Near burnout - anyone out there had similar?

[PartyintheKitchen]

Hello, I’m looking for anyone who has been in a similar position and would be able to share how they managed to improve their lives.

I work a very busy job, 5 days/week, normally 9-6 but quite often have to do additional hours here and there (evenings + weekends). I don’t take breaks apart from about 30 mins lunch each day. I am very senior in my company and have 2 teams reporting to me, I report directly to the CEO. I tell you this as I am quite often needed by many colleagues every day to look at X, Y & Z. It is a small company, however in the last 6 months we have gone from 50 people to 41. The workload stays the same for the company but per person our share has increased significantly. We have lost 3 senior people (my level) within that group of 9 who have left. No recruitment is occurring in to those senior roles and as a result my workload is ballooning. The company is going through a potential loss now which could see it go under and so my team are involved pretty much daily in crisis talks on how to manage it. I am now so stressed I am not sleeping, honestly in the last month I can count on one hand the nights where I have slept more than 5 hours. Typically I sleep about 4 hrs a night – I wake up at about 3 a.m. every morning and most of the time lie in bed stressing about all of the work I need to do, until the alarm goes off at 7.

I have 3 young children (2, 5, 8) and I work from home full time. My husband also works from home 5 days/week. I seem to only talk to him about my work. I am normally quite good with exercise and food, well I was until about a year ago, but for the last few months I’ve been ignoring my walks/runs/swims and have started eating more (not necessarily junk – but more of everything). I didn’t really manage a proper holiday – my in laws came to stay for 3 weeks in August and so I shortened my holiday to not spend my precious annual leave with them (I love them but it’s very intense when they are here). They are coming back at Halloween as they want to “enjoy how we do Halloween” so I don’t feel I will get a break then as I’ll have to put on a good Halloween for them. I always decorate the house, party for the kids etc – it’s great fun really but it seems I have sold it as a destination location. Now I feel like my next proper break will be Christmas – it feels so far away.

I could go to HR but our Head of HR is renowned for being a blabbermouth about people’s issues and honestly I do not want to be counted in that. My CEO I don’t think really cares about these kinds of issues as he is the one who is adding to my workload – when I tell him I don’t have time to do what he is asking he shrugs it off as “yes it’s terrible I know – but you’ll get it done”. He thinks nothing of staff working most evenings and weekends. I know the culture is not for changing, it has never been amazing but with the loss of so many people I keenly feel how bad it is – I don’t have the energy to change it and think there is a lot of manipulation so it would be dangerous to try.

I know I have to leave my job, it’s unsustainable. I feel so very trapped and too tired to think. Any advice? I should maybe go to the GP and get signed off but I cannot imagine how work would cope without me in to year end and then Q1 where we have masses of deadlines. Anyone out there with similar stories of how they have overcome similar?

Thanks so much for reading.

Goodness, it sounds horrendous. I’ve been in the burnout at work situation (healthcare). It had a negative effect on my whole life.
I left, and I’ve worked in a much less challenging role and given up my profession registration.
It has been great, and the financial hit was worth it. I’ve been happier, and have mostly recovered. I’m at the point where I’m thinking of getting back to the same type of work. But at a lower grade, and less hours.
I felt like it was going to kill me. My family life was stressful and joyless. No job or amount of money is worth that.

Hope you got on ok at the doctor OP.

Morning all,

Well yesterday was quite the day. I went to GP in the afternoon, it was a very emotional visit - I pretty much begged for help. She was really amazing, lots of questions about work, family, energy, sleep, mood, diet. She has signed me off for an initial 4 weeks with review at that stage to potentially extend. She issued a cert which clearly states "work related stress" as the reason for the leave. I wasn't expecting that length of sign off but she was adamant that it's needed and I may need more. She explained (which a lot of you know!): week 1 = panic about missing "all the work", week 2 = exhaustion/rest week, week 3 = brain starts to demuddle, week 4 = feeling a bit more yourself.

I bit the bullet and went straight to HR, in fairness he was brilliant, very supportive. He said to send him the cert and he would take care of all the logistics. I, being a bit of a badass, decided to email the cert to the CEO and tell him straight up that my workload was simply unmanageable due to lack of resources at my level - why should I dilute the message. He called to apologise and say he would do everything he could to improve the situation. I don't see how that will happen in 4 weeks but look - I'm going to focus on me and let them do whatever they want. I'm online today to tell the team and handover all my work, so many projects, it's incredible and ridiculous that this has been my workload.

