M. Suzanne Terry

I’m participating in Susannah Conway’s December Reflections challenge (sporadically, at least), and the prompt today was “biggest challenge of 2022.”

That’s an easy one. My new desk location. I haven’t really talked a lot about it here, as it’s more of a conversation to have with my supervisor. But I’ve had several of those conversations already, so it’s not like it’s a secret. Plus, it has had such a huge impact on all the things I do talk about here and the energy/focus I have to do them that it seems like a relevant part of the discussion.

I also want to talk about it because I want you to know that if there are obstacles like this in your life that are hindering your well-being but that, for whatever reason, are difficult to remove (at least without causing a whole other set of problems), you’re not the problem, and I see you. I know you’re doing your best.

When we moved to the new building a few years ago, we weren’t really excited about it. Instead of being in a joint office like we were before where we were a little removed from the passing traffic, which made it easier to do our many tasks that require concentration and, more importantly, gave the students who came in a little more privacy as they were spilling the catastrophic reasons they needed to be released from their contracts, we were being relegated to what is essentially cubicles in a hallway.

The only perk was that we got to choose which cubicle we wanted. So one of my coworkers chose the one where she could be in the middle of the room with more open space and as much of a view to the outside as possible. I chose one in the back of the room that was less likely to get traffic and noise, as my sensory issues make focus impossible when I’m overstimulated (which happens relatively easily).

But in May, the office was reorganized and I was moved (despite my fervent objections) to the space at the front of the room. The space with the MOST traffic and noise. The space where the receptionist usually sits.

There’s nothing wrong with being a receptionist, of course. I did that job for 11 years prior to moving over to this office, and I was good at it. But I have a different job to do now, and getting stuck in a spot where I’m routinely called upon to perform receptionist tasks (and I can’t even blame people for asking, because logically, that’s who the space says I am) pulls me away from it a lot.

It’s also right in the path between the break room and the two areas the part-time staff use. Which means there’s almost constant noise and disruption. And while they usually try to stay quieter out of consideration, which I appreciate, it’s still so loud. There’s no way for it not to be when there are that many people milling about.

And the students who come in to talk to me about their financial, medical, or mental health challenges have to do so right in the middle of it. It makes some of them pretty uncomfortable, but other than straight up not doing my job and pawning them off on someone in a little more private space, there’s not really anything I can do about that.

The impacts of this decision bleed over into other aspects of my life. I’m so constantly overstimulated at work that I usually have a headache and am completely exhausted by the time I leave. That makes having any kind of social life or reaching out to a support system or doing my second job (which I need to make ends meet) a lot harder than it was before.

The most frustrating thing about the situation is that it could have been easily avoided. There was a much more logical solution, even from the beginning, that did not involve reorganizing and disrupting the whole office and putting me in a space that is harmful to me and makes my job harder to do. We could easily implement this solution at the end of this semester, too, but I have no reason to expect that’s going to happen or that anyone really cares how this affects me or my work. That realization has been disheartening.

Still, I have just enough hope that I haven’t had the picture mounted to the wall yet. I may just be torturing myself.

One good thing that has come out of it is that it has forced me to be hyper-consistent with the ways that I take care of myself. I am guarding my downtime more carefully, and I am using my PTO more liberally (PSA – use your PTO like it’s your paycheck. Because it is.). Still, there’s only so much that a strict self-care regimen can do. A friend in counseling put it this way, “You can do everything right and it still won’t matter if you’re drinking poison eight hours a day.” Well…damn. Thanks for the encouragement?

Anyway, thanks for listening, and I hope you’re doing well.