Teaching- any other jobs that make you cry regularly?

Do you happen to work in the East of England by any chance? It is horrendous, and I have often wondered what would happen if CWOs took strike action.

i would not recommend this job to anyone either. I am very close to walking away completely. I have survived significant childhood trauma and abuse yet like you the Sunday feelings kick in. My GP is asking why I was not resigning before July. I have actually now resigned and seeking a new position. Yet my autism coupled with personal and professional beliefs make feel as though I cannot just give up. I would be the professional that failed me as a child. I am thinking of agency work then I can reduce my hours have recovery breaks in between.

The parents who encourage bullying behaviour need to be dealt with. Senior management do not stand up to them though. Parents saying there is not funding and bullying are the parents with private horse riding lessons, private tutors, alongside college places figures funding that is running into 3 figures at times. Resources are not distributed fairly in this respect. The misinformation that 98% of tribunals are won. This is not the accurate. A tribunal maybe considered won by the plaintiff if 1 point is agreed. The independent schools and colleges charging £60,000- £250,000 a year over 5 years. How could these resources be fairly distributed to support increased training and benefit the many not the few.

Care work and nursing have impacted friends in a similar way. I think it's working with people. It's emotionally draining unless people have a very high social capability (not just a normal ability, there needs to be a real excessive level of empathy and ability to understand others behaviour and not take it personally, which is hard for most people)

But then it’s a vicious cycle. If you treat patients in a cold and uncaring way then they’re more likely to be rude in response, surely. Save the abrupt and unsympathetic manner for people who have actually been rude or unreasonable and start from a place of politeness because that’s what you want to receive back.

Don't get me started. The more stressful it was at the time, the more hilarious it is to look back on! 😅

My 1st post as a nurse. Used to sit in the car before I started work crying.

Nursing.

it destroyed my mental health and now I suffer with debilitating OCD.

Best decision I ever made was to step away, for my own sanity - what was left of it!

x

I would love to hear more crazy stories

What does it mean - lack of ability to refer - are you not allowed to refer? Very curious because I thought you could refer at will? Or is it that the GP holds a 'pot of money' and each referral eats away from what partners earn? And senior GP partners do not allow to refer?

I'm a teacher and have cried a couple of times at work over the past decade or so, but only through sheer exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed at 'crunch' points in the year. Probably coinciding with my period.

I agree with other teachers on this thread that it's not usual to see teachers regularly in tears and it's not something I can say I've experienced in my 15 years of teaching across several schools. I spend most of my day laughing, actually. Teaching is fun and creative and teenagers are hilarious. The only thing that makes me feel stressed from time to time is when I have a very short deadline to get a huge amount of marking done. I can feel upset if I get a nasty email from a parent, but once I've bitched about said parent with my colleagues and crafted a suitable response that I don't send (!), I get over it pretty quickly. I certainly wouldn't go home crying about it.

Teaching as a profession isn't inherently stressful. Stress is caused by poor management, which is a common denominator in any other stressful workplace.

Any teacher who is regularly crying over their working environment needs to find a new school.

I have seen how people treat GP receptionist and it's shocking. No person doing their job should be treated that way. I always ask them how they are, thank them for trying to find a solution (never easy) and I'm friendly and respectful. It's not their fault the system is broken and I've had many thank me for being kind and understanding.

Compassion fatigue! You get to the point where you a literally dying inside and this is expressed as coldness. You don’t mean to, but you are just so tired, run down, burnt out, it becomes an involuntary reaction. I cannot tell you how many times I have done this to service users. You recognise that you doing it and feel bad afterwards which just in turn adds to you generally feeling bad and hating going into work 😥

I felt this! Fellow SEND Caseworker here and constantly contemplating my life choices. The Sunday scaries have officially kicked in, although it is becoming more of an everyday thing. Really sad, as you join wanting to make a difference, however, the role quickly becomes unsustainable.

Desperately trying to get out, but with it being such a niche role, nobody wants to see the many transferable skills. We cover admin, legal, finance, customer service, complex case management. We work across NHS, social care, education, legal, and many more. My brain is mush and the effort to complete these increasingly lengthy applications is soul destroying. Internal vacancies already have someone’s “friend” earmarked for the role.

Staff turnover is beyond ridiculous and I am seeing signs of traumatic responses within myself and colleagues. We are not the decision makers! We action the decisions and then act as human shields for those who did. Rude, entitled, aggressive, bullying parents and unfortunately wider colleagues in school and social care (who really should know better). The constant emails and telephone calls, insistence that an LA representative should be present at the meeting, against the expectation to process annual reviews, issue drafts and finals, endless consultations for placements that you know are full or won’t be able to meet needs. Yet everyone wonders why there is a new caseworker every 6-12 months!

