feeling some burn out

[Zoe Girl]

Hmm, not sure if this is burn out or some other stresses in life affecting me. I had a couple of peaceful days which was great, and then starting Monday night my home exploded in drama again. But here I am focusing on work.

So I have been in loads of training, have some minor staff issues, and we have sooo many partnerships with organizations. Mostly I have tooo much to implement in my programs and I have a lot of staff training and development to get them to the point where they can pull it off. Friday I have confrontational meeting with my site coordinator and several supervisors about our communication issues at that school.

I wonder if it is just some of the necessary response to some things at work. i was talking with my back-on-again boyfriend about how I am a mediator. I did (what I consider) very good work with a parent of a student who had a behavior issue. It was a first incident but I knew the child and already had some issues with him and this incident was serious. Meanwhile I had information from the administration that I should be prepared and not meet with the parent alone. Well I had the meeting, mom agreed to the behavior consequence, it was positive and we found a structured program where he will be separated from the developing gang plus give him a chance to develop computer skills. Rather than mom being defensive and dangerous (in my areas this is very possible) she left smiling.

I am pretty dang proud, I am actually looking towards more training in mediation if this continues. But here is the deal, i am an introvert in nature even if no one believes me when I take charge of a training or just love being the center of attention, so this drains my energy. And I feel like I have soooo many more skills and abilities than my current job. It is a great place to make connections and prove myself, I just would rather be doing the training instead of attending (but they are really quality trainings). Patience I know,..

Tomorrow there are more DR appointments and if I am in the office at all I am going to put up my 'don't bug me' sign. Any other suggestions to recover?

[RosieTR]

SOrry, Zoe. Not sure how to deal with burnout. I'm feeling it too so I sympathize. Maybe making a little "yay me" file where you jot down some accomplishments each day. Or your one most proud one, or something. It's easy to get burned out when no one acknowledges your accomplishments so make sure at least someone does: you! It also makes a nice record if you ever need it.

[Zoe Girl]

Thanks for the reminder, i do try to keep my portfolio updated with anything in my field. I have to put in copies of the last Dr Seuss birthday i did for Target. What SUPER helped was a meeting of a bunch of people for a person i work with named S. She really is bugging people, mostly me and the site lead teacher A. S coordinates the other after school programming paid for by the same grant that pays for the child care we provide. I had such an over the line email, and as always she copies in all of our supervisors, had my supervisor looking for disciplinary action, and me angry. The situation was actually not any problem at all and she didn't mention that these 'unregistered students' were brothers of a child in our program and SHE KNOWS THEM! In any case I felt very supported, the meeting ended with her supervisor being very firm on the no emailing everyone, and talk to a person when you are there (A was in the room and had no idea, S left the room and emailed me instead of speaking to her). I realize that was a huge underlying stress.

I got a day off, that is what really helped. I am working on a leave from Target and some of the process I thought was more automatically handled, that is part of what happens with working so much, and so I told them yesterday I simply had to be off the schedule today. They were super short with illness going around so I went yesterday and i will give them one mroe Saturday, but then I just have to have 6 weeks off. I am not quitting because I want to see if I can move cheaper and make the money work first.

[Sissy]

Burnout and underappreciation can suck the life outta you! Stress out the wazu it sounds like to me. I hope things work out for you. I know that from your posts that you certainly are trying.

Blessings

I certainly could use some time off other than when sick (which I was all last week) or going to the doctor with someone else. Just a little "me only" time for the last three years would have been sooo nice. No vacation time during any of those 3 years. whine, whine, sniff, sniff.

Sherry