Just relax...

Last night I got into a pretty serious discussion with my boyfriend regarding my job and what it actually entails.  I'm an office manager for a small environmental company and, generally, I love it.  I'm free to do whatever I feel is necessary to make the company run better and my boss is a pretty flexible guy.  However, he is also one of the most difficult people I've ever worked for.  He has no concept of patience and his mind goes a mile a minute, which is fine, as long as you're not the one who gets asked to do several different tasks at the same time for a project that he'll forget about starting in about two hours.   

Anyway, I don't really want to rant too much about him, but really, I could go on for hours.  The short story is that he makes me upset pretty often.  I pride myself on doing good work and I'm always out to prove that I'm capable at my job.  My boss, however, asks me questions very frequently, which I can't possibly answer or he asks something that is completely out of left field and has no connection to anything that the company has been doing and I'm left scrambling to try to keep up with his ever-changing erratic thoughts.   Now, I don't like saying "I don't know".  I absolutely hate it.  I want to be able to have the answer he's looking for, every time.   Unfortunately, I don't and he makes me feel pretty stupid for it.  He doesn't mean to, I know this, it's just the way he is and it's not personal.  Anyway, a lot of the time this really gets me down because I do try very hard at work and he makes it kind of seem like I'm never doing the right thing.  His favourite phrase is "here's what I would've done....".

Okay, so that's a part of what upsets me about him and working for this company (and yes, there is a lot more I could go into).    I don't like that I come home frustrated and bring my stress home with me.  Last night we decided that a large part of my job is to DEAL with my boss.  Truly, it is a task in itself that deserves a pretty decent paycheque.  Just thinking of dealing with him as a job I'm paid to do makes me feel better about it all.

It's funny, just now I received an e-mail from him that has now made me pretty upset.  Perfect timing.  It probably upset me more than usual because I'm actually writing about work and bringing up feelings that usually get me pretty angry. 

I need to calm down about this.  I've been trying to focus on positive things in my life, and just treat work as a way to fund my fun.  Though I love what I do, and I'm working towards being a consultant, I still need to be able to shake off the work burden when I get home.  If someone out there has the same work stresses and has found a way to deal with it positively (and I know you're out there!), feel free to give me some advice and some tips on how to unwind.  

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