Busy much?

I’ve been hellishly busy recently. Last week I worked 60 hours and the other night I didn’t leave the office till midnight. When I first started this job, things were pretty cushy with good pay and only a mild amount of work. More recently a new computer system is being introduced and the bulk of the work and support of it falls to us. We had a meeting the other day where the boss pretty much said that play time was over and we would become more and more busy. We even had to set up a proper roster as to when we take our breaks, whereas before each of us would usually take lunch whenever we wanted and half of the rest of the day was a break. The boss (who up till now has been very laid back and turned a blind eye to most of our internet browsing/book reading/snacking when we felt like it, etc) for the first time mentioned the ‘P’ word, which scared me, he referred to, getting the most ‘productivity’ from us! I fear that he may soon approach us, fire the double barreled fingers at us and say, “Hey buddy, how do you feel about doing a few extra unpaid hours tonight?” Then what’s next, barcodes on the neck? Another thing that struck me as odd in the meeting was that the boss was saying how much he likes his job, but the thing he didn’t like was all the paper work, and he soon hoped to shift some of it to us!! WTF, who says ‘This is what I hate about my job, but guess what, I’m going to be letting you do some of that aspect soon, so that’s a burden off my mind.’

Thankfully I like my job so it isn’t too bad and usually the boss is a good guy, but some days you wonder if all the time away from your family is worth it. Then you remember that if you don’t work, you lose your house, cars, ability to feed and cloth said family, and you realize that maybe it is worth it. The important thing is to find the balance I guess.