Overtime

How many years have you spent working on overtime? Me? For me it’s been a decade. Forget the normal 9-5. I wanted it all. I spent more hours than I can count thinking, researching, traveling, exploring and wanting to be the best at what I did. What that was... well, that's the [short] story.

And, yes, I know I'm late to the party of epiphanies that happened for most during/after COVID. I guess working through the pandemic delayed mine.

Let’s go back to the beginning. Not the whole beginning and definitely won’t be boring you with a long story. I’m writing a novel all about that. The long story, I mean. For now, you get the punchline. You’re welcome.

We can say that my beginning was a humble one. My parents never made much money and they never talked about ambition. In high school I did a lot of volunteer work and I enjoyed helping my communities. It was all for a simple outcome, a sense of belonging.

When I started working, though, the outcome started to change. The longer you're at work, the harder you work and the more you take on, determines the amount of money you get paid. At that point, I began to see the same shift a lot of people experience. Because, let's be honest, we're humans. When we get more, we want more.

I was bored easily with the day-to-day and the simple operations, so I consistently searched for new opportunities. I took on every opportunity I could to further my career. I traveled to many countries, researched, networked and read about the hospitality industry and the economy. For many years, a 10 hour day was normal and 15 hour day was a "long day". I once worked 84 hour weeks because I couldn't make up my mind if I wanted to work events or stay in hotels. Or maybe, just to see if I could.

Taking on all of those challenges really did build something in me I never had before-- real confidence. I had accrued all this knowledge that I was able to carry conversation, interact with, work with and manage a wide variety of people. Yet, all of that hard work to become the best at what I did is what has me here. With my laptop in my lap, writing stories, poems and jokes. Expressing a lesson to a stranger willing to read and listen to me write.

I wholeheartedly believed that I was providing the best hospitality to our guests while being the best manager to our employees, while being the best at directing and running operations, systems and processes. All while being a fun friend, supporting my family in any way I could, looking for a fairy tale love and attempting to set roots once I "got to the top".

Instead, I turned out to be the best at being the worst version of myself. I ran myself to the ground. I dissociated from my personal life and abandoned all of my personal relationships for the chase to the top. What's heartbreaking to admit, is how deeply rooted my self sabotage and abandonment was. Deeply rooted in my heart and mind, these insecurities and hurts.

I lost sight of myself by constantly thinking about other people. By constantly working holidays, weekends and nights. By constantly wanting to please everyone in my personal life and wanting to help everyone around me grow in the ways I expected myself to. By holding myself to unrealistic standards of what a human body and mind could do. By judging my managers and bosses for not having the same resourcefulness or drive for self improvement and development that I did. I lost my self to an identity I created for work. An identity to be successful in the industry I so adored.

Nevertheless, I have found that I needed to go through the circle of an adventure I call mine, to end up exactly where I started. With all of that accrued knowledge, with all those itches scratched and with all of those beautiful and ugly relationships I had. The reason being? Well, because I know better now. And when you know better, you can do better.

So, I couldn't have stayed in the same place-- no sir. Not even if I tried. Not even if my bosses or mom would try (as they did). It was time for me to choose, out of all the things I had done and accomplished, what made me the happiest. What was sustainable and what can be developed. As I often say at work. It was time for me to restructure and rebuild.

Over time, I really did learn that there are things that money can't buy. I've, painfully, learned that working myself dry for a position or a company never will give the results that I had hoped. I learned that the boton really does need to be passed on when your sprint is done. At that time, all we can do is wait for the next to arrive or finish that race. Though I wish I could've seen the changes I've created or the seeds (or trees) I planted grow in some of these jobs; I'm fulfilled knowing that someone else is resting in the shadow of those trees. I've learned that, well, quite frankly; I am so over overtime.