Enough

The past few weeks work has really sucked. It isn’t actually my job that sucks, it is many of my coworkers. I feel taken advantage of and I feel judged. It isn’t just at work, I am getting a little bit of that from a few of my friends outside of work as well. Everyone wants me to be available at all times to listen, give advice or be supportive, which isn’t bad at all, in fact I love being “that person” for people. But it is not reciprocated and boundaries that I put up are not respected, time and time again. At work I am too nice about it. People push the limits or say things that I take offense to or that make me wonder “is she making fun of me?” but yet I continue to put myself in that situation. It stops here. What I have realized over the past few weeks is that I am not able to be one thing to one coworker and then something else entirely to another. Everyone has the same expectations of me. If I go out to lunch with one coworker I get slack for not going out to lunch with another the next day. “But you went out with her” they tell me. It is not that I am “popular” in my office, in fact if anything I feel like an odd ball nearly every day. Honestly, I am not sure what it is that makes it so people treat me this way. Regardless, I am shutting down. I am sick of coming home at night and feeling emotionally drained. This is my JOB! I work at a desk in a cubical (of sorts) and there is no reason that I have to put emotion into it. My time and effort goes into my coworkers and I walk away feeling empty. One of my coworkers once told me that she never takes anything that happens at work home with her. She said that she just has the personality type to just let things roll off easily. I do not have that personality type. I joke with people that I forget things easily, which is true although the business of people’s emotions is not generally something that I slough off easily. I say that, I think, to help people feel comfortable. I like it that people are comfortable around me, I don’t like it that people cannot seem to respect my boundaries and that people, for some reason, feel that is it okay to do a running commentary on my life and my choices.