Today was an unscheduled day off for me as the Mrs. and I thought it would be wiser to visit a doctor sooner rather than later for my recurring chest problems. Monday’s visit to the doctor resulted in a prescription for some light relaxation medicine, but it wasn’t enough to keep the stabbing pains at bay. So this morning we made the trip to the local hospital where we waited 70 minutes for a 5 minute consultation. Prognosis: too much work, and too little sleep.
Seriously?
I’ll admit that when I’m not in actively helping people better their English language skills, I can be found with my nose buried in a computer to hammer out some horrendously time-consuming student reports, or assembling software proposals with proof of concepts for the guys in IT to ignore, or answering in email some variation of the same five questions people have been asking since 2008 … but is this really too much work? Naturally, I can also be found hammering out some code for other projects while I’m on the train making my way to a customer’s building or another language center.
But does this really count as too much work?
Well … now that I think about it, yesterday’s paycheck was ridiculously tiny for all the stuff I actually do. The last time I worked out my actual hourly wage it came out to something around 785円 … I’ve been receiving over 40,000円 less per month since I last did the math.
As for sleep; who needs it? Since December, I’ve been falling asleep within two or three hours of putting my head to the pillow. Typically I can lose consciousness within 30 seconds, but there’s just been too many things to think about recently, what with the upcoming move, projects that I’m working on, goals that I’m trying to accomplish, and the multitude of other tasks that need to be completed within the next few months. Sleep only gets in the way.
Unfortunately, both the doctor and the Mrs. feel otherwise.
I’ve been prescribed yet more medicine which should help me sleep and to relax a bit more. However, I’m worried that if the medicine works too well, then I won’t work at all. In addition to the medicine, I’ve been asked to do less at work and to say “no” more often. While this might work for most other people who are content with where they are in the corporate ladder, it will not bode well for me at all.
Hopefully this will not be the case.
Hello,
the randomness of web surfing made me read this :
http://zenhabits.net/2010/01/no-hurry/#more-5286
just before your post. It’s not totally related to your case but somehow I thought it could interest you…
Get well!
While I can admit that doing less would make sense, it completely goes against where I want to be in 6 months time.
That said, do I really want to keep doing what I’m doing?
less is more!
5 minutes? He didn’t even order any tests? Stop dealing with the local hospital and head over to Nagoya City University Hosp – they have a top-notch internal medicine team. If anything physiological is going on, they’ll find it, before just throwing prescriptions and “more sleep” at you. Chest pain is not an accepted symptom of “lack of sleep” unless one has bona fide chronic fatigue syndrome, which requires a host of other ailments to be diagnosed.
She didn’t feel that any tests were necessary. She took a look at my blood pressure, which was something like 120 over 59, and listened to my wife explain the problems I’ve had. She asked some questions about work, and I explained what my typical day consisted of, then she told me that I’m working too hard and should relax and say “no” more often.
I might still head over to Nagoya’s bigger hospital if problems persist, but I’ll see what happens when I don’t do 60+ hours of work in a given week. Maybe I’ll try to follow my schedule for once instead of filling it with all these extra projects I seldom get paid for