summer's end

At work, the slow summer workload is officially over. It got a bit hectic today in comparison to the last 2 months. For summer class session, the classwork officially ends on Wednesday this week, with exams later. The fall semester begins August 26 Monday. Students will arrive before then, of course, and everybody will be setting up early. So today was already busy.

This particular job is stressful for several reasons, but one of them is different from other jobs only due to the hours. I've spent much of my adult life working less than 40 hours per week. This one is 40 hours, at a minimum. (I work late often to finish up tickets, but don't tell my employer that omission from my timesheet. I am accustomed to working "exempt" and not having to care about the minute I clock out every day, unlike now.) It's always the 40-hour jobs that stress me out the most and eventually drag down my mental stamina. I think it's because it just requires longer for me to chill from those bursts of activity, and that's harder to accomplish between the longer work periods.

Because of the special workload last year, I don't see how this fall semester could possibly be as bad as last year. It will be busy, yes, but not that busy. If I come to expect that kind of stress every fall as happened last year, then I'll choose to begin the slow process to find a new job elsewhere. I'm hopeful it'll be better this time. We'll see how it goes.

I'm currently listening to yelling from the house next door, as I type here. I'm going to play computer games for a while.