Coming home too damn tired to do anything else, even including chores, is top for me.
I have dishes lying around, laundry needing to be done at somepoint, some extra small tasks to do. But, trying to go ‘above and beyond’ for a shitty job just leaves you with nothing left to do them, having to waste time off to finally do them.
I’m in a building that’s not my home, for 8 hours (used to have some days where it was 10 hours), a night. Where my company tries to tell me to treat their building that I work in, as a second home. Dealing with all of these tasks that ultimately mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Dealing with people who conveniently forget a lot of the time, as to how to be a normal human being and they being at your expense.
And in addition to coming home too damn tired to do anything else, I’m sometimes worrying if what I’m making now for however many hours, is enough to cover everything I need to have or want to have.
None of the things you mention has anything to do with the job itself. How you show up and when is what matters.
There’s a lot of mythology around work that is just no longer true and hasn’t been true since the 1990s, if not the 1980s.
The only time your boss cares about you going “above and beyond” is in situations where it will make them look good to their boss. Don’t waste your energy going above and beyond just randomly. It won’t get noticed and it’ll only burn you out.
Providing quality customer service is never wasted effort, but it doesn’t mean putting up with entitled customers. If people aren’t interacting with you at least calmly, don’t waste the energy engaging. Don’t engage with adults having tantrums.
Most importantly - don’t dilute your wage. If you’re hourly, be meticulous about clock-in and clock-out times. Don’t do work unless you’re on the clock. If you’re salary, that means you give what you have; it doesn’t mean you kill yourself for the job. If I’m sick, my salary pays for the ~30% effort that I’ve got to give. Trying to give 100% when you don’t have it is a great way to burn yourself out and gain nothing in return. If you’re good at something other people value, never ever do it for free. All people will do is take advantage.
Most household chores that actually need to be done boil down to a handful of things that need daily attention and can be done in 15 minutes or less, the weekly crap that takes 30 minutes or less once a week, and then monthly and quarterly maintenance cycles. If you’re spending more than ~30 min. a day, plus ~1 hour on the weekends doing choring, you’re probably wasting your energy on things that don’t truly matter. You can scale back and not worry so much about keeping your space ready for a Martha Stewart catalog. Focus on what’s truly essential and let the rest slide.
So it takes about 30 minutes just to clean the bathroom. For me, that’s dusting top to bottom so the cobwebs and dust don’t build up and baseboards and light fixtures only need to be better cleaned a few times a year; cleaning the sink and cabinets, toilet inside and out, tub inside and out, shower walls, soap dishes/dispensers, tp holder, vacuuming and mopping. My bathroom isn’t that big either. Then there’s the bedroom, laundry room, hallways, living room and kitchen. That’s not counting laundry or cleaning the kitchen after meals. Can you please share how you do everything in 30 minutes a week?
That’s the trick - I don’t do everything. It just isn’t physically possible. So, I don’t kill myself trying.
For a full bathroom (sink, toilet, tub and shower), I prioritize the stuff that matters most - toilet and sink. Cleaning those takes me 10 minutes, tops. Those are what stays clean on a day to day basis. Everything else gets dealt with weekly (sweeping, trash), monthly (tub, shower) or less frequently.
The lie Americans have told themselves is that it is possible for a family of 2-4 to perform a ridiculous number of tasks to live in 4-star hotel conditions their entire adult lives. It’s a fantasy that has people killing themselves to dust corners of their homes that literally nobody sees or cares about.
You’ve got better things to do with your time than dusting. Like resting from your day job.
The way that I read the person whose comment you’re replying to you clean the bathroom in 30 min weekly that’s one weeknight clean or half your weekend cleans.
I don’t think they are saying 30 min a week, but 30 min weekly tasks over multiple days (I calculate about 4 hours per week which is close to my “maintenance” cleaning)
Ah, that makes more sense. I try to do that but the irregular work hours messes with it so I just roll with it as best I can.