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xiphiasMerkcomet, this is partially for you -- I wonder how much of this applies to how you were raised, too.
I can think of a lot of things that have lead to my belief that "One works until someone else tells you to stop. Physical collapse resulting in hospitalization is perhaps a forgivable reason to not continue working, but is not an acceptable reason to stop working. One should finish the job first, and THEN be hospitalized."
Work today: I got in at 10:30, as I am supposed to. Orlando pulled me aside to set up bar carts for another bar before I went in to set up the Grill Bar. This wasn't really a problem, because they've got someone competent working the Grill Bar nights. See, on Monday morning, whoever opens up the Grill Bar has to do a whole bunch of stuff like get fresh garnishes for drinks and stuff, get new bottles of milk, and a whole bunch of fiddly stuff like that. On Saturday nights, whoever closes the Grill bar has to do a whole bunch of stuff liek throw out the old garnishes, wash the garnish tray, and a whole bunch of fiddly stuff like that.
The person they used to have on the Grill Bar didn't do the stuff he was supposed to do on Saturday nights, so I had gotten in the habit of having to do the Saturday night stuff AND the Monday morning stuff all at once. But now that Tess is doing the Grill bar Saturday nights, I only have to do my own work, which meant that I had plenty of time to set up bar carts, too.
Also, as I was leaving, they asked me to stay another hour to set up a wine pour before I left. So I did.
'Cause, see, that's what I do.
I did manage to leave after only 45 minutes, though, because I had started realizing how important it was to take care of myself, so I managed to get over to MIT in time to sack out and take a half hour nap on the floor of the Green Room. That was really useful, because the world had started spinning around by then, so, even though I didn't get any sleep because I was feeling too bad about not being out helping build sets or sew costumes, at least I was lying down on the floor for the worst of the dizziness. I also tried to see if I could handle walking on the stage without my glasses, because it's better if we don't wear glasses, but, because of the dizziness, I wasn't able to get to any sort of definitive answer. I mean, I was nearly falling off, but that might have been unrelated.
I did feel a lot better later.
Anyway, I said I'd talk about why this all happens. I was realizing that I expect that part of a manager's job is to monitor how everybody is doing, and, when they're on the brink of hurting themselves, to tell them to stop . And I was feeling resentful that nobody did that for me (although they now have. . . )
And I was also realizing how unfair that is of me. I was raised by cats. And cats do not show pain or illness. It's a sign of weakness, and you hide all signs of weakness.
And, fuckit, I'm being an ACTOR here. They've got me there partially for my ability to dissemble and project feelings that aren't mine. So it's totally unfair of me to expect people to pick up how I'm feeling when I'm specifically hiding it, and can be expected to be able to hide it compitently.
I come from a construction family in which there are people with chronic pain. I was taught -- specifically, deliberately -- that everybody hurts, but you work throught that.
I was told, specifically, that it is weakness to show pain, and to let that pain influence your actions or slow you down. That wasn't something that was ACCIDENTALLY taught to me -- that's something Dad taught me DELIBERATELY.
And you know something? He's RIGHT. That's the thing. A lot of us have chronic pain, depression, fatigue. Doesn't fucking matter. You have to do what you have to do anyway.
So, that's my point: if you come from a family of physical laborers with chronic pain conditions, you don't whine. Because you've had that burned out of you when you were a kid. And you actually feel bad and guilty about asking for special treatment, like if it would be okay if you were not bleeding and stuff, because pain is just something you live with anyway. So what difference should it make, and why should it be anyone else's problem, anyway?
And, by the way, thanks everyone who responded to my last entry.
I can think of a lot of things that have lead to my belief that "One works until someone else tells you to stop. Physical collapse resulting in hospitalization is perhaps a forgivable reason to not continue working, but is not an acceptable reason to stop working. One should finish the job first, and THEN be hospitalized."
Work today: I got in at 10:30, as I am supposed to. Orlando pulled me aside to set up bar carts for another bar before I went in to set up the Grill Bar. This wasn't really a problem, because they've got someone competent working the Grill Bar nights. See, on Monday morning, whoever opens up the Grill Bar has to do a whole bunch of stuff like get fresh garnishes for drinks and stuff, get new bottles of milk, and a whole bunch of fiddly stuff like that. On Saturday nights, whoever closes the Grill bar has to do a whole bunch of stuff liek throw out the old garnishes, wash the garnish tray, and a whole bunch of fiddly stuff like that.
