“Soul-destroying” - sometimes that’s exactly how Work feels for me

[AKAmyself]

Right, I know I sound ridiculously ott and melodramatic but I wonder whether others feel the same and most importantly how you cope.

I’m in my 40s, 2 pre-teens dcs. I’ve worked hard to hang on to my career and am by and large happy I did, as its always been important to me to have my independence, financially and socially. I have a good, professional job in a large multinational. I earn a good salary. Thanks to it, we are able to afford the lifestyle we’ve always wanted for our kids and for our family - not talking luxury but a comfortable home, lovely holidays, extracurricular activities without having to worry about money etc. I am really grateful for all of this.

However... my job is also very stressful, and I suffer a lot from anxiety (sleepless nights etc); I am profoundly unfulfilled, as I don’t particularly like the sector I’m in; The management style is brutal and (my eyes have slowly been opening to this, and now I cannot unsee it...) sexism and mysoginism are rife and slowly, consistently chipping away at my ambition and self confidence.

I have worked really hard on myself the last few years - seen a psychologist for burnout; learned mindfulness; invested a lot in leadership and coaching training. For a while all this made a difference and I found a good balance. But it keeps coming back, this soul-sapping feeling that I’m just a rat in a cage, that the effort it takes for my mind and my soul to keep it all together, that the amount of work I have to put into showing up every day at work with the right “can do” attitude to manage whatever amount of shit will be thrown at me; and then to show up at home with the right “being” attitude to be there for my children and dh... well it’s just too much. I feel utterly lost in all of this - like life is slipping one worry at a time.

I am aware, as I write this, that I will come across as entitled and privileged. I am, as I said, very grateful for all I have. I guess perhaps I need to grow up to the hard fact that life is hard, that being stressed at work is natural, etc etc. I just crave a little lightness, a little decompression time.

The thought of going back to work tomorrow after half term (where I checked my emails daily, and could not stop thinking about work at all) fills me with so much dread it’s like a lead weight in my stomach.

I wonder if others feel like this - or have felt like this, and managed to turn things around eventually?

How can being able to afford a good standard of living compensate for the soul destroying emptiness of being so unhappy at work? A lovely two week holiday every year is not worth the hundreds of miserable hours spent in a job you really don’t want to be in

I know this is all meant well but I am starting to feel quite bad about all your feedback re the meeting i described earlier. I will formalise things the way you are advising me to - you are right - but I can't beat myself up right now about the way this meeting went or what I said or should have said or should have done.

I guess i am naive but it felt good to be able to clear the air on both sides and it allowed for much more meaningful feedback so I guess the challenge is now to build from there in a non-emotional and constructive way.

I wanted to add something else too, in response to reading so many experiences that seem to echo mine.

I am sure that from the outside we probably all look "successful" - we have (delete as appropriate) good/stable/lucrative/growing/etc etc careers. We have families, good homes.

However what we are describing seems to be what "success" feels like from the inside. And it's bloody hard, and it has a cost, and it seems to be taboo to admit it... to admit that we have to give something up in order to be where we are - and that something is probably a bit different for everyone, but for me it's lightness, it's joy, it's space and time to grow as a person rather than just grow old.

Op, the conversation is done now and you were there, not us so could read the tone. Hopefully it's a bit of a breakthrough but watch your back just in case. Make a note of the conversation somewhere.

I do find with my challenging team member that it's best to be selective about what I tell them. I drop in snippets so they occasionally feel that I'm confiding but it's never about me or anything that actually matters.

My closest work friend is on maternity leave and I'm struggling without her - she's the only person I'm totally open with although I've got quite a few friends. If you can have one person to offload on (or us) it really helps relieve the pressure. You absolutely shouldn't be crying every night, that is no way to live.

I'm in financial services too, but more the hr side of things.

I wouldn’t worry about the meeting AKA - even if this colleague does try to stitch you up (and you were there, you’re more likely to have the more accurate interpretation of the meeting), what’s the worst that could happen? You hate this job anyway!

I’ve had this debate with myself so many times over the past couple of years - I have the “stop the world, I want to get off” feeling every few weeks. Everyone is so demoralised at work, and treated so unfairly by management, that the atmosphere under the surface (which is all quite jolly) is toxic. I feel like I can’t trust anyone at all.

You’re right - we measure success by the outward appearance of hierarchical achievement within a brutal, patriarchal, capitalist system. It’s not healthy, and it’s not what humans’ brains evolved to cope with emotionally.

