To think this isn't a natural way to live?

[Rattanrivers]

I'm senior sales for a small business operating in Kent. It's a job I sort of "fell into" rather than sought out but it's a good little company, nice colleagues etc and I'm well thought of.

Although I head up the department I'm still very much involved in day to day client liaison, handling problems, complaints, demanding customers etc. I have a heavy workload and I regularly work 10+ hour days.

The work itself is repetitive, methodical and, to be honest, some days I feel like a trained monkey. My main problem is that being customer facing is slowly degrading my own sense of self worth and identity. For > 10 years I've essentially been trained to agree with the client, carefully manage and diffuse hostility, bend over backwards to make clients happy and bite my tongue when someone we work for is clearly being unreasonable. That's not to say I never say no, but it all has to be SUPER tactful, sensitively worded etc. It's so ingrained in me to be "on brand" that I struggle to think outside the box now and much of my communication is simply regurgitated, standardised responses.

I'm so used to being a "yes person" that I wouldn't recognise an independent thought if it came up and bit me. Clients speak rudely to me and professionally i feel immune to it but underneath it still hurts. I'm a professional woman in my 30's and sometimes I feel like a child being taken to task. I no longer recognise my own thoughts, only what's good for the company/client.

Outside of work I find myself with my customer-support hat on in every single human interaction I have. Constantly apologising, being super-positive-and-polite and problem solving.

More and more I struggle to sleep at night, wonder why I bothered going to university when essentially my work is scripted and involves zero creative-thought and lie awake worrying about what kind of person I'm becoming. I feel like an empty shell, a blank piece of paper onto which other people's expectations and needs are imprinted.

Is this what I was born for? I feel like the husk of a woman with no passion, no interests, no self-respect. AIBU to think this isn't natural and to want to get out? I worry that if I don't get out soon, the damage to my sense of personal identity will be unrepairable.

YANBU. At the very least, you need some kind of creative project to work on during your non-working hours (write a novel? take up watercolour painting or photography?)

It sounds like this job is draining you, but don't leave... or, not until you can move TO something you want, rather than just FROM something you don't.

Sales doesn't suit everyone.

It sounds like you are good at a job you hate.

So use this pandemic enforced slow down of life to reassess. What would you prefer to do? Would you be better in a different role? If your company can't provide it, the good news being in Kent is i assume you are a short commute to London and can look there for new jobs.

Just because this is the job you have, doesn't mean you are stuck with it until retirement.

And yes, spending time in a particular mindset work wise can "infect" the rest of your life. Time to move on.

I think you need to leave your job.

If you are at the point that you dread going in, leave x

I think it’s time to move on.

I am in a similar role and am creative on a daily basis.

I felt exactly like this when I worked in a Waitrose. I was trained to take all the shit of the day and was treated with utter contempt day in day out from customers and colleagues. Surely those people wouldn't actually take to other humans like that, so just because we were in a uniform we became subhuman?

It really affected my self esteem and confidence and the relentlessness must have caused the panic attacks and anxiety disorder i developed. I truly felt as worthless and as pointless as those customers seemed to think I was. I felt ashamed to be me. Its sound dramatic but when it's constant it just chips you away until you don't know yourself anymore.

I left 7 years ago and still can't go in the store without a feeling of doom in my stomach. I finally now feel good and strong, but that has increased each year that I've been out of the environment, it wasn't an instant fix.

You are not unreasonable at all to get out. Please do.

ABigFatCrow that's exactly it, I feel completely worthless. I'm so used to appeasing clients now that I have no idea how to communicate authentically. It's stifling. Unlike you I actually don't dread going into work per se, I just feel completely deflated and hopeless when I think about this being IT for the rest of my life. My qualifications and professional experience so far is completely geared towards business and client support. I find myself wishing I'd trained in a creative field so at least I might have a hope of building a career that wasn't client-facing.

In my fantasy life I'm an artist who creates whatever the fuck I want, chooses who I sell it to and can express whatever the hell opinion I want about anything!

MargosKaftan "infect" is a very good way of putting it. I'm such a product of my environment now that I can't even remember what my true personality is like.

I suppose that's it, really. My perhaps poorly worded AIBU is really "AIBU to think spending long periods of time in client servicing roles is detrimental to most people's mental health and sense of self?"

It's awful to be unhappy at work. Especially when it takes up so much of your life.
Can you look at what changes could be made to help you get some time back?
If you head the department could you delegate more to someone else? Not passing the buck but maybe someone is looking for a challenge?
Without knowing what you do it's hard to offer much advise. But you say it's a heavy workload and methodical and repetitive. This sounds like you could re examine the ways of working to make things easier. Could anything be re vamped or automated? Free up some time? Little changes can take the pressure off and make things much easier.
Ask the rest of the team for a brainstorming session on certain tasks, other perspectives help and you might have a brainwave.
Have you spoken to your managers? Are they approachable? If they know you are feeling like this they might realise things need to change and have a solution you wouldn't have thought of.
If you like the company and the people I think it's worth seeing what could be improved. Obviously if things carry on as they are looking for another role elsewhere might be the best answer. Work is never worth being miserable for.

Time to move on to a new type of job. One not in sales. Youre clearly bored almost to death.

There are lots of business and client support roles that aren’t sales. You could get a few qualifications and be
-project manager
-facilities manager
-supply chain manager
-contracts/procurement manager (you’re the buyer, not the seller here)
These all use skills transferable from sales.

I think customer service roles have an expiry date for most people.
There's only so much you can take of what you're describing, and it sounds like you've reached your limit.

Watch 'The Remains of the Day' and see what a lifetime of being a butler does to someone...

I understand what you’re saying . I work in customer service and people talk to you like shit, I tend to go silent when they go off on a rant and they usually end up apologising. I know what you mean though I must say I’m sorry a hundred times a day and my son has noticed that I apologise to everyone in the supermarket / street etc if they bump into me

There’s nothing natural about the way we live anymore even at the best of times. We live in a nested set of simulacra each a mere reflection of an underlying reality. Even Disneyland has a transport system and a police force. Everything in modern society is a clever illusion.

I honestly could have written your post. I live where I work and find myself constantly "on" when interacting outside work in case they happen to come into my place of work. It's not that I would advise any thing at work that I wouldn't anyway (very science based clinical environment) but like you say, it's constantly having to word it sensitively and in a way that is completely inoffensive to the most sensitive of people in case they are that kind of person. Mentally draining.

I'm currently on maternity leave but going back 3 days a week instead of full time, and using my accrued holiday to do 2 days a week for a bit. We are looking to move soon and sorely tempted to move further away from work, so there's a commute and I'm not around people I have to deal with constantly. I'm also going to segregate myself a bit from the rest of work. I used to get involved and help others at work where I could but it just puts me in more contact with the public (it's not in my job remit to do this btw), so going to focus just on my area and not ask about the rest of the business.
I'm hoping this helps me deal with the public a bit better. Been doing this job for 12 years and something's gotta give.