Working Sixty Hours, but Getting Paid for Forty!

It's always easy to change your life. Really! Changing jobs is a snap; all you need is to summon the will to do the work required to stop working in one place and start working in another. However, even the most determined, need breaks, some more than others. And I can't seem to catch one.

Sleep is the best break there is. Sleep, as we all know, is the best way to recharge your batteries. Even if you're a slow riser like me, eventually your brain wakes up and feels like it can take on what the universe will toss at you for the next 14-16 hours. My brain doesn't wake up, for the simple reason that it didn't relax in the first place.

I dream a lot. And my dreams are extremely vivid, colorful, and lifelike. I've dreamed entire movies and at least a half-dozen BSG episodes. I meet fascinating people whom I've never met when awake. I wake up sleepy but satisfied, although I occasionally stumble over memories stemmed from reality or from dreams.

This graphic alternate universe, unfortunately, does pain me at times, and I end up with troubling, stressful dreams that make me even more fried getting out of bed than getting into it. These times intersect with particularly stressful times at work. What happens is: I work my eight unhappy, stress-filled hours, get home, eat dinner, go to bed...and work for another eight unhappy, stress-filled hours.

My dreamtime job history parallels my own. For some reason, however, my dreamtime jobs consist mostly of bars and restaurants, jobs which I haven't worked at in years. Sometimes the dreams don't place me at work, but instead getting lost trying to get to work, or sometimes being "woken up" (yes, I have multi-layered dreams) by a phone call asking me why I'm not at work.

Dreams like these coil with endless roads, trains, maps of bus lines that seem to make no sense. (Then again, I've dreamt of roads, paths, etc. since I was a child) When I do dream of the current workplace, it has grown into a giant conglomerate, and I'm either trying to close the place and get people out, or trying to having a bizarre phone conversation with my clients, or whatever floats my dreamy little boat. Small wonder that, when I finally wake up, I feel the need to avoid anything job-related.

Everyone has these dreams. However, the more stressed I am at "real" work, the more frequent these dreams occur. Sometimes I'll have several in one night. There's no escape.

Maybe it's an excuse not to look for work with more diligence. But even dreamers need some rest. Someday I hope I acquire some.