The person they used to have on the Grill Bar didn't do the stuff he was supposed to do on Saturday nights, so I had gotten in the habit of having to do the Saturday night stuff AND the Monday morning stuff all at once. But now that Tess is doing the Grill bar Saturday nights, I only have to do my own work, which meant that I had plenty of time to set up bar carts, too.
Also, as I was leaving, they asked me to stay another hour to set up a wine pour before I left. So I did.
'Cause, see, that's what I do.
I did manage to leave after only 45 minutes, though, because I had started realizing how important it was to take care of myself, so I managed to get over to MIT in time to sack out and take a half hour nap on the floor of the Green Room. That was really useful, because the world had started spinning around by then, so, even though I didn't get any sleep because I was feeling too bad about not being out helping build sets or sew costumes, at least I was lying down on the floor for the worst of the dizziness. I also tried to see if I could handle walking on the stage without my glasses, because it's better if we don't wear glasses, but, because of the dizziness, I wasn't able to get to any sort of definitive answer. I mean, I was nearly falling off, but that might have been unrelated.
I did feel a lot better later.
Anyway, I said I'd talk about why this all happens. I was realizing that I expect that part of a manager's job is to monitor how everybody is doing, and, when they're on the brink of hurting themselves, to tell them to stop . And I was feeling resentful that nobody did that for me (although they now have. . . )
And I was also realizing how unfair that is of me. I was raised by cats. And cats do not show pain or illness. It's a sign of weakness, and you hide all signs of weakness.
And, fuckit, I'm being an ACTOR here. They've got me there partially for my ability to dissemble and project feelings that aren't mine. So it's totally unfair of me to expect people to pick up how I'm feeling when I'm specifically hiding it, and can be expected to be able to hide it compitently.
I come from a construction family in which there are people with chronic pain. I was taught -- specifically, deliberately -- that everybody hurts, but you work throught that.
I was told, specifically, that it is weakness to show pain, and to let that pain influence your actions or slow you down. That wasn't something that was ACCIDENTALLY taught to me -- that's something Dad taught me DELIBERATELY.
And you know something? He's RIGHT. That's the thing. A lot of us have chronic pain, depression, fatigue. Doesn't fucking matter. You have to do what you have to do anyway.
So, that's my point: if you come from a family of physical laborers with chronic pain conditions, you don't whine. Because you've had that burned out of you when you were a kid. And you actually feel bad and guilty about asking for special treatment, like if it would be okay if you were not bleeding and stuff, because pain is just something you live with anyway. So what difference should it make, and why should it be anyone else's problem, anyway?
And, by the way, thanks everyone who responded to my last entry.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-08 10:18 pm (UTC)This is very true. But you have to carefully define what "what you have to do" means, because otherwise you can and probably will end up hurting yourself worse. And if you keep doing that, you'll end up hurting so badly you won't even be able to do what you really have to do.
Example from my life: I have chronic pain in my shoulders, neck, and back. To one degree or another, the pain's been there for over a decade. Even when it's bad, I still take care of my kids when I need to, go to work, go to the grocery store, etc. Except when it gets really bad—like, I'm-walking-like-Groucho-Marx-because-I-can't-stand-up-straighter-without-screaming
bad.
When that happens, I make sure that my wife can take care of the kids, or arrange for her to get some help, tell my boss I'm not coming in, and I take a muscle relaxant and lie down on top of an ice pack. Then I go to sleep for twelve hours or so, because once I take a muscle relaxant that's pretty much the only thing I'm capable of doing.
Could I keep going, pushing through the pain? Probably, and I would if I had to. But I almost never do, and I know that if I push myself too hard when I'm in that much pain, I could do some real damage to myself. And, if I do that, who knows what I might not be able to do in the future?
