After the shit-show that I experienced this past weekend, I promised myself that I was not going to sacrifice my time with my kids, or Jim, or my workout sessions anymore for work. Yeah, I’ve said that before but after yesterday, when I was called out for not doing a task yet by a teammate in front of my boss when I busted my ass on a different project all weekend AND gave up my time on my daughter’s bday weekend, it was the final straw. Or nail or whatever idiom you like for being pushed over the edge.

I think it was the push I needed to fuel the mental and emotional strength required to pull the trigger on having “THAT” conversation with my bosses. Now I’m fixated on writing out my talking points and deciding what information I want to include. I’m planning to try and keep the conversation positive and not bring up my frustrations with the “dreaded” project. If I’m exiting the scene there’s no reason for me to be negative.. it will do no good and only put a black cloud on me. If possible, I want to highlight the positives to the company for my terminating my involvement in that project. Ideally I would love to negotiate stating on to contine work on the other project for a certain number of hours a week. However, I can’t even predict how they will react to the first bit of news so I’m not holding my breath for “ideal”.

Still, you don’t get what you don’t ask for (a seemingly universal truth for life), so I owe it to myself to do that. When I took this gig, the conversations and culture were all about being supportive and flexible. In my heart I feel like they still want to be like that and I think that it is perhaps my fault for getting mystelf overbooked. I said “yes” too much and now here I am complaining I have too much to do and not enough time.

I hope they are open to my proposal as I know the next move after that is not awesome. I’ve been in this spot before and the fact that history has repeated itself is making my kick myself. It means it is more likely my doing (or rather allowing the company to do it to me). Two years ago I requested a sabbatical from my employer at that time and was turned down. The minute they said “no” I knew the bullshit about them caring about their employees and being a “family” were lies. They touted having “great small company culture” and that may have been true at one point but by the time I had that conversation it had all changed.

This time around I have to be just as prepared for a negative reaction to my request. And I believe that I am. I need to be strong and stand up for myself and stand my ground. I have to.

I need to take a little time to write out what I want to say and I know as soon as I engage my bosses requesting a conversation, they are going to want to have that ASAP. It’s just like them to say “sure, let’s jump on a slack call right now”. Ha! I just have to be ready.

Ok… there’s lots of other stuff going on today, including me signing papers for the sale of my house. 😱 I’ve gotta jet.

Peace and Love,

~Miss SugarCookie