Not Enough

I've decided that any shift at work that has me working past 3pm is a shift I will not like. 

Mostly it's because I have a limited social battery.
I can only tolerate being around and helping people for so long before I feel physically drained.

The past couple of days where I've worked the same shift ending past 3pm, I've ended up having my muscles tense up towards the end of my shift because I can feel myself reaching the limits of my ability to keep up with helping people. 

But it's not just in the helping people.
Because after all, I've worked evening shifts where my entire shift is customer service and have, on occasion ended up fine after those shifts.

No, an added layer to the customer service issue isn't just the fact that I start to fade out after 6ish hours of customer service.

I begin to fade out after I run out of tasks to do. 
Opening in the morning I can usually stay pretty busy for most of my shift. Some days managing to stretch out the tasks until I get off work (unintentionally on occasion) 
Which helps me to be able to keep up the energy with customers who come in needing to be helped.
Because once I'm done helping them, I can then go back to doing something else.
I can keep the energy flowing.

No, it's the days where I've run out of things to do. The days where there's hardly a customer in sight and I'm left searching for tasks to do in the meantime to keep myself busy. It's then, that I start getting the tension in my shoulders, the strain in the eyes.

Because I'm actively searching for something to entertain me while I wait for either my shift to end, or for someone to come into my department who actually needs help.

And it's draining doing that.

It's part of the reason why Thursdays have become such a trial to me.
Because they've been bringing in my second opener earlier, and the bedding change has been going faster because half of those bird cages are empty.
So instead of running out of things to do around 1pm or so.
I'm running out of things to do at like 10 or 11 am.

Which...AHHHHH.
Those days are exhausting. 
Actively searching for more to do.
It's exhausting.

So.
Any shift that takes me past 3pm....it's difficult for me to like it.
Because it's too much 'down time' too much 'non tasking' and often too little customer interaction to help make the time go faster. 

*exhales*
Which means....next week is going to be a hard week.
Because 3 of my shifts take me past the 3pm mark. 
And they're all on days where customers are less known to come into the store....
So yah.
It's going to be a struggle.
*fingers crossed* that I make it through alright. 

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi