u/Various-Engineer5704

At my last job, there was a new manager who was very focused on tightening procedures. One of the rules he introduced sounded simple enough. Every task request had to be submitted in writing through the internal system and had to be completed in the exact order it was received. No switching priorities, no taking verbal requests, no exceptions.

At first, people thought it was just a formality. The system was already being used, so it did not seem like a big change. But the manager started enforcing it very strictly. Even if something urgent came up, we were told to ignore it unless it was logged properly and placed in the queue.

I worked in a support role where we handled internal requests from different departments. Most of the time, common sense naturally guided what should be handled first. If something was clearly urgent, we would adjust. That flexibility disappeared overnight.

One afternoon, I received a phone call from another department asking for immediate help with a system issue that was stopping them from continuing their work. It was something I could fix in a few minutes, and it would normally be handled right away.

As I was about to assist them, I remembered the rule had been reinforced again just that morning in a team meeting. Everything must go through the system, and everything must be handled strictly in order. Even verbal requests were not allowed to be acted on without a ticket.

So I followed the instruction exactly.

I asked the caller to submit a formal request through the system. They sounded frustrated, but they did it. A few minutes later, the request appeared in the queue. Unfortunately, it landed behind several low priority tasks that had been submitted earlier that day, including minor password resets and general inquiries that were not urgent at all.

According to the rule, I was not allowed to move it ahead. So I did not.

I continued working through the queue exactly as instructed. The urgent issue sat there while I processed each request in order. Every time someone asked about it, I simply pointed out that it was in the system and would be handled in sequence.

About an hour later, the situation in that department got worse. What started as a small issue had now stopped multiple people from continuing their work. Their supervisor eventually came over to our area, visibly frustrated, asking why nothing had been done yet.

I explained that the request had been received and was being processed in the order it arrived, exactly according to the rule that had been set. There was no way for me to prioritize it without breaking instructions.

That was the moment things became uncomfortable. He went straight to management, and within a short time, the original manager who created the rule was called in as well. After a long discussion between them, the rule was quietly reversed later that same day.

We were told that while the system should still be used for tracking, urgent issues could be handled immediately if they affected ongoing work.

The interesting part was that nobody directly blamed me. In fact, I was told I had followed the procedure correctly. But after that day, everyone understood that strict rules without flexibility do not always work the way they are intended.

I never really understood what people meant when they said their sleep schedule was broken until I started working night shifts. At first it sounded simple enough. Sleep during the day, work at night, repeat. I thought my body would adjust quickly if I just stayed consistent. I was wrong in a way that only became clear after a few weeks.

Sleeping in daylight felt unnatural in a way I didn’t expect. Even when I was exhausted, my brain refused to fully accept that it was time to rest. Sunlight creeping through the edges of the curtains felt like a reminder that I was supposed to be awake, even when I had just come home from a long shift. I would lie in bed trying to ignore the outside world, but it always felt like the world was ignoring my attempt to rest.

The worst part was not just the lack of sleep but the frustration that came with it. I started building pressure around it without realizing. I would think about how many hours I had left before my next shift, calculate sleep time in my head, and somehow make myself more awake in the process. It felt like sleep had become something I was trying to solve instead of something that happens naturally.

One afternoon after a particularly exhausting shift, I came home and didn’t even try to force sleep immediately. I just sat on the edge of my bed, still in my uniform, and let myself exist without planning anything. I didn’t check the clock, didn’t set a mental deadline for when I should fall asleep. I just allowed myself to be tired without judgment.

I don’t remember the exact moment I drifted off that day, but I remember waking up later and realizing that nothing had gone wrong even though I hadn’t tried so hard. It didn’t fix everything about my schedule, and night shifts were still difficult, but something in my approach changed. Sleep stopped feeling like a task I had to complete perfectly and started feeling more like something I could allow instead of force.