I’ve always prided myself on having a strong work ethic. I’ve always done more than my job requires. As a zookeeper I got involved with extra projects besides just doing my job duties. While I couldn’t be paid extra for them, they did allow me to travel to other zoos for new experiences. I enjoyed the mental challenge of these activities because the job alone was very physical and monotonous at times. My interest in nutrition stemmed from one such experience and drove me to apply for my last position before leaving the zoo. My leaving was not my choice & forced me to find another way to survive, with little to no transferrable skills other than moving to another zoo.

Within 2 months of being laid off from the zoo, I was accepted into grad school. As a grad student, I put in extra work to achieve a 4.0 while completing 46 credits, when I only needed 32 [the long story would make this make more sense but bore you to read]. I completed both my MS degree while also finishing the required undergraduate credits to move on & become a Registered Dietitian. I essentially had to figure out how to finish both programs on my own, there was very little advisement, but I had to be successful to survive.

I’ve been in my current job for ~1/2 of my working career now. Back then, I never thought I would find a job I liked as much as the zoo – but I did. During this 2nd part of my career I’ve also experienced quite a bit of personal drama. Some of this has been mentioned before but not in this context: my work ethic remained strong during each event.

Our house fire occurred on the day I had a scheduled exam for my students. It was more than an hourly class exam – it was a national food safety exam they had been preparing for for several weeks. I could not find another certified proctor to cover the exam so I showed up. Despite all the tragedy I had experienced earlier in the day and having no clothes of my own, I went in for them. I did not tell them the situation, I needed them to be focused on the exam – they all passed! I kept up with work while we moved 3 times and managed the details of the home repairs.

My breast cancer diagnosis – on Christmas Eve 2 years later. Conveniently the surgery and recovery were during our winter session when I don’t teach. But I had to undergo 4+ weeks of daily radiation. So every morning I drove to the hospital for treatment before heading to campus. I continued to work as I always have done.

My 2nd cancer & current situation has been going on for 5 years. Most of my experiences are here in various blog posts already. For this whole time I’ve put a lot of effort in planning medical needs around my work responsibilities. Much of my ‘free’ time is spent going to/from appointments for one thing or another – it’s my “2nd job”. In all this time, very few classes have needed to be cancelled. I show up for work the days after being released from the hospital. I’ve done work from my hospital bed. I continue to work even on days I don’t physically feel well.

This year, my annual appraisal scores were below the department averages. Despite all my effort in keeping up with work while dealing with my health needs.. it’s now not enough. I was offered options to increase my scores for next year – I have no idea how I’d fit them into my current life. So now I’m faced with do I do more – or – does it really matter anymore? Why should I bother trying this hard to keep up?

New plan… bare minimum to get a paycheck and move on? It goes against my work ethic but it’s probably all I can do to survive.