I am currently pursuing opportunities for promotion, for literally no other reason than because I feel like I want to appear more successful. Otherwise my good degree and promise I showed when younger will have all been for nothing and people will think I’m a loser. I don’t get paid very much now, and would only be looking at a 10% pay rise, but it’s not about the money. My partner and I are comfortable on our modest salaries. It’s literally keeping up appearances, but for my internal judge as well as external ones. I can’t shuck off my need to be “successful”, even though I know what a nonsense it is.

If I do get this promotion, I will be able to relax for about another three years before I have to think about the next step up. If I haven’t been able to get a grip and sack it all off by then.

OP, I kinda guessed you would be in financial services from quite early on in the thread.

Crying every day is beyond the realm of normal. You sound burnt out. How long have you been with this company? Is there no chance of a sabbatical for you to re-group and take stock?

I am approaching 50. How I keep things 'fresh' since I turned 40 is by a sideways career change and then changing jobs every 3-4 years (or more frequently if the offer is good). I don't like managing people, so I try to not go into jobs with big teams to manage and focus on ones that require me to use my technical skill more. I deliberately do not choose top jobs (too much management bullshit and responsibility) and try to stay in the deputy role, hopefully working for a good boss.

What is your marketability. There is inner peace that comes from always keeping one eye on the market and knowing if it all got too much, you can just call up a few recruiters. That is how I get through the bad days - by telling myself there is a way out. I earn enough fuck-it money and can tell them to stick it any day.

OP - you made a situational judgement about the meeting. Non of us where there. You might want to use your cbt and mindfulness techniques for your meeting with rhe boss

Wow reality, you put that beautifully. I get exactly what you mean. I'm so similar in the need to be pursuing the step up.

I often ask myself what I'm trying to prove and to whom, but I think it comes down to an inner drive I can't shut off.

I know exactly who I’m trying to prove it to - my dad (even though he’s dead), my mum, the teachers at my school, everyone who’s always expected me to do Great Things because I was an intelligent child.

I was expected to get into a top university, and I did, but actually once I got there it was like a weight had been lifted. Because not many people in my family had been to university, I didn’t feel pressure to compete against the other students and aim for top grades. I was like I’d proved my point by getting in.

This is how I now feel at every stage - I feel this pressure to progress, but I don’t want to get to the top, I just want to prove that I can achieve the things that were expected of me and not get bored. Once I’ve got to each level, I stop worrying for a couple of years. But god, this workplace...

Reality, you might be interested to read about how "insecure overachievers" are rife in professional services firms and banks - the article could be behind the ft firewall but if you google the title, you can get in from the google search result:

www.ft.com/content/ba0c9234-a2d7-11e7-9e4f-7f5e6a7c98a2

An HR director was described as being “like a drug dealer, deliberately seeking out vulnerable people and getting them hooked on the high-status identity of the firm".

That’s a really good article, blueshoes. Quite depressing though.

Reality I know exactly what you describe. Through therapy and coaching I have come to similar conclusions - I strive to prove to my parents (my dad who I always felt loved me for my intellect rather than myself; my mum who didn’t work and resents her lost independence bitterly) that I’m a success. Literally the question of what do I want did not register for me until a few years ago - everything seemed preordained.

I am wfh today as a mental health reprieve, and taking the afternoon off. Next week will be better, for sure :)

I am really glad I started this thread - thank you - and it got me thinking about how we can keep it going and maybe evolve it into something more structured...

Very interesting article blueshoes.

I found this bit particularly eye-opening:

...high-flying worriers are their own worst enemies. The offer of gyms, nutritionists, and “flex days” can turn the associate who does not take such perks into a victim, guilty of not looking after him- or herself.

It had never occurred to me that the "perks" on offer here are actually a way for management to pass the buck of staff welfare onto individual members of staff. But of course they are!

Every other person here is a Mental Health First Aider, and we have a free stress / mental health helpline, but if management were really interested in our mental health, they would offer better pay and / or working hours, secure contracts and seek to correct the conditions that lead to people routinely working unpaid overtime.

It's a bit like the women's initiatives within the corporate world. They are all about how we women can become better, instead about the men at the top actually sponsoring us and giving us the opportunities to prove that we are good enough.

Agree with you about women pericardium. I particularly object to assertiveness training for women when it would be more apt to introduce stop bullshitting and listen courses for men.

Check out theminimalists.com
It is a blog by 2 guys who worked in telecommunications jobs earning 6 figures and gave it up for a better quality of life.

I think a lot of what they say will resonate with you x

Ooh yes @PericardiumOne, it's for the same reason I hate the prolific use of the word resilience in corporate environments - I always felt it puts the onus on the employee to just take whatever comes at them, and preferably smile and say thank you as well, while management has no responsibility to ensure conditions are right and fair for the employees.

God yes, resilience at my place is just a euphemism for putting up and shutting up.

Definitely.

