The holidays are a bit odd with my job. Since so many holidays fall on a Monday and my work is Tuesday-Saturday, I don’t typically get days off. The only holidays we get off are the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. And it’s really bad when the 4th of July or the December holidays are on Sundays or Mondays since those are the days we don’t work. That happened in 2017.
I know I’m really lucky with my job and I’m incredibly grateful for it, but it was annoying when I didn’t feel like I got extra time off for the holidays. But this year was different. I got extra long weekends because the December holidays were on Tuesday/Wednesday. And I took advantage of having those and really enjoyed my time off. I didn’t do much, but I relaxed and spent some time catching up on life. I didn’t always know what day of the week it was and I occasionally mixed up what day or what time my shift was, but those moments were brief and didn’t really affect things too much.
Having 2 weeks in a row that had short work weeks were amazing. I felt like I had a real break from things and I was feeling refreshed and ready to start the year off right and work hard. And that feeling stayed there until this week happened.
This was the first full work week back since the holidays and it has felt like it lasted a month. I feel like this was because of a few different reasons. Obviously, having work each day felt weird when I had probably gotten used to having those short work weeks. I also haven’t been sleeping well so I’ve been tired in the mornings. And I haven’t had much I have had to do after work (I kept my schedule open on purpose) so I think my time has been blending together a bit. I usually try to step away from my computer as soon as I’m done with work, but the past few days I’ve had to stay on my computer for one reason or another. Sometimes I’ve been on my computer for another 3 or 4 hours after my work shift ended. That is just too long to be sitting behind a computer and I am to blame for those scheduling issues. But it also makes it feel like my workday lasts a lot longer and I don’t have as much of a break between one shift ending and another shift starting.
It only took 2 weeks to get used to a shorter workweek, so hopefully, it will only take 2 weeks to get used to my normal schedule again. So that would mean that next week or the week after I shouldn’t be feeling like the week is lasting longer than normal. And I’m trying to do a lot better with my sleep now and I know that it will take a few days for that to be felt in my body. Having to stay on my computer might not be something I can completely resolve, but it’s something I am aware of and trying to figure out what solutions I can find.
I will say that it does make me feel a bit better that I’m not alone in this feeling. Lots of my friends have mentioned how this week has felt really long and they couldn’t believe we were in only the second week of the month. I think because I’m so aware of how I’m feeling that sometimes I think I’m the only one going through something and I stress a bit that I need to fix it. But hearing that other people are going through the same thing right now makes me feel like maybe this is just something random that is affecting a lot of people and not something I need to work too hard to fix. But I still want to find solutions on my own because I know some things affect me longer than they affect others.
At least I’ve got my weekend coming up. I don’t mind working on Saturdays because they are shorter shifts and I don’t feel like I really spent a weekend day working. The only thing it really affects is that I don’t usually go out late on a Friday night since I have to be up so early on Saturdays. But that is definitely a normal feeling for me and I’m looking forward to my weekend and having some relaxing time. I don’t have much planned yet, but I hopefully will figure out something fun to do. And that fun should get me ready for next week’s work and I’m hoping that next week feels like a normal week and not an endless week.
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