The Ink-Pot and the Palette

American culture is more insane than UK culture regarding overwork but we're slipping down the slope too,

At current job a lot of teams are under-resourced and I know a fair number of folks working on average a 60 hour week. They're also amassing leave because there's no time to take it and then getting sick because there's no downtime and then coming back to discover piles of stuff still has not been done because there's no cover. Also newly recruited people are quitting within a couple of weeks of joining in one major team tasked with delivering a substantial project which does not bode well!

It's a vicious circle.

The whole situation is a bit Pythonesque and there are some very valid lessons to be learned about not starting on fricking huge high profile projects until you actually have all the staff resources in place to deliver and that all your staff have adequate training, experience and support to do the job.

I;m still trying to catch up with things that should have been in place back in April *G*

I figure worst case scenario I can bank Feb and Mar salary which will cover my mortgage and living expenses for about 4-6 months if I'm careful. If I really can't hack it anymore I could hand in my notice at the beginning of March, quit at the end and then I have some breathing room to find something more suitable - or I can temp while job hunting.

Job is well paid but not worth the (current) amount of stress and I can't see things getting much better. I may feel differently after this big event in Feb is over but I haven't been this psychotically stressed about work in 30 years.

I figure when it gets to the point that something is impacting my ability to sleep, and thus function during the day and think coherently it's a sign from above that this is not a match made in heaven!

There are options with the mortgage payoff - such as extending the loan - which is not ideal but would be doable even on a reduced salary.

We shall see.

I'm very conscious that stress does not lead to clarity of thought or good decision making so everything is on hold til the middle of Feb. Then it will be time to take a good hard look at ALL the circumstances! *G*

Poor ravurian is currently my lifeline to sanity.