Back to you: You're an actor in a play. But, you know, there's a reason why even the best stage actors in the world have understudies. There is a point when it very much does matter how much pain you're in or how bad you feel, when you're doing something that is really not essential. And, let's face it, acting in Iolanthe is not essential to your life or anyone else's. And being so dizzy that you can barely stand up is very much the kind of thing that should send up an I'm Doing Too Much red flag.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-09 03:11 am (UTC)I was also taught that you do what needs to be done and you don't gripe or act up about it even if it's hurting. But the chronologically first thing anybody hands you isn't necessarily the thing that needs to be done. Sometimes even they don't think so -- as in the case of set-builders who, if they knew how you would be interpreting, would have been careful to say "We'd like you to work as long as you can consistent with, but only consistent with, not hurting yourself," but didn't know they had to spell that out for you -- and sometimes they don't much care how you balance your various needs but it's perfectly reasonable of you to say screw 'em, as in the case of a professor who assigns his term paper the same day as everyone else's and needs to be asked for an extention so you can sleep someday that week.
Even if you're prepared not to give a damn about how you feel, "what I have to do" can include a bunch of factors:
-Getting the job done tomorrow as well as today, rather than being in the hospital
-Getting done whatever other tasks you really ought to accomplish over the folowing several days
-Not running up unnecessary medical bills you can't reasonably pay
-Being capable of being relatively coherent and pleasant to the people you live with
-Not being so sick or hurt as to worry the shit out of those who love you
Just because nobody may be, at any given moment, talking to you about these other jobs on your plate doesn't mean they aren't there, and they're important, especially the last two. To abdicate them in favor of an objectively fairly trivial task just because someone happened to mention the latter in so many words and didn't think to say "...to the extent it isn't incompatible with the rest of the standing requirements" is a failure of judgment of a very particular kind that tends to go either with depression's tendency to see things as black and white or out of proportion, or with an overcompensation for same.
Stoicism is *good*. A true stoic can be just as ruthless about refusing what their guts tell them is the Right Thing To Do in favor of what their reason tells them is the Right Thing To Do as they can about refusing their body's needs to get a task done. If you can start putting the same kind of determination into doing what objectively has to get done -- including not hurting yourself -- as you do into doing what feels at the moment like it has to get done you'll have learned the good part of your dad's lesson.
you may already know this
Date: 2004-11-09 03:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-09 04:39 am (UTC)I gotta agree with the commenters who are pointing out the ways this has to be balanced, though, to avoid getting yourself perished or hurting worse. Figuring out the right balance seems to be the hard part, whichever side of it you're starting from.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-09 06:59 am (UTC)The quintessential occupation whose services are essential and which drives its members hard is, of course, physicians. Interns and E.R. doctors especially, but other doctors as well, are generally expected to work extremely long hours, with practically no sleep and only the occasional day off for "personal time" (which they usually, I understand, use just to try to catch up on sleep). They're expected to work through pain, sickness (unless it's something highly communicable, of course), and of course sheer exhaustion. And they either can do that, or they burn out and find a different profession.
Recently, hospitals have been starting to take better care of their doctors, however. This is because several major recent studies showed what ought to have been obvious: the more worn out the doctors were, the more mistakes they made. Even though what doctors do provides an essential service to their patients (especially in the E.R.), it not only is OK for them to take care of themselves, taking care of themselves makes them better doctors.
I think you'll agree that, no matter how important the sets for Iolanthe might be to some people, they aren't as important in the grand scheme of things as helping sick and injured people get better. So try to relax, take a step back, and think about what you're doing and if it is really more important than your health. If you're inclined to think the answer is "Yes," step back again and think about whether, if you keep doing the task regardless of how bad you feel, you will do a good enough job on it. If you have any thought that the answer to either of those questions could be "No," you should stop doing what you're doing and take care of yourself.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-09 07:30 am (UTC)If you've done what you can to treat or avoid the problem, then all you can do is mitigate -- choose appropriate work (that's not massively incompatable with your limitations), pace yourself, and monitor yourself. Even if it is a manager's job to pay attention to the state of those he manages (and I'm not sure I agree with that), you can't assume that all maangers are fully competent. You have to look out for yourself too.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-09 11:52 am (UTC)And...on a more sane note...do take care of yourself, love. There's stoic and then there's killing yourself.
Killing oneself is very bad for the health.
::Which is why you survive on 12 minutes' sleep tops?::
Lexei, that's just not important.