Teaching- any other jobs that make you cry regularly?

[Whosaidthattt]

I quit teaching last year, after years in a negative, toxic environment, which I thought was my fault.
Most days, I cried on the way to work, at lunchtime in a cupboard or driving home. I now see that this was the culture rather than me. It took changing a 20 year career to see this.
Is there any other job out there that has staff regularly crying before/during/after work? It's so wrong!

You need to get a different job....

I'm an accountant. Worked in a well known large professional firm. The partner and manager (who were sleeping together) would take you into his office and scream -literally- at you for hours. I came out in tears one day and the PA said she was so scared for me. It wasn't just me, the whole team got screamed at. Lasted 12 months left long lasting scars.

Place I recently left had a high level accountant collapse in the office from stress

I'm a social worker. I'm now in management but when I was frontline I cried quite regularly.

Corporate law too. I had a lengthy period when I used to dry wretch every morning before leaving for work.

This thread is really sad. shocking really. I did have a job in my early 20s where I was left on my own in the office and it was before the internet and I was so bored I cried some days.

I’ve worked for myself for 15 years and never cry about it and I cry about a lot of other things as I’m PeriAF.

I used to be a solicitor. I think I cried every day for 4 years and only jacked it in because I had become suicidal. When I told my boss how bad things were he just shrugged and said 'Go on anti depressants- that's what we all do'.

Just the relentless pressure to keep bringing in clients while not being able to properly care for the ones you already had because you had to keep bringing in money to the firm. Plus I did family law so saw people at their very worst in divorces and child custody battles and some child protection work. I don't think there was a day where I was not abused at by a client or screamed at and I simply could not keep up. I had a huge number of active clients when I finished up and I simply could not do a good job for them at that volume particularly as most days I would be tied up in court for hours, and all my firm cared about were billable hours. I suffer from insomnia and so would just get up and continue working. I would physically go into the office 9-6 on Sundays to try and 'get a jump' on the week and miss out on time with my family including a disabled pre-teen who needed support.

I gave up when I was actively suicidal as I needed to. It took me 3 years to even get back half of who I was and now I work in office administration and I enjoy it alot.

Yep, definitely law. The pressure is intense.

Really surprised to read that about corporate law. What does that involve? Is that in house or agency? Why is it so upsetting?

Child protection social work involved quite a lot of tears, rage, sadness, frustration and sometimes hopelessness.

Nursing! I’m in mental health and my new job isn’t so bad but my last job broke me and I was regularly in tears. And always comforting colleagues as well!

It’s horrendous, how stripped to the bone resources are and the blame culture we have. Very hard to be a nurse!

In my 1960s convent school nuns were still chastising themselves with hair shirts, chains, excessive fasting and similar practices. So pretty weird.

Fashion buying. The bosses take it all very seriously and speak to people like shit. They blame you if anything doesn’t sell and you have stock sitting on the shelves. Surprisingly incredibly stressful job.

I’m actually very good at my job and despite what I’ve written, I’m polite and helpful to every patient. It’d just be nice if people used a bit of common sense and realised I’m asking them to fill in a form for a reason, not because I think it’s a laugh. And I am not the reason your healthcare provider is running late, shouting at me won’t get them here any quicker.

Working in Buying and Merchandising in high street retail.

Social work. As well as the awfulness of what you are seeing and the limitations of how you can support families/the resistance to engagement. It’s the work load, I had to have 20 kids on my caseload. I was supposed to see each child weekly , see the parents at tleast once a month, attend meetings with school, facilitate support/referrals for families. Attend training/ CPD, weekly team meeting, deliver a parenting class once a week. Write reports/action plans after every meeting. Do half a day on duty every week. Plus answer emails, have 1;1 with line manager.

i was employed 37 hours, to do all the above properly took 55 hours and that’s assuming there was no emergencies (there was loads) and no new cases requiring an assessment . If there was that 55 easily became 75 and then once you start to get behind and god forbid you take a holiday you just never catch up.

makes me feel ill just remembering it. I was on30k but for the hours I worked I earned less than £8 a hour.

Yes, I’ve just moved jobs into a very micro managed team. I’m not going to last long.

GP, SS, health care, education, when you work with a vulnerable public you will always be subjected to emotional stress. The more you care the more you burn out.

What intrigued me is the posters saying corporate law. Is it the workload/hours put in or is it down to toxic environment in the workplace?

No, s/he does not. Humans need to get some manners. Or find the ones we used to have as a society

I’m old so am shocked to hear that you all are so stressed and overloaded with work.
yes, ‘work’ should be challenging and demanding, but only to the point that you feel worthwhile and needed. Is there no mechanism built into modern day employment where you are allowed to say no more clients, no more patients, my list is full. Also are you not allowed to have a diary, if your day is full that’s it, nothing else can be booked in.
it sounds as if lots of well qualified and experienced professionals are leaving their careers due to mismanagement of day to day events. Seems to me there is very short term thinking in the workplace.
I can see that when people can’t cope with a toxic workplace anymore they vote with their feet and leave, but surely alarm bells should be ringing, this can’t be good for business.

I can’t say I ever cried due to work in all my working life.

When I was just starting out in life 30 years ago I did a lot of retail jobs. I cried over that. But since I've worked for London Underground I've cried buckets. Physical assault, mental & emotional assault, one unders, terrorist attacks, the general stupidity of the public, incompetent management, unsympathetic bosses, and the fact that some stations in a state of disrepair. I'm with a good team now but external to that there's another staff restructure and that will put more pressure on us. Luckily I have access to counselling pretty quickly and in 24 years have only suffered one breakdown but that was also partly down to my marriage breaking up too. Also, I'm very well compensated for it all. If only people in the NHS, social work and legal profession had similar back-up.

I had a friend who worked in corporate law. She developed an addiction to codeine, started self harming, and had a complete mental breakdown.

I doubt the nuns had the same requirements of modern teachers. They were allowed to use physical reprimands and there wouldn't have had a barrage of new initiatives each year, an overcrowded curriculum, ofsted, uneccesary admin or modern entitled parents to deal with. I would imagine as long as they put the fear of God into their students they could spend the day doing and teaching what ever they deemed appropriate and that would largely just be chalk and talk which requires a bit if knowledge and no preparation.

Tv/film industry - at one famous festival HQ there was a place in a nearby building where staff would go to cry… the people at the top were/are fucking awful and demanding.

Friend who’s a BIG lawyer at a BIG 4 firm cries everyday. Works ridiculous hours for demanding clients and has no time to spend all the money made. They’ve now sent their kids to boarding school ( for the very BEST education) because neither parent has time during the week to do any kid stuff, even with a housekeeper and nanny to hand.