spicy eyes

i feel like work beat me with a stick.

over the weekend, one of my departments lost an employee who failed to show up for her shifts. there was a call out in another department. i spent the majority of the day trying to keep every department covered which means cajoling associates to work extended shifts, begging associates to cover different departments, and nagging them to take their breaks and leave their departments at the appropriate times. to top it off, i also had two mandatory managers meetings and was scheduled to conduct interviews.

by one, i was a mess. . . what started as irritated eyes which i assumed was lack of sleep turned to a burning sensation, or mat cay, a vietnamese term which literally translates to "eye spicy". at lunch, i found it hard to keep my eyes open as they were tearing up. i removed all my eye makeup in hopes that it was an allergic reaction to a new eyeshadow. when that didn't resolve the irritation and the symptoms continued throughout the afternoon, i decided that maybe i'm allergic to work???