out of the week where I freakin' hate her guts. The other few (including the owner of the company) are some of the coolest people I've worked with. Unfortunately, none of my projects involves any of them and my schedule/workload, obviously has to revolve around the art director. That tiny little loft that we work in is getting awfully cramped.
There's a lot more I can elaborate about this person, but I really have mixed feelings about working with her. There's just a lot of things about her attitude that's abrasive and too overly blunt. When she asks for something, it sounds more like a demand than a simple request. The owner of the company is equally demanding, but he has a softer way of requesting something to get done and is more sympathetic. When someone approaches me like that with something that's troublesome to do, it's fine because of the gentler tone. I always feel as if I have to torture myself over every project I do. Just because she puts in an insane amount of hours into her work, I feel obligated to do the same, but I can't. I'd probably get burnt out if I kept forcing every single thing I do and squeeze every drop of creativity I have left.
I'm not hourly, BTW. It's gotten to a point where I'm considering quitting in August to go back to school to learn digital audio recording, taking classes that I never had the opportunity to take in art school, and tapping into other venues instead of putting up with that bullshit. The money just doesn't seem like it's worth it anymore if I'm always coming home depressed, mentally drained, and I have panic episodes like the one I had this morning. I'm the type who needs breaks. An hour or two shorter work days. Call me lazy if you want, but I don't know how I can survive in this business.
I'm a pretty emotional person, so I think stuff like this is going to royally kick my ass early on. I would have gone to work today, but then I'd be just chugging along, and I'd probably feel worse off than I did when I woke up. I'm just not in the mood to be in the office today. If you'll excuse me, I have some sleep to catch up on and a bit of work to do so I'm not just slacking off being "sick", even if it's a tiny bit of work. It's hard to get my mind off work when I'm not in the office, when I'm at home, or out with my friends. I really don't know why. A couple of my friends think I'm just being too hard on myself. Maybe I am or maybe I'm not. I really don't know. I just know I'm going to need some time to regroup.
I feel kinda bad that I'm mostly lurking around here and the only posts I've contributed were bitch fests. -_- Anyway, thanks for reading.