Wow, that would indeed be scary and unsettling! I'm glad you got better AND that you got a new job! I hope you can learn to be not-introverted, at least for the hours on your job!
And yes, go see a doctor. nto enough sleep, too much caffiene, and some other things can cause heart ailments, but you want to make sure there is no damage while any damage can still be alleviated!
My guesses:
Penguin/Random House/Grossett & Dunlop?
Simon & Schuster?
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I guess it will be somewhat outside of my comfort-zone, especially at the start, but thinking about it, I realised that in my former workplace, I handled my collegues pretty well. I mean, i was often the messenger between different departments as I always try to talk rather diplomatically and politely. If they had a problem with each other, it was often me, who took the role of the mediator upon myself. I believe I can compose clear, to the point sentences well enough to be able to adapt to the new requirements. Not saying its gonna be an easy adjustment, but I am certainly not starting from zero soft skills.
I will talk with a doctor, I can promise! :) Although I am quite sure of the reasons. I will go for a check up anyway, but its my firm belief that caffeine could be ruled out, as I dont drink coffee or energy drinks. At all. Not a sip. People are usually quite surprised by that and question me, how I was able to work whole nights without either of these drinks. xD I just do, it should not be such a big revelation! I know cola also contains caffeine, but I also rarely drink that (approx 1 bottle every 3rd or 4th month).
Your guessess are sadly wrong. I try to stay clear of naming the company, but I can add that the company's scope of activites changed a lot, especially in the last 4-5 years. Printing is no more their main focus. To my knowledge, they sold in recent years almost all of their other printing factories in Europe, except the hungarian one and maybe the polish. Not sure on the latter, rumors are usually unreliable.
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I'm glad you aren't starting from scratch. That will make things much easier!
Wow, I drink probably close to one cola a day.
Okay, my guesses were just for fun, and I don't want to worm information out of you that you don't want public.
I hope all goes well and may God bless your future endeavors!
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Congratulations and thanks for sharing your experience. It's a good reminder. If I build at the cost of my life then I've missed my better life.
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Well said! Making a good life has a cost, but a line should not be crossed! Otherwise we would work our whole life for a better future that never arrives.
Best wishes and stay healthy!
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That must have been a scary incident to go through. I had my share of weird hours working at the customer service desk in a large multinational retailer, but nothing that extreme. By now I have worked up to being a software engineer at a large multinational bank, so my bigger health concern is not getting enough exercise. Thankfully my current employer has a strong sense of work-life balance, so I typically work close to a 9-5, M-F shift, with the occasional few extra hours here and there for critical activities. They're also very lenient on paid time off, so if I'm sick I can just call in, and they actually encourage it.
I know the boat you're in. I have been helping take care of my mom and siblings financially for years, and I don't regret one day of it. My mom also helps quite a bit, but a lot of times it's more difficult for her since she has to attend to siblings with special needs. I commend you for taking care of your family when they need it. I'm not sure how common it is in Hungary, but in the US it is considered strange to take care of your family instead of becoming independent. I personally find it sad that more people don't want to help their families, but I can't change the me-first mentality that is prevalent here.
Congratulations on the new, healthier job, and keep up the positive attitude and caring spirit!
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I am glad you have a fair workplace! I know how its hard to find sometimes the motivation for workout and to keep up a healthy lifestyle. I've struggled with it for years! Heck, even now its not optimal, but with the new job, I do take some time every second day to do some exercise. Its not much, but a start nonetheless.
While yes, traditionally, people in Hungary generally tend to take care of and support their family members and I believe its still the most widely accepted and expected mentality, but with each passing year, the tip of the scale seems to fling bit by bit to the attitude you mentioned regarding the US. Its gradual and slow, but as time is passing, younger people seem generally less willing to help out their families. Its sad in a way. I know there are some cases, where its not an easy choice and sometimes it cant be helped. People getting crushed physcically and mentally under these hardships is not unheard of. And in and of itself, the desire to live an independent life is not a bad thing. But to me it seems like people increasingly do that out of comfort and lack of care, rather than out of need. My conscience would not let me do so, but others may think otherwise. Whatever the case, people do whatever they want with their lifes, I will do the same with mine.
Thank You and I would like to wish all the best to You too!
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Congratulations on the new job, and most importantly congratulations on putting your health first. There is no success in life, at any level, without health to enjoy it.
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Yeah, its a lesson that is better learned early, than learning it as the last thing you learn in your life. Thank you and take care!
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congratulations for your new and better job!
best of luck! ^_^
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Congratulations for finding a new job. I think that in your previous job, as well as many others, they don't think much of the wellbeing of their workers. Where they should have two workers, they save money by having only one and making them work shifts like yours, or they'll make workers lift weights without proper tools, and similar things. It's a sad situation and I feel there's not enough effort against it because there's many people like you who are in bad situations and can't risk being fired. I don't blame the workers for this, I just hope that this situation eventually changes and people don't have to be in situations like yours.
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Thank You!
Its a mixed bag with my former employer. While I would not say that we were understaffed for most of the work and I believe we were under rational expectations mostly. But on a regular basis, they certainly expected us to do the work as fast as if we had double the personnel, regardless of the severity of problems we had to deal with due to old, outdated equipment and the lack of maintance. I felt like it was mostly caused because of the knowledge gap between the higher-ups and the professional workers. You know, the typical boss attitude of "I dont care how you get it done, just get it done". Not every superior knew the ins and outs of the profession they were responsible for. And that showed. Even for me, who started as a novice in the field.
Also, as you mention, the health of workers. While the company generally have an understanding policy (to be honest, some workers did abuse that) and they often expressed that employer health is one of their main concerns, they also said that there is no way we could have better workhours. HR rarely admitted, that they are aware of how unhealthy our schedule is, but the ultimate conclusion was always that we had to deal with it.
Thankfully, I am free of that place now and I do wish, that an increasing number of employees will get the chance to get hired elsewhere with better conditions. Especially in the near future, as BMW will open a factory nearby. Even now many employees await the start of their hiring in hope of better work conditions.
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Congrats on the new job!
That was quite the rollercoaster you went through and I'm very glad to hear things are going better!
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I know how soul-grinding some jobs can be as well as the effort to upgrade. But managing to upgrade is also very rewarding. Props!
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Thanks! Yes, it is. At the start, its not easy to estimate how it will really feel and true undertsanding comes only trough experiencing it anyways.
When 5 hours is still left of your shift but time seemingly stopped... your legs are heavy and aching, the machines are repeatedly beeping due to errors, all while the rest of the factory provides a very loud base noise. You were tired, stressed, working in the dead of night, it often felt like an eternity.
Thankfully, my new job proves to be more bearable so far. I am still in training and hope I can live up to the new expectations!
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Jó döntés, remélem a jövőben is jól fogod magad érezni az új munkakörben :)
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Köszönöm, eleddig valóban jobb, noha még lényegében tréning alatt állok. Hamarosan önállóan fogok majd dolgozni, ami miatt egy kis félsz van bennem, főleg hogy emberközpontú munkaköröm még nem volt, de még így is bizakodó vagyok és hiszem, hogy képes vagyok adaptálódni! :)
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Congratulations for your new job !!
Reminds me of my disaster first job experience: I had to work and I found a job pretty quickly at a restaurant. Since I was young and as it was my first job ever I thought it would be easy with the short shifts. But I got sleep deprived and exhausted pretty quickly. I didn't know it but I had anemia, and as I worked more and more my health was getting worse.
I thinked I couldn't continue like this, but I had my family to support.
When I had the opportunity I went back to school to have a diploma for a job I could do from home.
Now I'm in my last year of my 3 year course, and I'm sure I will succeed in obtaining my diploma (even if I don't I will work anyway xDD)
I'm happy for you !
Health is the most important thing and I'm glad you can hook in for a few more years ;3 (and play more games yay)
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Thank you!
I see, so you were in a similar situation. Best of luck with your studies and I hope your chances will be better from this point onwards! What kind of diploma will you get when you finish?
And yes, possibly living a few more years sounds like a good deal! I will surely have the chance to finally finish some titles from my backlog. :D
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I wish you the best of luck as well ! You deserve to live at least till the day you clear your backlog ;P
Quality time with games is blessed time !
Well I'm studying to be a graphic designer and I really love what I do nn'
That's my dream since I'm 13 or something, so it's been I while I wanted to do this.
