My best and coolest work projects were basically all done in a caffeine-induced mania and had nothing to do with what my boss thought they needed but wound up creating huge benefits.

I’ve made guides and cheat sheets for legal and medical concepts four my coworkers, I collected a database of over 500 printable pdf activities to entertain my patients and created a nice graphical interface for them on the facility intranet. I even designed board games that can be printed on cardstock so my patients can enjoy themselves but not make weapons or self-injury implements. I can make d6 dice completely out of origami-folded paper, no staples, tape, or even glue.

Now we have a boss that’s micromanaging our time and dictating where on the unit we need to be every moment of the night. I used to just jump in to help even with other people’s patients whenever it looked like they could use an extra hand. Now I just don’t have the energy. They’re having meetings monthly to ask why the place is failing while actively choking it to death.