I like being off.

I was off for a few days and returned to work today. Thing was that for the most part I was very successful in the one thing I needed to do the most which was to detach myself from the job.

I turned off the alerts on my phone for the various apps in the office suite and didn’t bother to look in on any of the usual haunts I would look at in a normal workday. I wasn’t 100% successful but for the most part I managed to stay away and only logged in to keep a handle on what was happening so I wouldn’t be entirely overwhelmed when I returned.

Normally, when I do take time off and come back, it’s entirely hellish. This time too, things are hellish but not to the degree they could have been.

The project I’m working on has gone entirely off the rails. Not because of anything I’ve done but because the people who I deal with just decided not to listen. So when I was telling them in the middle of August that we needed to hustle because we were getting off our timeline (which was over two months away), no one paid attention.

When I took off a week at the beginning of the month and did a lot of heavy lifting before I left to make sure things would keep moving forward, once more while I was out nothing happened.

Mainly, the person I have working on this project decided they didn’t want to be bothered but now that it’s clear we’re coming up on the wall and people are noticing there is a certain level of scrambling that’s happening.

I’m of two minds really.

On the one hand… I’ve only got a few more months left. This gig ends at the end of the year. Besides hiring someone else and wasting for months before bringing me in to pull their fat out of the fire, they’ve ignored every single alarm I’ve raised about doing work in a timely fashion.

It bothers me because silly me, it’s important to me I do a good job and even when things aren’t my fault I still feel responsible.

But then again there’s that thing about the end of the year. It’s going to be here before you know it and I know from past experience there is no value in busting my ass or going above and beyond so why bother?

You know the old phrase… Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I just can’t see going out of my way now. Mind you, I want to do a good job but it seems I have to keep picking up the slack for others and honestly if there’s no reward for it what am I doing?