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!

Owning your own business. Literally any business and you will defo cry a lot

Why do you have to fill out the forms if you’ve been there before? You don’t have to do that at my GP surgery or dentist.

yes you are always definitely replaceable. I always thought if you worked hard and honestly then you would be valued and would progress. But no, in my case the firm did not care about any of that- they just wanted their money. One of the equity partners bought herself a new maserati the year I left. I worked out that with all the unpaid overtime I was earning about £3 an hour. Like a PP I also came from the charity sector originally and I never actually out-earned my middle-management role in the charity sector. Even now as a part time office admin my hourly wage is higher than being a solicitor.

I haven’t cried in teaching since PGCE (I’m mid career now). But PGCE was so terrible that I decided never to work in a state school again, so.

I think our society has made many jobs far more stressful than they need to be. Too many American-style performance reviews etc, all of which absorb time and change nothing about the quality of the work people do. If someone isn’t performing, you generally know. If you don’t know without a performance review then it raises other questions.

Teaching in the U.K. does have impossibly high expectations though, so it’s not your fault. Teachers are not just there to teach a course, they are also expected to be able to demonstrate that they differentiate all the time so that every child has been given precisely the right level of scaffolding or stretch. They are expected to ensure every lesson caters for a wide range of learning styles and is ‘fun’ even when the content is necessary and dry. They are expected to know every child well when they teach 200 a week. They are expected to recognise signs of abuse or other safeguarding concerns when they see them in a class of 30 for 40 minutes, sandwiched between other classes of 30. They are expected to maintain good behaviour at all times without any school behaviour management structures or parents willing to accept that their child might not always be perfect. And they are expected to endlessly redesign courses to incorporate the latest educational trend. In no other job are you effectively on stage performing with all day, whilst also having to juggle all those things.

I should add: parenting small children. Maternity leave. That has made me cry a lot but I do have PND.

City lawyer. Hated it. Terrible unpredictable hours, very stressful, very boring mostly.

I’m still a lawyer but moved firms, do a 9-5, and no longer do client-facing work - huge improvement.

Though I’d love not to go back after maternity leave…

I certainly don’t cry at work, I have a pretty low stress job, but solidarity to anyone who is in a customer service role. I had a few of them while at uni and it was awful, so many customers being dicks, and if anyone submitted any kind of complaint then the managers’ view was always very much “the customer is always right”, they weren’t interested in hearing the other side of the story. Even on the one occasion where my side of the story was “well I wasn’t at work that day so clearly it’s not referring to me”.

My last customer service job was a shift manager in a cinema, and the complex manager was such a bully. I used to wake up in the night with palpitations thinking “oh no, the tills didn’t balance, I’m gonna be in sooo much trouble” and then in realised, f* this. I’m getting paid about $1 an hour more than minimum wage. So not worth it.

I am a health care provider and I always smile and chat to our receptionists. They take so much shit from the public.

(I am never late to my clinics, though)

@Kittyfur - you really can't imagine why being a GP would make you cry?

And we have so many posters on this site badgering/cajoling/bribing their children to pass their exams and setting total store by education - for what? ...... to finish up in jobs that are so stressful they make you cry.

The world is crazy.

Veterinary. Most days I see a colleague cry or reach a breaking point.

Working for the council. If the public don't make you cry, the management will.

Oh put a sock in it

Moral of this thread is don’t bother becoming a lawyer. I would never recommend it to anyone.

In a 25 year career in the Civil Service I have had 2 instances of bullying managers that lasted a few months in each case. In both cases I managed to get promoted out of it. I am now fairly high up the food chain and I love my job and have a great manager.

My worst job many years ago was as a PA to an MD, who was the most vile woman I have ever had to work with. I actually considered suicide by throwing myself under a lorry making it look accidental so my DH and baby would be financially OK. I was the chief income earner. Ironically I see this monster quite a lot on social media as an advocate for women’s mental health and she coaches other high flying women. Urgh.

To all the gps on here….i want to thank you for the work you do. It has surprised me that twice when speaking to my own gps to find that they felt undervalued. You are stars. I was a teacher and loved it. So I’d also like to thank the teachers who are so important to our world. Of course everyone on here is doing some good in the world too.

Marketing manager. Other people's shitty attitudes and need to push blame on to others really stressed me out and had been questioning myself constantly

Shame on you.

I’ve cried multiple times as a project manager. Last one was just before Christmas. I was mortified, was on a site and had to be consoled by an electrician

Presumably there is a reason or the receptionist wouldn't be asking them to do it...

Fashion design - toxic hell hole. I saw people being bullied, harassed and treated like crap every day. Women crying at their desk, quitting jobs on the spot because it was so terrible, people being paid off and signing NDAs. It's amazing how desensitised I came to it. I saw senior leaders throwing things across the floor in temper, screaming at staff, humiliating employees in meetings. Not uncommon for employees to work all hours, in the night, weekends.

Support role in a secondary school. The students were absolutely brilliant, easily the best part of the job and what kept me there for so long. The problem was everything else. The toxic, negative environment. The bitterness of certain colleagues who resented anyone with more competence than them, teachers who felt too important to acknowledge you in the corridors, the staffroom that functioned more like a clique than a team...

Then there were the mind numbing, pointless staff meetings, exercises in box-ticking and control. Sitting through long sessions, even whole inset days, that had nothing to do with my role, just to be seen attending, when I really could have done with the precious time to get files up to date, etc. But no, you just had to show up and if you weren’t there, they'd come and find you!! Never mind that they expected you to complete work in the meantime that was physically impossible to have done if you were in yet another staff meeting, when the meeting itself was irrelevant to you. It was all about compliance and control, not productivity.

And the expectation that you’d take on responsibilities far beyond your pay grade, with zero chance of progression, ever. Minimum wage, maximum exploitation. It was demoralising, and I used to cry most Sunday afternoons at the thought of returning for another week. The kids made it worth it, until they weren’t enough to justify staying at the expense of my mental health.

Not uncommon for employees to work all hours, in the night, weekends.

What was the worst thing that could possibly happen if the designer got it wrong? Women might spend a season wearing floaty floral chiffon midis rather than bold block-print minis?

Anything customer service. In retail I would regularly be threatened with a lawsuit if I didn’t give a refund. I would be shouted at, patronised, belittled and generally treated as though I didn’t matter. Management would always back the customer. You had to hit your targets or you would be threatened with losing your job. For a minimum wage job with no perks, it was truly horrible. I used to go in the stock room and shed tears.
Also as a call handler for healthcare. I get shouted at by patients daily, threatened and I have to repeat the same information 100 times a day. It is mind numbing. I have often answered my next call with my head in my hands fully expecting another rude, entitled ranty patient.
The ones who are really ill never treat people like the ones who have a very minor issue but ‘demand it looking at immediately’