I’ve observed something today, that we are suppressing our humanity in our lives, our work places, and how we strive to become more machine. I started a 2nd job last week, why? Not because I need the money, but because I am unhappy with my current salary at my real job (I am underpaid for my position). Also I couldn’t say no to a new opportunity. I fear that if I don’t take the opportunities that are presented in front of me, that I would be missing out. Major FOMO. I started my 2nd job at the same time as my capstone for MBA business school. Why do I continue to fill my life with things to show that I’m doing something ? I don’t know why I continue to fill my life with noise to keep myself busy. I also hired a financial advisor recently, now this has become some real adulting business. He says to keep investing my money to make more money, as if somehow that’s the real reason to what my life boils down to: money, and work.

A troubled co-worker turned to me for help today, he recently just entered the workplace out of college, and still naïveté of how to behave in a professional work environment. He told me that he was having some personal issues related to a break-up, which affected his productivity in the work place. During my 10 years in the profession, I’ve learned to never mix my personal life with my work life. If I was dealing with some issues outside of working hours, I never brought that with me into work. Once I’m at work, I’m here to get a job done, that’s what I’m paid to do, effectively turning off my emotions and going into robot mode. I especially feel more of the pressure to do this because I’m a woman. If I express any emotions, such as sadness and or anger, that would viewed as unprofessional. I was afraid of perpetrating the stereotype that I was an “emotional woman.” I went through my work career, took the days of 2 days bereavement I needed when my grandfather passed away, and resumed going back to work afterwards, as if nothing has happened . I observed the same behavior in my other colleagues as their father, wife, and or parents passed away, they took their time off and felt forced to come back to work to “distract themselves from the grief” or there’s no way they can take any more time off because there will be too much work to return to.

You’d think that a world wide pandemic this past year will bring the humanity back and put the world on pause, but instead we took to working cooped up in our ill-fitting home desk for way too long, just video chatting on Zoom, and continuing business as usual with the teleworking. Business as usual, as there are over half a million people who have died from COVID-19 in the US this past year. I lost an uncle to COVID last May, I didn’t even take any time off work for that. I am writing this post with a painful shoulder from too much computer work this last week. Hearing my colleague’s very human-like issues, like a break-up, to make me realize there’s nothing wrong with him over-reacting over a breakup, but there’s something wrong me and this society I live in.

Here I am finishing up business school this month while working 2 jobs, while having a wealth manager telling me to keep saving money for retirement, refinancing my mortgage, and having to yell at my parents to go get the vaccine already. What’s the point?

I’m tired. I just want to be human again.