Belle said exactly what I was going to say Zef - even if you are only at 60% (whatever that means/however that is measured) chances are you're still functioning at a hell of a lot higher level than half the people around you.
People say this to me too, and I tend to blow it off quite angrily and assume it's a form of patronising at worst, or at best a feeble attempt to make me feel better. But if you're truthful with yourself and look around your workplace at everyone in it, I reckon you'll know that there are a lot of bumbs warming seats and doing very little else.
In every workplace I think a productive minority carry the load for the lazy majority. Call me cynical, and I may well be, but I'm also speaking from what I've experienced as both a manager and team member in a few different workplaces.
And managers too tend to fit into one of two categories - those that delegate and delegate and would probably delegate the task of breathing if they thought they could get away with it, and those who do 10 times more work than any of their staff and yet constantly feel guilty and worry about expecting too much of others. I'll take a punt and presume that you're in the latter category!
And one final comment on charity... can relate to that bitterly. I almost viciously repel any even slight suggestion that I'm being treated like a charity case and am prone to becoming obsessed with this if I let it get too out of control. I have a pre-existing physical disability aside from my PTSD and so have been hard wired to hate the charity label all of my life. I have always doubled, tripled and quadrupled my efforts to work harder than anyone else to avoid just such a label, and one of the most sobering and confronting things about this condition was coming to accept that I just couldn't do that anymore, and yes, I would probably have to accept some degree of charity or lenient treatment for a time.
The trick is to come to understand that the same rules apply to you as everyone else. I know that I, as a manager, and no doubt you as well, wouldn't think twice about cutting slack to an ill or injured employee for a time and would see this as fair treatment and ordinary human entitlement and not as charity. And yet when it is ourselves on the receiving end our perceptions get all distorted.
You are entitled to a bit of slack. Not because you're a charity case, or because people feel sorry for you, or because you're "not what you used to be"... but because you're human, and sometimes we all need a bit of a hand for a while. Tell yourself that a thousand times a day - my T quotes some obscure research that says you have to do something upwards of 10000 times before it becomes routine and well learned, so get counting Zef!!!
Maddog
People say this to me too, and I tend to blow it off quite angrily and assume it's a form of patronising at worst, or at best a feeble attempt to make me feel better. But if you're truthful with yourself and look around your workplace at everyone in it, I reckon you'll know that there are a lot of bumbs warming seats and doing very little else.
In every workplace I think a productive minority carry the load for the lazy majority. Call me cynical, and I may well be, but I'm also speaking from what I've experienced as both a manager and team member in a few different workplaces.
And managers too tend to fit into one of two categories - those that delegate and delegate and would probably delegate the task of breathing if they thought they could get away with it, and those who do 10 times more work than any of their staff and yet constantly feel guilty and worry about expecting too much of others. I'll take a punt and presume that you're in the latter category!
And one final comment on charity... can relate to that bitterly. I almost viciously repel any even slight suggestion that I'm being treated like a charity case and am prone to becoming obsessed with this if I let it get too out of control. I have a pre-existing physical disability aside from my PTSD and so have been hard wired to hate the charity label all of my life. I have always doubled, tripled and quadrupled my efforts to work harder than anyone else to avoid just such a label, and one of the most sobering and confronting things about this condition was coming to accept that I just couldn't do that anymore, and yes, I would probably have to accept some degree of charity or lenient treatment for a time.
The trick is to come to understand that the same rules apply to you as everyone else. I know that I, as a manager, and no doubt you as well, wouldn't think twice about cutting slack to an ill or injured employee for a time and would see this as fair treatment and ordinary human entitlement and not as charity. And yet when it is ourselves on the receiving end our perceptions get all distorted.
You are entitled to a bit of slack. Not because you're a charity case, or because people feel sorry for you, or because you're "not what you used to be"... but because you're human, and sometimes we all need a bit of a hand for a while. Tell yourself that a thousand times a day - my T quotes some obscure research that says you have to do something upwards of 10000 times before it becomes routine and well learned, so get counting Zef!!!
Maddog
