Exhausting
766 Words
It's been two days since my sister left. Eli has stayed with me on both those nights. It's now the Wednesday and I have to go back to work.
It's the week before Christmas and we want to wrap up any outstanding tasks and maintenance before the holidays.
I'm finishing up my last task on the Real Estate app when my phone goes off. It's my timer to signify the end of my work flow state. I shut the timer off and start a new timer for a five minute break. I check the messages in my notifications. I see one from my sister letting me know she's safe and she'll call when she gets a call card. I reply to her message, not even knowing if she would get it right away.
I see another text from Eli and a smile spreads across my face. He tells me he's planning a game night on Friday and I must prepare to lose.
"you're on Mister. Just know that I warned you."
I return my phone to my desk and lean back in my chair with my eyes closed.
"You okay there?" I hear the familiar fatherly voice.
I take a peek at him and smile, nodding. "Just taking a short break."
I hear him c***k his fingers, a habit he has when he's thinking about a frustrating problem.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"Yeah, I'm just ready to be finished with this project. It's quite exhausting." I nod in agreement.
As much as we love our jobs, programming can really lead to burnout. Technology is constantly evolving and we try to stay on top of it. Sometimes I wish I had a job where the concepts and languages remained the same.
I let out a yawn and cover my mouth. "Excuse me," I say when I realise I was loud. Gary laughs as me and turns back to his cubicle.
I decide to cut my rest break short and go back to fixing the document template.
The day goes by uneventfully and I'm happy to get home and relax. Eli already told me he wouldn't be able to sleep over tonight and I'm sad.
I walk out with Harvey and Garth, chatting away about a new series when the design douche walks up behind of us.
"Oh gosh," I whisper under my breath. Garth looks between us and laugh. I give him a side eye.
"How are things on your end?" Harvey asks the douche. I know he was only doing it to annoy me.
"Oh, we're great, mate. The clients are loving the redesign of the app. You know I was the one to pitch the change in the doc templates and the new calculator design, " he beams with so much pride but I'm annoyed he made me have to rewrite my perfectly functioning code.
I suck my teeth and look straight ahead at the elevator door. When it opens I push my way out and clock out, not waiting for the others to catch up.
I stand on the curb fuming. These design nutheads always want to corrupt our code and this douche is no different. He knew I was the one in charge of implementing that code. He did it out of spite.
When Harvey and Garth gets outside I walk with them towards the parking lot of the building. I realise the douche is also trailing behind of us.
"I really don't like that guy," I huff. Garth laughs again.
"We understand but you shouldn't let him get under your skin." Harvey says opening his truck door.
We all hop in and I plop back against the seat and close my eyes. It's been quite a long day. It was already after 6pm. We normally don't stay back this late but we needed to close off our projects for the holidays.
Harvey and Garth tries to cheer me up and they manage to get me laughing by the time I get home. I invited them in and we catch up on a couple episodes of our favourite anime - Attack on Titans.
It's 12am when they decide to leave. I had made us chicken fajitas for dinner and opened a few bottles of my sister's WKD blue.
After they left I take a shower and get ready for bed. I check my phone but I have no messages from Eli. I send him a quick goodnight message.
"I'm heading to bed now. Goodnight babes."
I place the phone on the night stand and immediately went to sleep. Today was exhausting.
- Writer
