September Toast

Before I check my email I'm going to read and then I'm going to write. Then I get to work and almost immediately check my email, but I catch myself as the icon bounces open and minimize the browser before I can see any of the new, unread messages and quickly turn my swivel chair to the right. I listen to the complaints, another meeting. Three hours of useless meetings a week for some of us. That's too many. M--- says he can't sleep at night and I'm surprised. So chill most of the time. This is alarming. But we keep on. A sigh of defeat. No solutions to the systematic problems that never get solved, rarely get addressed. I think maybe it's time to move on, go somewhere else, but what's out there might be worse. And maybe I'm too comfortable, the luxury of being lazy when I want to, or maybe that's a sign of being overwhelmed and depressed. I can't stop the worry. Two years in a row I'm hearing, I'm saying, "I'm burnt out and it's only September."