Job Update
May. 16th, 2026 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetTalked things out with my boss on Thursday, and we came to a much better understanding. Part of it is something that I'm still having trouble internalizing, but is part of my reality, and so I will have to learn to accept it. (Maybe after a brief mourning period. Hopefully the ADA and EAP paperwork HR sent over will help by giving me a way through.)
In short: I thought I was unneeded in my job; Boss thought I didn't care about my job and had one foot out the door.
The reality is that my job really is mostly unneeded, as long as there are enough competent full time workers, which we've had for An While now, but there is still room for me and I am still appreciated. And the other reality is that I do have one foot out the door, and tend to go with easier tasks, but the one foot out the door is at least partly in response to not getting enough hours, and the tending to go with easier tasks is partly because I haven't learned a lot of the more difficult new tasks and the more difficult tasks I used to do are no longer needed.
The other part of both of them is that, as my boss put it in her email to HR (CC'd to me), I am struggling with the physical demands of the job.
I like to do tasks where I can sit down because my back hurts after standing for too long. If I have to lean over a table just slightly (which is not infrequently, because the tables are a couple inches short for me, and squatting is not practical for a lot of the tasks I still do or have done), it can be slightly difficult for me to breathe. This is not a particularly new problem for me; playing viola was not always great, because sitting up straight enough made it difficult for me to breathe. Not impossible! But enough of a challenge that I would kinda... hold my breath for a lot of it. This kind of standing engages a lot of the same muscles, and I still have no idea how to fix it.
Luckily, my job covers pretty much unlimited employee assistance, so hopefully I can at least get closer to understanding what's been going on with my body for these past decades, and maybe even talk to a physical therapist about finding a way to make it less bad. IDK, I'm not entirely sure what all of this entails. But it's something, and that's a lot better than what I had two weeks ago.
Anyway, the bakery Lead Cook (second in command) will be helping me out at work tomorrow and teaching me a few of the things I haven't had the opportunity to really learn in the past two-ish years. I am dearly hoping that one of our "new" bread recipes is on the to-do list 💖
In short: I thought I was unneeded in my job; Boss thought I didn't care about my job and had one foot out the door.
The reality is that my job really is mostly unneeded, as long as there are enough competent full time workers, which we've had for An While now, but there is still room for me and I am still appreciated. And the other reality is that I do have one foot out the door, and tend to go with easier tasks, but the one foot out the door is at least partly in response to not getting enough hours, and the tending to go with easier tasks is partly because I haven't learned a lot of the more difficult new tasks and the more difficult tasks I used to do are no longer needed.
The other part of both of them is that, as my boss put it in her email to HR (CC'd to me), I am struggling with the physical demands of the job.
I like to do tasks where I can sit down because my back hurts after standing for too long. If I have to lean over a table just slightly (which is not infrequently, because the tables are a couple inches short for me, and squatting is not practical for a lot of the tasks I still do or have done), it can be slightly difficult for me to breathe. This is not a particularly new problem for me; playing viola was not always great, because sitting up straight enough made it difficult for me to breathe. Not impossible! But enough of a challenge that I would kinda... hold my breath for a lot of it. This kind of standing engages a lot of the same muscles, and I still have no idea how to fix it.
Luckily, my job covers pretty much unlimited employee assistance, so hopefully I can at least get closer to understanding what's been going on with my body for these past decades, and maybe even talk to a physical therapist about finding a way to make it less bad. IDK, I'm not entirely sure what all of this entails. But it's something, and that's a lot better than what I had two weeks ago.
Anyway, the bakery Lead Cook (second in command) will be helping me out at work tomorrow and teaching me a few of the things I haven't had the opportunity to really learn in the past two-ish years. I am dearly hoping that one of our "new" bread recipes is on the to-do list 💖
