Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Please can I have some advice on what to do

16 replies

rickandmorts · 26/10/2018 00:45

I posted on AIBU last week and got some good study tips on how to manage a full time degree as well as working full time and I will try and keep this brief but they haven't helped.

I went into the NHS as an apprentice and have been there 6 years (I'm now 24). I've just started a top up year for a degree and I hate it. I hate my job these days and wake up every morning thinking I don't want to go. I haven't even submitted my first assignment for uni yet and I'm laid in bed crying now because I can't do it, I've asked my tutor for help and basically I don't think I'm able to do this degree, I could get deadline extensions for 20 years from now and I still wouldn't be able to submit anything half decent.

Everyone keeps telling me my degree will get better but I think as the course intensity heats up (I also have to do a work based project worth 60 credits which is massive) the thought of more assignments and work is making me want to be sick.

Right now I want to go into work tomorrow, hand in my notice, fuck the course off and leave work and go work somewhere where there's no pressure on me, I can't cope at the moment and my manager just keeps telling me to get my head down and I'll be fine.

I honestly don't know what to do, I don't want to do my job anymore and I really don't want to do this years degree that relates to it. I can't see a way out; I physically can't do the work so can't complete the degree but I can't just throw the towel in and sack it off. I'm worried what people will say. Every time I think about it I get all hot with shame and embarrassment. Please help, I don't know what to do 

OP posts:
rickandmorts · 26/10/2018 00:47

I thought I could build a career in the NHS, contribute to my pension and work my way up the banding system but the atmosphere is so toxic and stale, I feel like it's making me ill as dramatic as that sounds . I just want to run away.

OP posts:
Sassielassie · 26/10/2018 01:01

What are your other life committments? Mortgage partner kids etc

Dontfeellikeaskeleton · 26/10/2018 01:03

Could you finish your course and then go work abroad?

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

rickandmorts · 26/10/2018 01:08

I have a mortgage, a partner (we live separately) but no kids. I could always move in with him or go back to my mum's.

I can't really move abroad due to ongoing family issues but my point is I don't feel able to finish the course! Everyone just keeps telling me to 'get my head down and do it' but I can't and that's my issue.

OP posts:
flumpybear · 26/10/2018 01:10

What degree is it? Can you get it then use it to move elsewhere?

rickandmorts · 26/10/2018 01:13

No flumpy it's ridiculously specific to my chosen field.. which I hate and don't want to do anymore. I feel like at 24 and qualified I'm being silly wanting another career. But the thought of doing this for the next 45+ years fills me with despair.

OP posts:
Rebecca36 · 26/10/2018 01:17

I think you won't be happy doing this degree. Look for another job and then consider doing a degree part time or some form of professional training. You're so young to be tying yourself down to a 'job for life' when you're bright and there will be other opportunities that suit you better.

Do find a job before you pack in the current one though, you have bills to pay and it's nice to have your own place.

Flowers
rickandmorts · 26/10/2018 01:20

I know I won't be happy doing it Rebecca but I know people will think I'm being silly wasting the opportunity if it's being funded . Yeah I couldn't imagine myself without a job but I'd have no idea where to start! It's all very overwhelming at the minute.

OP posts:
Sassielassie · 26/10/2018 01:20

It looks like there are two things going on .. the job and the degree. You have been doing the job for 6 years and it seems a bit coincidental that you suddenly start hating your job when you start the degree .
Could you be putting yourself under too much pressure?
I wonder if the stress of all the studying PLUS working full time is having a negative impact on your outlook to a job you were happy in before!
Give yourself a break.
Stop worrying about what other people think. Who cares? Worry about yourself. Stick the pension plan and the degree on hold for a year or two and stick to the day job only.
Get out in your free time and have some fun. You are only 24 fgs!
If you still feel the same about the job down the line then that answers that question too.
Just because you make plans dosent mean you dont have the right to change your mind and its no ones business but yours. People change careers all the time! Even really old women... in their 40s!!! Shock Good luck. I really mean that. Try not to worry. And choose whats going to make you happy x

rickandmorts · 26/10/2018 01:26

Hi Sassie, my enjoyment of the job has been waning over the last year or so. I got bullied last year and it was horrendous, I was having to take anti-anxiety medication just to walk through the door and my managers were totally shit and useless, I felt so unsupported. That colleague is still there and I guess every day I just feel more and more resentful and bitter that he's never been reprimanded for his behaviour towards me and I think the degree is the straw that's broken the camels back and I just want to tell them all to fuck off.

I'm scared if I quit the degree and stayed at work everyone would judge me and find me pathetic for not completing it? Especially the horrible man that bullied me last year would love it .

Thank you, I am worrying but I need to have a serious think about what I want to do.  for the advice

OP posts:
rickandmorts · 26/10/2018 01:27

Oops the flower emoji didn't work!

OP posts:
BoomBoomsCousin · 26/10/2018 02:20

rickandmorts I'm so sorry you're miserable at work and feeling unable to do your degree. Have you done any studying at this sort of level before? Could your reaction to the studying be to do with needing more support academically or do you think it's more about it tying you into this career you've decided you hate - and that very idea just has you paralyzed with horror?

On the falling out of love with your chosen career path I think there are various possibilities. You started really young and it's easy to make the wrong choice at that sort of age (it's easy at any age really, but even easier when you're young), but it's also possible for a bad experience to spur you to something and then, when you get some space from that experience, you can fall back in love with all the things you originally liked about it. There's also the possibility that your approach to work predisposes you to eventually hating it. This has been my experience. I appreciate you aren't me and I'm not assuming this is how things are for you, but it took me 30 years to work this out, so I'm going to put this here in case it is like this for you and you can gain something from my experience.