Hope I get my diploma in june !
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I should practice restraint as my backlog will outlive me anyway if I keep this up. xD
Graphic design, it sounds nice! I myself find joy in visual arts, but I never pursued any career in them as I am not very confident in my skills and I am affraid that my passion for it would go away the moment it would cease to be a hobby. But I digress.
I am rooting for You! :)
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EDIT: I am taken aback by the amount of good wishes! I mean, I did expect some responses but not so many, especially in such a short time! Thank you all for your kind words, I will eventually answer each comment, just please, be patient with me!
Hello everyone! Hope your new year is going well so far!
Feel free to share if something interesting happened to you lately! In my case, it was a new job, which I'd like to tell you about.
This is certainly not an excuse to clear out my remaining bundle key list, pinkie promise!
Heck, am I bad at lying! For the gibs, kindly take this short, low value train of four carts: First cart
Well, I opened with the promise of a short story, so here comes nothing:
Previously I worked in Debrecen (second most populated city of Hungary), in a factory as a second operator on a printing press, owned by one of the largest american printing companies (I'll let you guess). I worked there for almost six years. It was not all bad, the job itself was not unbearable and the collegues were nice enough. But I had alternating day and night shifts of 12 hours. At the start, I did not really care about it. I was young and optimistic. Sure, it was not pleasant and it was really tiring, but me working in this job was vital for the wellbeing of my family. I had to do it unless I wanted to condemn my mother, my younger borther and myself to homelessness. So i was like... I can do it! I will force trough it! I thought its just a matter of time and I will get used to it.
But somehow it never really happened. My circadian rythm became messed up, I often felt weary, unmotived and sleep-deprived. But for a long time it did not result in anything serious, just general grumpyness and discomfort. So I kept pushing on.
Unexpectedly, in last december, I received a warning from my body. After a longer worksession, topped with some overwork and lack of sleep, I've gone to the cinema to watch the new Spiderman movie. I was tired on undescribeable levels, but we have purchased the tickets well in advance with my family and I did not want them to go to waste. At around the tenth minute of the movie, totally unprecedented, something happened to my heart that I have never felt before. I am not sure if it was a kind of spasm, or a momentary heart rythm disturbance. All I know is that it felt bad and very, very scary. I felt dizzy and for a second, I thought I would never leave this movie theater on my own legs...
Fortunately, it did not last long and I've got better in a matter of seconds. But this occurence really made me re-evaluate my attitude towards work. These shifts and long workhours are really unhealthy and in the long run they can lead to serious health issues. I knew it, but as it had no consequences up until that point, I did not mind it too much.
But ever since that moment, I was desperate to find another job that is less demanding physically. I hope its understandable that I did not wish to die yet in the 30th year of my life. No matter the pay.
Luckily, my sister, who lives in Budapest, recently got hired for a costumer service job. Its 8 hours of work, no night shifts, it can be done from home office and the pay is much better than at my previous workplace. She helped me to get in contact with the company and fortunatley I was also hired.
I cant tell you how relieved I got, after I've got the new job. It felt like I was saved from an untimely demise, as dramatic as it sounds. And on top of that, I can keep supporting my family and after years of struggle, things really look optimistic for the future.
Not gonna lie though, as a very introverted person, costumer service sounds kind of intimidating and bothersome. But overall, this seems far better than dying in the cinema (really puts things into perspective). And with the shorter workhours, I feel like I can focus more on my hobbies and personal interests. I look forward to this as its likely a new opportunity for a better, more fulfilling life.
I've just completed my first week of training for the new job and I wanted to share my optimistic joy with all of you!
If you have read this wall of text, thank you! Take care and please, look out for your health! I know how providing financial support for our family or even ourself can make it feel like we are trapped at one job, that we practrically depend on it, but the truth is, the trap is mostly in our heads, its not always real.
I do realise not everyone is so fortunate to live in a developed country, where they can make a living AND have the luxury to choose among a list of alternative jobs (if there are any to begin with), but if you are in a similar situation like I was and there are possible alternatives to a demanding job, please, do consider a change, before it will be too late! Do work hard if you want to build a better life, but not at the cost of your life!
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