To tell my boss I am shit at my job?

[Tiletoo123]

I just can’t seem to do my job properly. I have always been a hard worker, have put the hours in, never the brightest or smartest but reliable, solid and will always answer the phone out of hours (important in my industry)

But I just can’t seem to get anything done, in time, or to the right standard. I have total responsibility for a major project that I need to present to the board next week ( the project isn’t done and is a mess but no one really knows). My boss has taken on all day to day tasks this week to help me make time to do the presentation.

I worked on it until 11pm last night, ahead of a review this afternoon. I produced ‘stuff’ but not a tight, cohesive document. He went through it and told me what to do to fix - came up with great ideas. He was very nice about it but I know he is thinking wtf have you been doing.

I can see he is getting annoyed. I want to bring it up with him and say ‘I think I am falling short and not what you need in this role’. I don’t want to do myself out of a job but I just feel I am failing in all areas and need to say ‘ I know, I’m not just being a dick on purpose’.

I used to be a person of details but now I just feel lost - I don’t know what is going on

What should I do?

Also, sorry to hear others are feeling the same/ have had problems - I hope you are ok x

Maybe it just isn't the right thing for you. I'm currently in a job that is all wrong for me.

I've realised I'm smarter than most people I work with and super organised but not an administrator. It's about finding something that suits your temperament and plays to your strengths.

Whatever you do, don't say you don't think you are very good, try and play up your good points, discuss tasks in advance in a collaborative way ie you are so good at getting the ideas, but I'll get these slides looking amazing, you are a team. Then try to work out what you would be better at, focus on what you can do, not what you can't and start from there.

Other thought - have you always run on adrenaline and found it hard to order tasks? That can be a sign of ADD, and increasingly being diagnosed in middle aged women who were not picked up as kids because they weren't the classic hyperactive boy, but who find as they get older and they're less able to put in the hours or summon the same fear/adrenaline that their lack of executive function shows up as more of a challenge. If it's new then less likely to be this, because ADD is a lifelong disorder so should have shown up in childhood.

Be honest with your boss but not whiny. Don’t ask for emotional reassurance, ask for concrete help.

I can imagine someone saying exactly what you said, and it turning out that everything is fine with the project and the boss is not annoyed, but the writer having seriously low self esteem and seeing disaster everywhere. Be honest with yourself - is it possible this is the case?

Google impostor syndrome!

It honestly sounds like you have been under a copable level of stress for a while but it's now become too much and you just can't motivate yourself regardless of the consequences? That was me, I had a deadline approaching, at various points, even though i was behind, I could have caught up and in the evening I would do a list of what needed to be done and have a plan for the next day. I'd get up in the morning completely unable to actually start. Then I'd say, we'll I'll start at half past and then it would be that i'd say i'd start on the hour, then after lunch, etc etc. I'm not lazy or stupid but I just couldn't do it, my brain and body would just shut down. I couldn't think straight, couldn't understand properly but would just nod and pretend everything was ok.

I really urge you to speak to your boss or someone who would be understanding that would help. I think you probably need time off but certainly you need support.

I hope you manage to get help better than I did OP, you deserve it, you are a decent employee, if you weren't you wouldn't be worrying about this.

When I started my post grad job I had a real issue with time management. I felt like I could never get anything done for looking for stuff or starting a job and then something happens then something else happens and its a whole hour later and I haven't even looked at my to do list. I was comparing myself constantly to people way more experienced than me, not giving myself any grace to the fact that this responsibility was brand new to me. I had a really busy day and the person in charge was a bit of a dragon and I got myself in to a total panic that I wasn't going to get to everything done. I decided to ask her for help to prioritise and she was amazing, told me the exact order of how she would do things and why and since then I have stopped the panicking and running about getting distracted and thinking more about which job is more important to do first. Pretty sure I would meet some flags for ADD. But asking your boss for specific advice of how they (as a more experienced person) would tackle the task can be a big help.

Also the PMS/menopause thing...every month the day before my period I have an awful day where I literally do everything wrong and everything feels hopeless. Then all of a sudden as my period ends I feel much brighter and capable again.

My son actually had a bit of a hard time in one of his latter school years, he was waiting on a dyspraxia diagnosis as well.

he said "I sit in my room aware of all the things i need to do, but i'm paralysed, i can't do them, i can't start and then I hate myself for being so useless and wasting the time - time either disappears so fast or hangs heavy, mocking me" He's now in Uni and loving life. I came to appreciate how he was feeling this last few months.

You are only 40 OP, lots of life and working life ahead. I'd try to get through this and then start looking for something that might suit you better. I'm 55 so getting to the point where i just need to manage a few more years.

I long for a job that I do in real time and then go home and forget. Usually poorly paid with lots of other issues but the advantage of not having to manage the time and tasks over weeks and months is appealing.

Are you taking on work that your manager should really be doing themselves OP? I've found in the past that when I start to make silly mistakes it's because actually I'm taking on someone else's workload as well as my own and even if you think it's fine, it will show in your work if you're trying to do too much.

You’d never see a man saying that they are bad at their job no matter how shit they are. I think that you are likely too hard on yourself OP.

Even if you make a few mistakes, you should never disparage yourself in front of your boss. If they are unhappy with you, let them prove that you are failing and fire you with a lovely golden parachute payout. Until then, stick with it and act as if you are God’s gift to your boss and this company.

If you are really struggling then have a conversation with your boss where you emphasise all the awesome stuff you do and ask to drop a, b, c to concentrate on y (the most valuable workflow). If you are burnt out, again make it their problem and fault (emphasise all the stuff on your plate, mention unreasonable hours, get a doctors note, ask for paid time off).

Here’s my advice from experience. Sometimes you just need to suck it up and do what you need to do to get through this presentation. I’ve had projects that I just didn’t ‘click’ with and at the end of the day I knew whatever I produced was going to be crap in comparison to my normal standard, but sometimes that is good enough.

Apathy is tough to deal with. Honestly my way of dealing with it is to power through it. Maybe not the best of advice, but it’s what I do. Eventually I’ve been able to find something that brings back the spark. I do realize at some point this approach may not work.

At the end of the day, take the help you can get and set this behind you.

@Royalbloo

I seldom find if people give their work the time and attention it needs, and they want to do it, that it's awful.

Give it your full time and attention or give up....

You really do need to take your head out of your arse.