Back to Work After a Long Break

Aside from not having schedule to work the past couple of months (January and February), I had also been not accepting certain shifts for sick calls or covering for doctor appointments. Although it makes me feel slightly guilty for saying no, but I really do have more important things to do. Especially with those sick calls, that come in the morning they've called in sick (I don't have any food prepared to bring, if I went to work), and covering for doctor appointments, they staff themselves ask me like a couple of days before. Yes, I'm suppose to be covering those shifts, but I do get the choice to say Yes or No. I sometimes feel that they take my position status for granted, thinking that as long as they can't make it to work, that I can go and cover them. Honestly though, if I were them, I'll work it out with the current team of staff, see if I could swap a shift with them, before asking a third person to work their shift. Especially as when it's a last minute request of me.

I had been keeping myself busy, and honestly when I'm working, I don't like to be interrupted midway. Whether that be working at home on my business, or when I'm at work doing a task. I have been prescheduled to work the coming week, and maybe because of refusing a few shifts these past 2 months and not working, I'm a bit nervous going back to work on Monday. I had been aware of all work emails for these couple of months, and there had been some changes. I hope I could become familiar with them quickly, so it doesn't affect my work too much.

So that I won't be called in for work on the weeks I'm not prescheduled for the rest of this year, I have marked down the weeks that I'm free and decided to hand in forms that will indicate that I'm not available. That way, if for some reason, there are sick calls or doctor appointments, they can't ask me to work them. I just hope my Manager will approve them all, that way, I don't need to feel guilty for saying No to working those types of shifts, as I have proof and requests to have those days off with the forms. So, I plan to send off those forms when I return to work on Monday.

I'm only hoping I can stop worrying these couple of nights, and be able to sleep better. Otherwise, I might end up running on Depression-mode (lack of sleep, but still feel energized at work because I like what I do).

Oh yea, my parents are going away for a month, leaving the coming Tuesday. My cousin is getting married and they were invited. On my mum's side, we are the only relative in the same continent. I heard though my uncle's brother from Australia is also going to attend the wedding too. So my parents are flying to San Francisco on Tuesday for the wedding, as that's where my cousin is currently settled in. He's been moving from State to State because of his work. My Aunt lives on the coast of California, so my parents will be staying at their place after the wedding ends. The sibling of the cousin who's getting married, will also attend, but will only be there for the day of the wedding, so only over the weekend. She's a paediatric mental health doctor in another State, so she could only take the weekend off. If I didn't need to work next week, and the beginning of April, I could've considered attending too. Oh well, our parents can represent my brother and I. We're not super close to our cousins, although my age is similar to them. The one getting married is a month younger than I, and his sister is a year older than I. They were both born in the States and have continued with working there, and they're always going from State to State for schooling and work, so it's very difficult to connect with them, as time zones keep changing. We were only close when we were still young, like when I was in elementary school, I remember they visited for vacation one summer, and my cousin and I slept in the same room. Afterwards, we haven't really stayed in contact much. I last time I saw my cousin was probably 5 years ago, or longer. I was with my parents visiting my Aunt, and she was transitioning jobs and went home to stay for a week or two.

She started off as working as a Computer Engineering, then after working for like a decade, she got tired of it. Changed her career, by going to Med School. Now, she's a Doctor. Her entire family are very smart people. Both her parents finished University, which is not common in their generation to even finish high school. So, both my cousins are really smart with studies too. I believe my male cousin had worked for both Google and Amazon at one point, and he's not doing something else. Like I said, my other cousin, as a Computer Engineer and now a Doctor. That's like a different field of career, that does not happen often to an average person.

Oh look, I ended up not talking about myself again. Oops. Anyways, I hope the coming week of work won't be too difficult to adjust to the changes, and I hope my Manager will approve all those forms I'll be handing in. That's one good thing about our new Program Clerk and arranges our schedules. She had put in all the shifts for the entire year, that way, I can just go online to check my work days, and easily mark down the weeks I'm not pre-scheduled. The previous Clerk, gave me my shifts 3 months prior (as that's the way it's suppose to be), but I like it this way. I'll be accepting to cover those vacation periods anyways, and since my colleagues' vacation is approved a year before, it makes more sense to schedule me in for them once their vacation had been approved. This way, I can also make my own arrangements knowing the weeks that they don't have vacation. So, it's all good.

Thanks for reading to the end~