Negativity

Today Sam wrote a fantastic post, about boundaries and the sharing of energy. It so rings true with me.

I went to work, very happy today, all was right with my world and to be fair it still is. My colleagues have various situations in their lives that they can not quite leave at home. My boss struggles with the pressure of being the one responsible for us, her background is one of fighting her corner I think and her reaction to this pressure is to dish it out.

The more others at work bury themselves in their personal things, the less able they are to fully function at work in many ways. It is as if their personal issues act as a barrier that prevents the unwilling acquisition of anothers negativity. It sometimes seems as if the happier I am, the more pressure I am put under to perform.

I have recently come to realise that I have been too competent and helpful, in covering others and picking up the slack. I have made a rod for my own back. In helping others and trying to help cover others absence, I have gotten very behind on my own, core, work. However after signing my new contract I was given my job description, only to discover that all these I assisted with are now in my job description! Catching up woth my main duty, now feels somewhat impossible but somehow I have to be caught up by the end of next Tuesday.

It is also becoming obvious that my fellow team members don't entirely appreciate my extra effort, they just kind of accept it... Now I have a huge backlog and they don't (mostly) and they are all back from their time off, it doesn't feel as if they are going to in any way, shape or form going to bust a gut for me.

My colleague who supposedly does the same job as me, works at about half the speed I do but somehow I am supposed to spped up? The word overtime is already being voiced. I don't want to do extra hours, not unless lots of us are. I might do the odd hour but I know this is going to need a wee bit more than that. I feel like my boss is punishing me for being helpful and capable and clever.

I want to go to work and do my job, happily and peacfully. I know I achieve more if I don't feel like I have to second guess myself like I do right now. Why do I have to get landed with others negativity? It was like that to start off with but then things changed and now I feel like the negativity vent....

The problem is, that because they aren't dealing with the sources of their negativity, they have an endless supply of it! I suck it up, then I go home and have to work hard to dump it all off. Then I go back the next day and they start offloading again...

I know what my charm bag will focus on: protecting myself from negativity and encouraging feelings of contentment and peace. Maybe it will help me learn to defend myself better?