Manners, common sense and initiative seem to have gone amiss somewhere in between emails and social media. The forums that encourage parents to effectively harass you daily need to be shut down. Note: If my line is constantly engaged, it is because I am busy talking to another caller! Does not matter how many times you email me, I cannot attend to phone, email and be in a meeting at the same time. I am not intentionally not responding, it is because there are 300 other emails ahead of yours which are also marked as “URGENT”. I understand that everyone is frustrated. We are too! That does not however make it fair that we should be the punch bag, and certainly will not change anything. Please redirect your anger to the decision makers who are paid a lot of money to cower behind us and ignore the solutions we offer.

Management do not have a clue and just sit in meetings/push emails around. They come up with useless “improvements” based on what they need to add to their CV for the next promotion. No leadership whatsoever, they are just there to collect their very healthy paycheque and blame everything that goes wrong on the caseworkers. The biggest joke of all, is when yet another vacancy is advertised, they expect you to encourage your friends and family to apply!

It is bittersweet as without the abuse and incompetent management, I actually enjoy my job and am good at what I do. I have gained so much knowledge and it is such a shame to think that this will go to waste, but I just cannot work with the general public anymore.

Anyone who managed to get and knows of any jobs that will appreciate the vast range of skills, please let me know of any vacancies. Asking for myself and the rest of my team who are desperately trying to find an out before the jobs takes us out.

I feel so bad for the children at the heart of the mess as they are the ones who will suffer. Unfortunately, you will be getting yet another caseworker….

Yeah. The prison and probation service. I'm leaving for similar reasons to yourself.

Sorry, I hadn;t read the whole thread when I asked why corporate law was so regularly mentioned. So it seems to be the hours, the pressure from bosses and clients. Is that the same for defence, legal aid , private firms etc or is it just corporate? Just out of interest as I say my son has just been inducted and is working with a corporate firm and has been part time for years and hasn't struck any problems. Maybe its the move from paralegal to solicitor: pay goes up and expectations go up,
I will be so sorry for him if 5 1/2 years of work is all for waste.( He did a double degree with finance) but law was what he wanted. All the unhappy corporate lawyers have you thought of moving to company secretary, private practice, in-house advice for , well any company really. It just depresses me that all these smart people are sitting about crying and you have one of the most valued degrees in the world.
I hope it works out for all and I really hope it works out for my son!!!!

I always think that people who don’t have jobs that cause this amount of stress lived charmed lives 😭 I know I’ve got it the wrong way round. We should all be like that. Like when you hear about someone who has regular meal times, chance to exercise and the headspace to do things like gardening. My mind is blown frequently by other peoples seemingly more simple lives. I say seemingly, as of course you can never know what life is like for others.

I see it every single day in my own job and other people who come to see me. Lots of people are stressed to the point of tears and beyond.

Are you still in law?
my DD has talked about a law degree- i don’t think her personality would cope with the environment you describe.

It sounds soul destroying for many of you, do you ever think about alternative careers?

I get that it takes years to train and passion to get where you want to be.

Daughter wants to be a SEN teacher - I have my worries. Other alternatives LD nursing.

I left teaching to work in a prison.

I’ve not cried one day since being there.
I would not go back.

Teaching in prison can be low paid and quite stressful (not because of the prisoners) but every teacher (ex primary, secondary and college) I’ve spoken to said they would not go back to teaching outside of a prison and would rather leave the profession completely.

The thing is dd is a secondary teacher. She's 26 so early career teaching and a difficult demographic.

She leaves the house at 7am to get in for 7.30am. She gets PPA and breaks. She's finished at 4pm. Monday nights she has two tutoring sessions, Wednesdays she does an after school club. She spends no more than a couple of hours a couple of evenings doing prep/marking, and drafting emails to parents which I've helped her with. I have been astounded at the thank you's and gifts she has received.

One thing she does do which is above and beyond is to spend a week prepping for the curriculum at the end of holidays, getting her lesson plans and resources tee'd up.

Yep. Why I left the profession.

Manager at a Wetherspoons. Sometimes cried stress, sometimes cried because physically assaulted by punters, occasionally cried because I burned myself in the kitchen. I haven’t do it for years now, and I’m glad I did it because it truly was baptism by fire (also met DP there).

Huh! Do you really need clarification on that one? Are you living under a rock!?

Having read this how on earth could you advise kids on a future career.

I used to have a horrible boss in one job but otherwise I've been really lucky. At one time I did the admin for the vice squad in my local force. It was trying at times but such a supportive team to work in. Occasionally something made me feel physically sick and I'd spend my lunch hour getting some fresh air rather than eating.

For a bit of balance, I've been teaching over 25 years and can't remember how many times I've cried over my job, because it's been hardly any.

I love my job with a passion and skip into work most days. One school was not a pleasant workplace, so I handed my notice in after 5 weeks and had a new job for January.

I think if I did a straw poll of my 50+ current colleagues, most feel like I do.

These threads make me sad, as they paint all us teachers in the same crying light.

A & E or GP receptionist is one job i would not do