Thanks to everyone who clearly said I needed the GP visit. She reiterated to me that there is only one me and I have a responsibility to myself to be well mentally. She believes if I don't take the break now then I'm close to hospitalisation (which I know a lot of you have had happen).

I am going to go and get myself the most enormous toasted sandwich in my favourite cafe at lunchtime to celebrate being an official burn out with time to fix it (Hallmark are missing a trick!).

Well done @PartyintheKitchen! I can sense the relief in your message already.
Thanks for the update, it could really help someone one day to know there’s a positive solution!
Keep updates coming if you can. Enjoy your rest x

Hope your toastie was fab! Well done on your excellent result. I hope they take this seriously and they sort something out for your return.

Well done op. It's interesting about the weeks as I'm on week 3 and starting to demuddle

Toastie was fab indeed, I am full of melted cheese (it was a late lunch) which is positive. However even in 24 hrs the company has shown me true signals of how it sees this. The CEO knew I was online this morning (I did brief handover sessions with my teams - everyone very supportive) and he called me to get me to "just write a short email" to a few different people, but not to tell them I was signed off for stress. I called HR and said, look, if this is the gut reaction and if nothing is different in 4 weeks then I will have only one clear choice. HR even agreed with me. At least I have a few weeks now to rest and think, rest first though. Out of office is on, no more work for now. Relief.

Good for you @Burnerphone21

Yes, I had a burnout earlier in the year. I took few weeks annual leave (mostly TOIL ) and rested up but did not seek external support. I went back but nothing had changed tbh. I held on for another 6 months and I am off again now. This time I am working with a therapist recommended by my gp. I am quite hopeful it will make a change to my mindset/attitude/boundaries regarding work. My work won't change but I can learn how I deal with it better and look after me.

Hello, not sure if anyone is watching this thread but I wanted to give an update.

I am now at the end of nearly 2 months off work,I know,2 months. I went back to my GP on the 2nd Nov which was the last day of the 4 weeks I was originally signed off. She asked a lot of questions about me, sleep, and about work - she advised another month away. I have to say I was so relieved and in hindsight I wasn't ready to go back.

I'm doing so much better. Work is no longer the only thing I think about every moment of the day. I have started counselling and it is really helping me understand how I got in tothis position andhow I can redefine my values and maintain strongboundaries. My DH and I got rid of the (pretty terrible) au pair and now I'm spending time with thekids but with relief from our childminder who minds them a few days a week.

I talked to HR and he confirmed there has been absolutely no change to resourcing at my level, the Board have made no progress with it with no plan either for the near future but will "likely be dealtwith" in January, so I know nothing has changed. The crisis at the company has really exploded now and I know from talking to 2 of my close colleagues within there that things are really quite messy. The company strategy, however bad it was a few months ago, has declined since I left (this was always going to happen).

In other great news, my headhunter chap has come up trumps. I went through the interview process with 2 companies, 2 great roles, one offer in so far, as of Friday evening. I'm hopeful I will have another offer in the coming days (fingers crossed as the second company is my slightly preferred company). The interviews went really well so I'm hopeful. And so I will be handing in my notice this week,delighted but also so petrified oftheconversation - it's never easy. I'm seeing the GP again on Tuesday to understand how I can phase back to the office during my notice without burning out again.

Would anyone be able to share how they phased back to work from stress leave? I'm hoping 3 days a week will be reasonable, I don't think I could mentally cope with 5 days a week just yet knowing how much there is to do going back. Thanks so much for reading. It has been a life changing few months that's for sure.

@PartyintheKitchen great to hear from you and that you're doing so well. Brilliant news on the new job offers as well 😊

I think I would be wary about doing a phased return at all if nothing has changed and you know that you're resigning. I'm sure your GP would be willing to sign you off again if you shared the context of what's still happening at your work.

I did a phased return in July and started off doing three short days a week and then three full days. I loved working again and engaging my brain and finally get like me again, so that's the big pro for doing the phased return.

However within a couple of weeks my manager started reverting to form and the "easy project" that we had agreed I would do as a good transition back became "the number one strategic priority for the company for the next three years"... I've got some underlying issues with my lungs and heart so when I ended up doing super long hours it just pushed me backwards and am now signed off again 😩

So I would say it depends how confident you are in maintaining your boundaries and pushing back on requests that will push you outside of your agreed hours.

What's your notice period? If it's a month, probably good to do the phased return, if it's three months i would be inclined to try and discuss a gardening leave arrangement.

@MavisMonkey thank you so very much for responding. So sorry that you're back on leave again, it's terrible. And to make your project the "strategic priority" is shocking. I hope you're doing ok.

