Very, very veryvery wrong.

Here’s why.

I have a new job. I probably shouldn’t refer to it as a new job, but it feels new because I’m still not totally sure what it is I’m supposed to do. Ambiguous job descriptions are fun like that.

A while back, I wrote about the lesson that I was about to learn (or so I thought).

Past Me thought she was going to learn a lesson about navigating workplace politics without the benefit of a boss who takes care of his team.

This is not wrong. I’m learning those lessons.

Past Me forgot the fine print. There’s more. The REAL lesson in all of this is learning how to set healthy boundaries around my day job.

I’ve always been the type of person who gets what must be done, done. The rest of it will get done on its own schedule. A lot of this was developed as I learned to go through life with a chronic autoimmune illness. You do what you have to do, and then you collapse on the couch with exhaustion.

However, this philosophy is not helping my goals, dreams, and plans. I would like to spend more time and attention outside of work on the things that I’m interested in, like this blog and business ideas.

The problem is, my day job is branded in my head as a must-do. I assign it more worth than everything else, and the rest of it gets stuffed in around the edges.

This is not a way to build up a side hustle.

Yet a side hustle is what I need if I want to extricate myself from the situation I’m in. You see, the boss at my day job is a micromanager. He keeps everything deliberately ambiguous, so that only he can make decisions. He talks out of one side of his mouth about professional development, and then takes away every actual opportunity for it. Nobody on our team gets any ownership of the work that we do—everything gets his byline and his say-so. His behavior is exceedingly frustrating, especially to someone who just wants to more forward and get things done.

That someone is me. The sucker. Still trying to do a good job.

I like doing a good job at my must-do.

I’m sure you can figure out the problem by now. My focusing on my must-do day job, I’m trapped in a situation where I can’t advance and can’t win. The only way out is to figure out how to focus more on my real callings.

Boundaries. I need boundaries. My challenge is to figure out how to set emotional boundaries around how invested I’ll get in my day job.

I can’t let my boss get to me—that way lies stress and autoimmune madness.

The lesson that I need to learn is how to set healthy boundaries for myself to not get too invested in this job, to not let my boss’s way of doing things (however inexplicable) make a difference in my life.

That should free up some space in my brain to work more on Batfort and other endeavors. Which are way more fun and could actually yield some good rewards.

Anyway. Boundaries.