When one of our department managers left a few months ago, my boss restructured the department. What this meant for me and 2 other assistants was a tiny bump up the food chain - we weren't exempt yet, but we were on our way. We weren't totally responsible for our own budget yet, but we were on our way. We weren't getting a raise yet...well, we weren't getting a raise.

Anyhow, the idea of the restructuring was to bring our daily duties in line with our specialty. We hired a department assistant to handle the overload (read: all the shitty filing and data entry), and each of us "specialists" sat down with the boss and discussed our little niche in HR. Suddenly I became a Recruiting and Employee Relations Specialist. (My official title is actually Employment Specialist because it fits better on a business card). Apparently it doesn't matter that I have only been involved in recruiting for a year, and have never had to deal with a serious employee complaint investigation. I'm a Specialist, dammit, and don't forget it.

I went into this with big dreams. I had a ton of things I wanted to do. New recruiting ideas, employee surveys, updated manuals, the whole shebang. On top of that, my boss started throwing new projects my way. On top of that was still all the daily stuff that the new department assistant would eventually take over, but hadn't gotten to yet. Suddenly I had deadlines on everything, and Each and Every Deadline was The Most Important One.

I hung on for a few weeks like that...stressed to the max, unable to get caught up, doing just what I needed to do to get by.

Then last week during a normally scheduled meeting with the boss, he showed me a new job chart with one of my duties given to someone else. I balked. I could handle it. It made more sense for me to do it because it fell in under recruiting. Why would they have her do it? "Well, actually we're looking for more things for her to do." I convinced him that I should continue doing that task.

Yesterday I had a little tiny breakdown. I realized that out of the past 2 weeks, I've cried either in the shower, on the way to work, or coming home from work probably 4 or 5 times. I didn't want to go to work. I couldn't handle the stress anymore. I actually considered calling in and either a)quitting or b)lying and saying I was sick. The only thing that stopped me from saying I was sick was that I knew I would eventually have to go back to an even bigger pile of paper and queue of voice mails.

So I talked to my boss. I asked to have my load lightened. You'll never know the anguish of actually having to say "I can't do it." I am a Personal Perfectionist. I don't like to admit I can't do everything. I want to learn as much, do as much, take on as much as I possibly can. I'm not sure if it's a good lesson or a bad one that I actually found out the limits of what I possibly can do in a given work week.

Here, mere weeks after the pep talk of "this is your chance to move up...your chance to take on more responsibility and show what you can do...your chance to manage your job" I flaked out. I feel vaguely like a loser. But you know what? I'm a less stressed, happier loser.

It's time to get in the shower, and I don't feel that feeling of impending doom. No dark clouds hovering just out of my line of vision.

I can deal with that.