# Using work as an escape?



## Shorty224 (Mar 24, 2014)

I feel like I use my job as an escape. Does anyone else do this?

I'm a university student but three days a week I get the bus out to this small town about 5 miles from the city where I live. It's a really close-knit community and no-one there knows me. I work in a shop where everyone else seems to either know each other or be related. I don't say much, I just scan food and smile. I have all the standard conversations rehearsed in my head so I can recite them perfectly (if not slightly mechanically) e.g. when customers ask me where something is, or when I explain a promotion.

On my breaks I sit with everyone else but don't contribute to the conversations. The other people at work don't know me, they don't know anything about my life. They're all preoccupied with their small-town drama and I'm just the "small blonde girl from the checkouts". At the end of my shift I'll walk to the bus stop and wait for the next bus that'll take me back into the city - back to my life. Which is something I'll usually dread. Sometimes I'll ask my managers to stay on at work, just to avoid socialising or to avoid sitting alone in my room while everyone else socialises.

If I'm invited to a social event but don't feel confident enough to go I'll sometimes call up work to see if they need anyone at the time I'm meant to be socialising. Partly to avoid the stress of going, partly to avoid the stress/worry that precedes the event. And if I'm feeling stressed during the week I'll remind myself that it's okay - I'm escaping soon, to that shop in that small town where no-one knows me.

Anyone else feel like this?


----------



## DomeAloud (Mar 8, 2014)

Kind of. I feel like work is controlling my life. I can either work but have no social life, or have a social life but not work. I always feel guilty and therefore I put 90% of my energy into work and 10% into sleeping. Idk... I don't even know what it means to have a life aside from work.


----------



## Kml5111 (Dec 16, 2012)

I do the same thing. I always keep myself busy so that I don't have to interact with other people. I like work because I don't have to be around my family on weekends.


----------



## AnotherGuy (Aug 5, 2013)

I used to do that when I was younger. I'd get a job and sort of escape everyday through it.

But after some years, I really got away from that because it got to the point where I became this "do anything" kind of guy and started getting taken advantage of. 

I wish I could look at a job that way again. I'd like to get lost in a job again.


----------



## twitchy666 (Apr 21, 2013)

*I lost every job*

Because I concentrated and didn't speak to others. Just my boss

My lunch had to be with myself. Using the time to be away from people


----------



## Blueshad (Mar 25, 2014)

*Can't Blend In*

I wish I could be in stealth like that. In every job I had, people always want to know what's on my mind. I just can't blend in and chill.


----------

