here I am again. I vaguely remember posting an entry perhaps two weeks back in the midst of one of the most prolonged mental breakdowns I've ever had.
it was so bad that I decided to leave my job. any other sort of labour would've seemed attractive than whatever I was doing. in a fortunate turn of events, I was ultimately offered the option of a career break, which I naturally took in order to sustain myself while I heal mentally.
today marks the third day of my unpaid leave. I haven't done much at all except rewatching some black mirror episodes. yesterday I had my first imax experience. the ticket was on sale, but I missed the first showing that I booked, so I booked another one since I was so free anyway. I watched the odyssey, which was a valuable choice and well-worth the price considering the entire film was almost 3 hours. the plot and execution was also very good. the cinematography largely reminded me of interstellar.
I'm also going to Seoul next week for a few days with a friend and her friends. I haven't been there since 2018 so I'm really looking forward to it. apart from this trip I've also given myself a plan to study for my N3 exam and also spend time on editing my travel vlogs. I've went to so many places and filmed so much, but I didn't have time at all to work on them since returning. I had expected to have a short break after my last peak season, but it only lasted a mere 1 month and then my schedule was booked again. I know I should take this opportunity to recuperate, but at the same time I really don't want it to go to waste so I want to make something of it at least without any regrets.
all I've been facing since last September was being flagged for high utilization at work every month until the end of season (March this year). sure, I did go on my planned leaves to travel in October and December, but being overutilized without any compensation or promotion in return did some permanent damage to my psyche, I think. I was sold the idea of a promotion towards the end of last year, so I gladly took on all the work that was assigned to me without any complaints and worked my ass off beyond my role, even though my pay was that of an associate. after December I knew I was played, so I did my work but never more. I slacked off whenever I could, and still was still overutilized because the workload amount assigned to me was unreasonable, yet no one batted an eye as long as I did not complain. I had hoped that when the season ended, I would take it slow for at least until July or August, given that I overworked so much without any compensation time. and it was okay at first when they assigned me to a small job. then all of a sudden, while this job was still ongoing, I was put on to another job which is supposed to be 100% of my time. I gave it 2-3 weeks before calling it quits, which was when I told my boss that I was leaving for mental health reasons. they did not ask or care that I had another ongoing job, and when I did mention it, they pretended to care for 3 seconds and then expect me to dedicate my full focus to their job. the entire 3 weeks or so i didn't have time at all to work on my previous job, which triggered my anxiety and depression so badly that I had multiple breakdowns all in the span of 2 weeks. and the reason that I was so busy on the new job is because the responsibilities were fucking stupid and meaningless. all the overworking last season was nothing compared to the level of stupidity that I had to adapt to on this new job. in short, there were a lot of redundant status updates and calls to the client's management and reps, spending hours to write status update emails when we've had calls with them pretty much every single day, etc etc.
I had an entire existential crisis thinking that I had to go on like that until April next year. at that point I would've much rather eat dirt than write another status update email or hop into an "internal team huddle". corporate really has an interesting way of draining you mentally like that, and I've only been in it for a bit over 2 years. in hindsight I think I was pretty lucky to have avoided jobs like this for the entire time that I've been in this company, but truly, fuck, damn... I wish I have better ways to express how I feel but it does not deserve any more from me.
I have never cried for work. not when it got seriously tough. when I worked for 2 days without sleeping, when I clocked in 16 hours for 2 weeks including weekends. when a client yelled at me. when a senior verbally insulted me every day through various forms of micro-aggressions. I cried a couple times or more because of how dreadful this job was.
anyway, I will try to write more tomorrow. working on editing my videos.
