What can I do about this?

[Ormirian]

A few years ago I started to get really sick with anxiety and stress. A lot of this was to do with 'life in general' but a serious chunk of it was to do with work. I took citalopram and things became all rosy and lovely - until I got fat, lazy and miserable - so I came off them. I have been OK. Up and down but more or less even.

My manager is off work on long-long term sick (due to stress!) It is unlikely he will come back. We have no replacement. Someone has been moved sideways to cover for him - nice bloke, tries to support us but he hasn't got the technical expertise to do what the old manager did. Recently we went live on a major project that has caused me massive headaches and a lot of issues with our biggest customer. Basically it has resulted in us getting delayed payments from them and that is a big problem.

I left things OK when I went on leave yesterday. I thought it was all resolved as I had been working my arse off to leave things right. But then I got an email from the customer telling me there were still problems. I get email via my work phone - poisoned chalice really as I use it for personal stuff too. As soon as I saw the email I could feel the adrenaline pumping and the stress levels rise. My parents were here for dinner but I couldn't concentrate on them as I was thinknig about work. I fired off some emails as soon as they had gone but I know I will be worrying about it for the rest of my leave.

What do I do? I can feel that horrible achey feeling in my chest that I had when I was really stressed. I can't sleep as it is. I don't want to go back on my ads - why the hell should I when it's only my job that makes me like this?But if I take more time off the rest of my colleagues will be in the shit? We're short-staffed as it is. And let's face it in the current climate it's handy to be indispensable! I don't want to be ill again. I don't want to take tablets I don't really need just because my job is a nightmare. Should I approach HR? My temporary manager?

I really want to enjoy these few days with my kids but I can't forget about work

Buy a £20 PAYG phone and switch the work one off!

Short term solution, but maybe a proper break is what you need? Trust your colleagues, as the clearly trust you, in the meantime and enjoy your time with your beautiful kids

Thanks purple They are pretty gorgeous aren't they?

I know that would help. But it isn't going to get rid of the worry entirely. In fact it might be worse as I'd just worry about what was going on when I wasn't 'looking'.

But it makes me realise the reason they gave me the bloody phone in the first place Never out of touch.

You need to stop thinking about it as your problem and remember it's a work problem. Work out your hourly rate at 37.5 hours per week, then work it out at 168 hours a week. Then calculate your 37.5 hour week rate by 168 and see exactly how underpaid you are!

Focus on the long term solutions and not the short term issues.

Long-term you need a new manager. what can you do now to get the ball rolling on that one?

Medium term you need someone to take responsibility for things that are landing on your plate - who will do that whilst they sort out the new manager bit?

Short term you need to follow a neat mind trick. Every issue that arises at work is a monkey. It jumps from shoulder to shoulder. The more monkeys you have on your shoulders, the more it weighs you down. These monkeys don't belong to you. Picture every single problem as a monkey and when each one surfaces and lands on your shoulder, work out who deserves to have it sitting on their shoulders instead, and not yours. Then pass the monkey across. Once the monkey is passed you have to forget it - you have enough monkeys of your own to deal with. If you can't bear to let it go in case it doesn't get dealt with properly, then that is the time to acknowledge that you have lots of monkeys on your shoulders, and therefore you deserve promotion/payrise/assistant. And when you get to that stage list out the monkeys and tell your bosses that if they don't want to give you a promotion/whatever, then who is going to take responsibility for each monkey?

The stress you feel is because you are taking on responsibility that you haven't signed up for. You need to be very firm in communicating that to mgmt. It may seem a nightmare getting them to agree to deal with it, but it is best to face it head on than let it carry on. At the moment there is no incentive for the company to solve the problems because you are dealing with the fall-out for them and therefore the fact that they have no manager isn't an urgent problem for them. Give them the headache back.

Hope that all makes sense.