[January Jumpstart Day 7 – Personal post] Hiding behind a mask of “It’s OK” but coming out the other side in a better place.

(This is regular post but also of my January Jumpstart participation, see badge at the end of the post)

My current job started 4 years, 2 months and 3 weeks ago, and in that time there have been some challenges I’ve faced, situations I’ve found myself in and generally it’s not always been plain sailing.

Of course there was the natural settling in and learning period I had to go through, because although I had experience in the same kind of role I did have to adapt to a lot of differences a new company has compared to who I worked with before.

3 of the 4 years I’ve been in my role haven’t always been easy, and while I am a lot more comfortable in what I do, and hell of a lot happier there was a time when I struggled and hid behind a mask.

During a few of these years I become almost the sole person in my particular role, and while others could do it there wasn’t always anyone else hired to do it bar me, or if there was, they weren’t as good or here for long.
This mean I often worked more hours which at times had me anxious dependiing on what the shift might be like, but more than that it was the constant times were I was asked to go in on days off at time as short notice, work extra shifts at times short notice or cover because some “Cut their finger” at short notice.

Despite all of this being annoying and not helping me feel less anxious or stressed, I always said “Yeah it’s OK”.

These words were the masks I hid behind, any stress and or anxiety kept out of sight because I did like the job and the people I worked with and I knew that once a shift was over so was my stress and anxiety till the next one.
Hiding behind a mask was because I wanted to show not only to people at work, but to myself that I was a damn hard worker, and that nothing was any trouble to me, even if I stressed. And while some people maybe got angry or showed frustration I just got on with the job at hand doing the best I could and where possible trying to see the fun in work.

You may say it wasn’t a great idea to hide stress and anxiety, but I always knew how much they were affecting me, and if it had become serious then I would have raised it with someone and sought help to alleviate both.

In the end though I’m glad I stuck with things as I have got a lot better at my job, stopped stressing beyond natural stresses that most people will have including colleagues and I’ve also lost the anxiety I once had.
Most importantly though I’ve had some amazing appreciation of the work I do which has given me a huge mental boost and made me really happy at times to be at work and confident in what I do.

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