Stress

I miss being the mailroom guy at Fangamer. I used to happily spend ridiculous numbers of hours preparing and shipping packages each day, and it never got old or boring to me.

Somewhere along the way, though, I started picking up duties as the person who manages Fangamer's partnerships. It's a cool position, working with lots of people I might never have spoken to otherwise. It's also hugely stressful or many reasons.

It's a privilege to be in a position in which people rely on you. It's not just a work thing; it's part of growing up. We start life relying on others, and we continue to rely on others our whole lives. Adulthood, as far as I can tell, comes when others can begin relying on you as well. Regardless of your age, if you've become a person who can handle responsibility, then you're an adult.

Running the mailroom was a responsibility I could handle effortlessly. Granted, the mailroom is much busier now than it was when I first arrived, but the basic responsibilities have remained pretty straightforward. There are very clear goals in a position like that, and progress is easy to track and measure.

With partner management, so much of it is out of my control that it can be daunting sometimes. In the end, the majority of my responsibility is communication: I spend almost the entirely of any given day drafting and sending emails, interpreting emails into tasks, and passing information on to one person or another. In many ways, it's the opposite of the mailroom work: mentally exhausting, yet not physically demanding at all.

Early on I would juggle the two responsibilities: spending part of each day working the mailroom and part at my computer handling partners. Now, with the exception of Christmas, I almost never pack or ship orders. My days are completely spent at my desk.

Two problems have arisen from this:

First, I work shorter hours now. There are many days in which I don't even spend a full eight hours at the office, instead opting to go home and mull over one problem or another. Spending a full day thinking critically exhausts me in a way that physical labor never has; a way that's far more effective at wearing me down. I don't feel too bad about my office hours, though, since I'm basically bringing my work home with me. The fact is, I could probably do 70-80% of my job from home, if not more.

The second problem is more severe. My using up all of my mental energy on critical thinking for other people's problems, I find myself lacking the energy to devote to anything of my own. Creative projects are out of my reach in this state, unless I completely give up on the concept of leisure.

I currently spend my evenings and weekends playing games, watching movies, and hanging out with friends. I used to spend many of my weekends working at the office, but I simply can't do that anymore. I need this time to recover.

Anyway, I'm hoping to be able to make time for a creative project soon. I don't know if it'll work out, but I have to try. Hopefully it'll be something that I can work on for Fangamer, but I'm not going to give up on it if that's not the case.