the diamonds in your fire burning like a flame inside of you,

I've been sick of work for a while now.
But I was dealing with it because, well, I've been there for a year and a half now,
and I'm sort of a habitually picky person.
And when I say sort of,
I mean incredibly.

Here's the pattern:

I break up with people I'm dating once I start to really get to know them,
because I pick them apart.
I put them under the microscope,
and I zoom the lens in as far as it will go.
And I look at each and every cell as closely as I can,
inspecting it for disease.
And because I'm a habitually picky person,
I find a disease on at least 50% of their cells.
If it were anyone else using the same microscope,
they wouldn't find nearly as many damaged cells as I do.
Because that's what I do.
And because I'm a jackass,
I let the damaged cells destroy the good ones like a fucking virus is attacking them.

OK, that's enough with the scientific metaphors.
But the point is,
I let every one of their flaws irritate the shit out of me until I can't take it anymore,
they annoy me,
and I make them leave.
I either make them want to leave me, or I leave them.

So, I don't think it's irrational for me to be 99.9% certain that that's what I was doing about my job when I first started hating it.
It just so happens that because I'm good at my job,
I've liked it for longer than I've ever liked anyone I've dated,
so it took longer than a few months for me to start putting my job under the microscope.
Therefore, I thought to myself,
"Self, you're being a jackass again. Let's see if you're just being stupid and picky and if this will blow over."
If only I had the ability to say that to myself in a relationship.
But whatever.
The point I'm trying to make is,
it's NOT blowing over.
I'm exhausted physically and mentally because of my job.
My job is not the thing that is causing this exhaustion firsthand.
It's how annoyed I am with my job and ALL the parts of it (and I do mean ALL).
My irritation with my work is making me tired.
Physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.

But what sucks is,
I don't actually HATE my job. I'm just annoyed.
I really do like my job.
I like what I do.
But I'm just so sick of the bullshit that goes on day after day.
People come to me with all kinds of questions (and I don't mean the people in my department, because they're supposed to ask me questions),
about things that have NOTHING to do with my job or my department,
but they still assume that I have the answers to them.
And what really sucks is,
I do.
90% of the time, I can answer the questions that have virtually nothing to do with me or my department.
If I didn't know the answers,
they'd probably stop asking.
I've thought about telling people that from now on: "I don't know."
But because of who I am, I can't do that.
I can't not answer a question that I DO know the answer to.
I can't fail on purpose.
I'm a strong enough and reasonable enough person that if I fail at something because I made a stupid mistake or I didn't try hard enough,
I can accept that failure, and I can learn from it.
Or if I fail at something after trying my hardest to succeed,
and I still fail,
I either accept the failure and learn from it,
or I start over and try again.
I cannot fail on purpose.
Purposefully failing at ANYTHING seems ridiculous to me.
So no, I can't just NOT answer these questions that I do know the answers to.
Not only that, but because I'm such a CURIOUS person,
the ones I DON'T know the answers to,
I have to find out the answers to them and then give them the answers.
Actually I think that's a combination of my curiosity and my unwillingness to not have the correct goddamn answer.
But hey.

I'm just tired of it all.
I'm tired of these ridiculous mistakes that are being made,
I'm tired of basically being taken advantage of as far as my paycheck is concerned because I was supposed to get a raise two paychecks ago and still haven't,
and I shouldn't have to put up with that shit.
No one who deserves a raise should have to put up with not seeing their raise,
and if they DO have to put up with it due to a human error,
it should be corrected.
My mom asked me if I'd get retroactive pay to go back to when I should've gotten it.
I told her I sincerely doubted it.
She got irritated and asked why.
And I told her because that's just not something I can see happening up there.
It really isn't.

I'm not saying I'm this like super amazing employee,
or an amazing supervisor,
or anything like that.
I'm saying I'm good at my job because I know my job and I know how to do it.
I'm saying I'm a smart person.
I'm saying I bust my ASS up there and when I get a good score on a performance review and I'm supposed to have a raise,
it PISSES ME OFF when I don't get it at the time I was supposed to.
Michelle and I both work our fucking asses off up there.
We put up with so much shit that most people don't even know we put up with.
We do WAY more than we should for our employees,
we are both good at what we do,
and we both get basically nothing for it.
And I am SO not saying that the other supervisors don't put up with a lot of shit.
Because we all do.
And I'm sure they have to deal with getting nothing to show for their hard work too.
But all I personally know about is me and Michelle.

But it shouldn't be any of us.