I'm going to try to manage the gardening leave arrangement for my notice period. You're totally right that even though my boundaries will be in place they will push so hard until I'm back where I started.

I had to call the CFO yesterday to help one of my team with an error in her salary. I ended up hanging up on him as he was simply so rude. I do not deserve to be talked to the way he talks to me. It made me so angry. I'm getting some legal advice to see how I can manage walking away with either no notice or minimal handover - it's 3 months, so long enough to matter.

I'll update again as perhaps someone out there will find this helpful in the future.

It’s good to see your update @PartyintheKitchen
I’ve just read the whole thread.
I’m so glad you got signed off.
A PP’s reference to the boiling frog is spot on, and so true for so many of us.
You absolutely did the right thing.
And I agree with @MavisMonkey re going back on a phased return if you know nothing has changed, and you’re leaving anyway, AND the CFO has behaved like that to you.
I agree that if you plan to leave you’re best bet us to get on to an specialist employment lawyer, and negotiate your exit.
Far better for you well-being, having come this far.
👍🏻🤞🏻

^ sorry, that’s really badly written (on my phone) but you get the gist I hope!

@PartyintheKitchen I do hope things are on the up.

I find myself in a similar situation, except I'm an equity partner in my firm.

Not easy to walk away. (Is it ever?).

Can I ask what therapy you had?

Thanks @MaryStuart for the boost!

Hi @SphincterSaysWhat - so sorry to hear this. I hope you are ok, although if you are looking at this post you are probably looking for some help in some way. It is never easy to walk away, ever, especially when you care about your job and your colleagues. I can imagine as a partner you are in deep. But I would say putting myself first has been so great, I feel more in control of my values again. Your health is more important than a company. I had an Employee Assistance Program through my company (oh the irony) which I used. The lady and I get on really well thankfully. It's quite work focused, really thinking about my relationships at work, how I got to be in this position and holding up a mirror to my company and how badly they have treated me. We have touched a little on the rest of my life (hard to ignore my 3 children and all of the other responsibilities I have) to give an overall view on how my values have slipped (work before family) and how to realign them again. It has helped me see the wood for the trees. It’s definitely something you can consider, it may give you the mental strength to step back a little bit.

I got in touch with an employment solicitor and she was fantastic. She said essentially I can give zero notice if I want, considering that they have not ensured my safety upon return to work they have zero grounds to demand that I work my notice. She said they would absolutely not sue me considering that they have been the reason for my stress leave. I also described the actions of the CFO and she said I would have a fairly strong case for bullying at work and even stating that he has undone all of the good work I had done over 2 months to put me back in a state of high stress, which is true, I was a mess after he was so rude to me. So, armed with this, feeling some bravado too, I handed in my notice last week. I stated that there had been no measures taken to ensure a safe return to work following my stress leave and therefore I was only going to work a limited time to Christmas at hours to suit me. I also stated that I would have no further contact with the CFO during this time considering his ongoing bad behaviour. The CEO agreed to this and apologised for it all ending like this. I mean, an apology is lovely but means little when they had so long to fix all of the issues. So now I’m doing a little bit each day to handover the (ginormous) workload to the next person in line. He is a great guy, it is very focused on this, very little pressure. I turn off the laptop early every day, do some exercise, hang out with my kids, cook, have sex with my husband (trust me for many months this was not happening), read books, etc. I’m not doing all of these at the same time (!) but just to share the impact stepping away has had on my life. It’s not perfect but the change is really positive.

@PartyintheKitchen I’ve only just come across your thread this morning after your update. I’m so glad I found it. I’m sorry you’ve had such an awful time, but am so pleased that you seem to be in a much better place now.

I have been burning out over the last 9-12 months in my role due to the team being under resourced and bosses not listening when I’ve tried to tell them I’m not coping. I’ve been in my job for 9.5 years. I nearly left a year ago but they persuaded me to stay, made lots of promises that weren’t followed through. I’ve never cried so much over work as I have this year. I’ve broken down on a Saturday night watching a film with my husband because something about work has come into my head. I’ve woken up feeling like I’m on the brink of a panic attack. Work has taken over my head and at times has made me feel like my children are an inconvenience which is so screwed up it’s unbelievable.

I have a job offer elsewhere and I am going to hand my notice in very soon. I am struggling to get excited about the new place but I have to remind myself that is the burnout talking. It is the right thing to do to move on.

Good luck with everything. Your post has given me enthusiasm for the next step.