• Being a team player: where I am it means listening to boring stories of the office gossip, who happens to be management’s favorite. This person has been here 20 years and is not going to leave till she retires, think another 20 years. I find her draining and don’t understand how she cannot shut up. She is like a 14 year old. Nobody ever contradicts her and her talking sessions can last 40 minutes.

• Doing my job: this would mean getting report, staying there for 3 minutes tops as a courtesy and then getting up to do my job. This would also mean I work more than them, because I start before them and go home at the same time like the rest of my coworkers.

Before you answer do consider: where I work there are usually very good ratios and I usually have a helper and that takes a considerable amount of job off my hands. Were I to work at another unit, I’d have to invariably work more.

I’m not sure I want to do my job, I don’t see what would I gain from it. The obvious choice here seems to be to become like the rest of my coworkers and pretend to pay attention to the gossip: you get away with working less.

I don’t know, maybe you see advantages waking up to do my job?

If you ever were in a situation like this, what did you do?

to state the obvious, I cannot do both, because it drains me.