This is not a post on pregnancy nor motherhood. This is rather personal. Actually, this is a ranting about work. I think I have a twisted understanding of it.
I have been here in this office for a little over a year now. I have two main bosses, the Director and the Supervisor. For the past year, the Director has been gone for 3/4ths of the year. So I have only been reporting to my Supervisor for most of the time. Now, the Director is back. There are certain things I want to say to her face that I already told my Supervisor before.
I can’t believe I have to repeat the same speech again.
I have been accused of tardiness, lack of discipline, and unreliability. I am itching to really answer those things. But I do not want to sound defensive during my evaluation so I kept my mouth shut.
So let me address it here, in this blog. Maybe I can see for myself whether my arguments are sound before I air it out to my boss.
Regarding the tardiness… I am inherently lazy. Especially when I do not know what’s my purpose of going or doing anything.
Anyway, there is a physical and medical explanation to that. I suffered from severe hyperthyroidism when I got out of college. Years of medication and treatment could only stabilize me. It cannot return the stamina I once had in college.
In general, I can work steadily on bursts (like two weeks or even a month), but I need to insert the periodic rest (like halfdays or two hour lateness) to keep me giong). And when the work is done, I need to take time off for about a week just to recover. I am only 25, but gone were the days when I can shrug off a long week on one Sunday.
I had two choices, take a stable 8-5 job that does not require much from me or take the job like mine which mentally stimulates me but will physically cost me. I chose the latter because the first one is not for me even if I tried.
I know that if I went to work for the big guns and big payers, they will expect me to produce non-stop at a regular time. It is an arrangement that I know that I can do for some time especially if I am paid a lot but I know I will not be able to sustain in the long-run without taking a toll on my body. So I consciously chose to work for a low-paying government agency constrained to hire contractual workers only on a non-employee-employer relationship so that I get to do the projects I wanted to work on while I will be earning enough to pay for myself but I can afford my time offs.
That is why I get pissed everytime people bug me about my tardiness.
I made a conscious choice to forego paid maternity leaves, sick leaves, vacation leaves, and health benefits. But these assholes would insist that I report to work 9-6 everyday even if I let them deduct my tardiness from my salary. Even worse, I will be threatened with bad-mouthing to my future bosses because of it. Fuck.
I am not (nor are my uberly admirable officemates) a regular employee then why should they insist on measuring performance like I am one?
The second thing that ticks me off is the claim of unreliability.
Today, I am working on a bidding proposal that I know we are going to lose. We do not have the competency for it. We do not have the human resources and the experience to pull it off compared to the other heavyweights who are going to fight it out there. I am not a sissy. I am up for a good fight anytime. But I hate fighting wars I know we are going to lose.
Unlike most people here, I only have a limited energy resource. I do not like wasting it on losing ventures. But unfortunately, it is not my call to make.
So what do you think? Should I tell that to my boss?