I've gone through several "careers". I tend to be pretty good at my jobs, I pick things up quickly, get promoted, etc. but after 4ish years I start to be really dissatisfied with how I'm being supported. I find my managers seem to overlook important issues, let things go that other staff do, make decisions that make my life much harder. Expect me to get on with it. And I resent it. There's normally at least one spectacularly bad decision by upper management that's totally deaf to the work we're doing on the ground and I begin to think the entire senior management don't care, don't know what they're doing etc. I get disillusioned, stop performing as well as I might, stall in my trajectory. Then I move on to another job. Sometimes just a little different, sometimes just a bit different. And I shine in my new role and feel justified in my assessment of my previous workplace. And then the patter repeats. It took dropping out of work for a few years to be a SAHM and finding the pattern repeated there - when I was the total boss! - to realize it was about me and my expectations. When I start I'm learning which is fun. I gain skills which get recognized and rewarded which is a bit of an ego boost. The the expectations start getting higher and I'm put on the spot more. I gain more skills but it's very incremental and not as satisfying. I'm expected to be able to cope. The terrible management decisions have actually always been there (because managing is, in fact, pretty hard) but I didn't notice them as much when I was more junior and anyway I had exciting things to think about. When I'm more experienced it's my job to smooth the edges of bad decisions so we can make the best of them but rather than seeing that as skill I'm building I saw it as me covering for incompetent management. They weren't actually incompetent, it's impossible to get everything right all the time and to balance all the competing needs fairly. But I wasn't really seeing that at the time. Instead of understanding my job as making things work for the company as a whole I thought of the company as being there to make my job as perfect as possible. (In the NHS you may have a more legitimate case for expecting the organization to be focused on making patient outcomes good, but there are probably still a lot of pressures that mean they have to compromise quite a lot.). I've realized since that I was probably a bit of a nightmare employee some of the time. And I really needed to view my role differently - as more about lifting the company up rather than just doing my job well and expecting perfection from all my managers. I also realized that a fear of failure often had me pulling back just as things got really hard.

I haven't gone back into the workforce yet, so I'm not sure if I've found the solution to my dilemma. But I'm hoping framing a job differently will help me avoid that 5 year itch and be a better employee and manager.

I wasn't bullied at work, but it sounds like the lack of support you had is a big factor in how you view your career now. If your situation might be anything like mine, understanding that your management are always likely to be a lacking wherever you are (hopefully not that bad in the future) may help in thinking rationally about your options and disentangling your dissatisfaction with your workplace from your dissatisfaction with your chosen career path.

Do you have the option of postponing the degree while you sort out you ambivalence with the job? Could you move to the same role in another area to see if a new start away from the bully helps?

You are still really young, so changing career now will be relatively easy. You'd still need to find another career though, and deal with disappointment and difficulties there.

rickandmorts · 26/10/2018 11:09

Hi Boom and thank you so much for such a detailed reply. I've done a HND which was practically based to my career and I coped fine. I think you've hit the nail on the head when you say 'paralyzed with horror' about staying here for another year and continuing down this path.

I did start young, I was 18! And I only chose it because I wanted to do an apprenticeship not go to uni, if you'd told me when I was younger that I'd be doing this for a job I'd have laughed at you. That's the thing it's not my passion at all and I just don't enjoy the subject field, it's boring and tech based and just not me.

I find my managers seem to overlook important issues, let things go that other staff do, make decisions that make my life much harder. Expect me to get on with it. And I resent it.

Oh my god you've just described me at work! I was just expected to get on with the horrendous bullying I faced last year and I honestly can't get over it. And things like someone will ask to have their hours changed and they'll get it and then I'll ask for flexi and they'll umm and ahh and say 'actually we'd prefer if you didn't'. I don't know if it's because I'm the youngest or the only woman.. or if they just dislike me Grin.

And I really needed to view my role differently - as more about lifting the company up rather than just doing my job well and expecting perfection from all my managers.

I totally get this too. I don't even do my job that well anymore because no-one else in my department does, they all massively take the piss with their hours and breaks etc so I think why should I be arsed if no-one else gives a shit? I never used to be like this too and I get annoyed at myself, I thrive more when I'm in a motivated dynamic team. I probably couldn't postpone the degree as work have paid and won't want to pay again. If I quit before next Friday I only have to pay back 15% of the course fee and I'm willing to use savings to make it all go away. I could move to the same role in a different Trust but again, I think I hate this job now.

Thank you for your reply it's give me a lot of food for thought Smile.

OP posts:
flumpybear · 26/10/2018 12:57

Have you thought about 'cashing in' the 'points' you may have on your current degree and change now into something you'd enjoy? 24 is nothing! I started an undergraduate degree at 23, 5 yeArs as foundation plus sandwich year then body's a PhD, smears a scientist and lecturer for about 5 years but subsequently moved into management - love it! Before I was a secretary!
Good luck 😉

rickandmorts · 26/10/2018 13:48

I don't think my HND will have UCAS points will it? But definitely something to look into!! Oh god that sounds hectic!! But sounds good, how did you afford to do that if you don't mind me asking? Loans?

OP posts:
flumpybear · 26/10/2018 22:34

It was a few years ago now but yes loans for living as no fees then ... worth it though! Have a good think about what you want to do, there are bursaries and scholarships don't forget!!

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.