The other one they trot out is ability to handle change. The fact that it's because the changes usually come without consultation or notice and involve significant increases to workload and responsibilities with no additional support or pay is irrelevant- I need to be resilient, or worse, prove myself and the rewards will come.

This thread is cathartic. My "personal brand" at work is cheerful and can-do so it's nice to moan on here. I need to find a way to do it at work in a professional, constructive way. Has anyone ever managed this? I tend to get quietly pissed off and leave but it's not as easy to job hop where I am currently.

Totally agree about 'resilence' and 'ability to handle change'. I'd say ability to 'suck it up without complaining about the detriment to your work/life balance and mental health'.

There are so many poor work environments out there. When did this happen? It wasn't always like this.

flightchecker, really interesting about your personal brand. I think I have a bit the same - at work i am seen as endlessly energetic, a problem solver, a good listener, a safe pair of hands, and a people person. The problem I have is that when I break down, I break down completely.

I had a 360 last year and that's what my peers said - that my energy levels are unpredictable, and that it can be hard being around me as I am not "steady" enough. My boss said, in that context, that my main challenge is how to "preserve" my energy as I tend to give give give indiscriminately.

I thought it was good feedback.... except... that i think everyone around me benefits hugely from me being this way (which, by the way... is my authentic self, in leadership speak), my boss above all. So it also kind of pissed me off.

Writing this down I am realising lots of things. One is that I have high expectations regarding work from a human and social point of view. Because authenticity, generosity, community are huge values for me, I expect to live them in every aspect of my life including work. But that's not how work is set up, well at least not in financial services, and thats in part where my pain comes from. Perhaps despite my age and experience I am still too naive in the ways of the world!

I thought it was really interesting how so many of you reacted with alarm about my conversation this week, implicitly telling me not to show too much, not to be too vulnerable.

Like many on this thread the way I have addressed these problems up to know has been to change jobs every 3/4 years. This time I've been at this company for almost 5 and I think I've learned the lesson that the grass is always greener on the other side because it's fertilised with bullshit.... so my next change I think needs to be a bit more radical. I will start exploring options in non-profit or in smaller firms.

Incidentally (hadnt mentioned this before as somehow it just doesn't seem so relevant anymore, but am realising it actually is) I did what many of you mentioned and trained on the side on something quite different. It ended up not being the right thing for me - not a problem per se, still glad I did it! - but I think it also led to some disillusionment on the possibility of a "radical" change, at least in the immediate future.

As for mindfulness, resilience training etc... I agree up to a point. There is certainly a lot of cynicism on the part of organisations in pushing this to an exhausted, burned out workforce.

However, I do take them all up as I think it can't hurt me and I do actually believe all those techniques and perspective can really help (not that my contributions over the last days have been particularly good advertisements for the benefits of mindfulness...)

The mindfulness and mental health first aid stuff at work is definitely useful, and i’m a big believer in meditation (though I am shit at it). It just never occurred to me that the organisation’s big show of concern about our mental health rings hollow when most of us are struggling because of the situation at work!

I think what stressedoutpa asked about workplaces is interesting - when did they all get like this?

I work for the bbc, so completely different from financial services, yet the stories I hear from people who work in all large organisations are exactly the same. Doesn’t matter if they’re public bodies or private corporations, they all have the same malfunctions.

Everyone says particularly that they feel senior management operates like an entirely separate organisation - there are lots of them, they get paid an awful lot and no-one seems to know what they do or why.

I’m afraid I think it’s all a result of decades of the trickle up effect - monetarist policies and the executive culture have created this monster, and everyone is being exploited except for a few at the top, who justify creaming off all the wealth amongst themselves and stay away from the little people so as to avoid the truth. And this is happening in most large workplaces.

There’s nothing we can do about it individually and trade unions have very little power anymore, so the only thing we can do is try to get off the treadmill.

Aka - thanks again for this thread - there is so much value in hearing shared experiences.

I note your interest in non profits. It may be a nice move and have lots of options OR it could be awful. I have been in the non profit sector for two decades and can identify strongly with so much on the thread - so I would pick wisely and talk to as many people as possible to gather their wisdom and experience. Frying pan and fire?! Feel free to pm me

Same again with non profits. Having worked for one, I'd be careful to avoid assumptions where they're concerned. Likewise the charities I've come across tend to be rife with culture issues.

Friends in the voluntary sector report frequent shoddy senior management!

I have a very long term anxiety issue, and “burnt out” in my early 20s, which was actually good in some ways because I resolved not to put myself at risk like that again. I am hard working, but don’t work loads of extra hours or get (as) stressed if things go wrong. I have family members in frontline public services with life or death etc, and my work is nothing like that, thank goodness!