I am at my wits end with work. I love my job, as in my career choice, but the company I work for has interpreted the remit in such a way that it is physically and mentally impossible to do all that is required of me. I should work 35 hours per week, 9-5 Mon-Fri with an hour for lunch. In reality I arrive in the office at 7.30am (having already been emailing, reading documents on the train for 40 minutes) and rarely leave before 7pm. I make a point of taking one lunch break per week for a 30 min gym session but on all the other days, I work straight through. I’m often in back-to-back meetings and end out ducking out to cram a sandwich down my throat whilst sitting on the loo. There’s a real culture of “lunch is for wimps” around here. I continue to email on the train home, usually getting in at 8pm then always do at least 3 hours of work in the evenings. Obviously trying to fit in dinner, family time and a bit of downtime/me-time before I go to bed for it all to start again the next morning. This routine means I rarely get more than 5 hours sleep and I’m constantly shattered and a headache that never ever goes away. I also usually put aside a Saturday morning until lunchtime and a couple of hours on a Sunday evening to keep on top of things. The thing is that even with working all these hours, there is so much of the job that I still can’t fit in. Things are going wrong because I’m not on top of everything in my remit, I have to say no to further projects or initiatives and have got a reputation for being difficult. I know I am prioritising the vital stuff and often get praised for the work I have done but I’m also constantly having to justify why I’ve not been involved in other things. It’s like they want me to splice myself 4 ways so I can be on top of everything at once. There is no option to slow down or work fewer hours as I’d get even less done and could put my job at risk. I am also constantly told that the person in the post before me did a much better job – conveniently forgetting that legislation around this role has completely changed, Brexit is having a huge effect and, most importantly, that person resigned due to stress and long hours. I stupidly took the job on knowing this and thinking I could change things.
I check in to work constantly when on holidays so rarely get a proper break. I recently took two days off to have a long weekend – we went to a fairly remote place with no wifi and dodgy phone signal. I kept telling myself that it is fine to disconnect for a couple of days but on the last day, I started physically throwing up with the anxiety of having to go back and face whatever was waiting for me.
A big part of the problem is that I manage a team which is not large enough for the volume, scale and complexity of work. I have repeatedly asked and provided business plans for more resource but it’s just not possible. On paper, the team looks large – 13 people, but compared to people doing similar work in other organisations, it is small, plus we are dealing with a whole lot of extra stuff that our director has deemed to fall into our remit. The flip-side of this is that as well as a huge amount of work to do in my main remit, I also have to line manage all 13 people and there are constant HR issues to deal with and regular catch-ups to see how everyone is getting on, which can swallow up half my working week but with no actual time carved out in the contract for this. I’d love to implement a structure whereby I have some deputies/assistant managers and share out the line management of staff but the workload is so high, I can’t possibly delegate this side of things to anyone without taking something else away and there is nowhere for it to go, nor is there budget to promote anyone, so ultimately the burden falls on me. Meanwhile the management above me are gleefully coming up with the next big thing and giving me more projects to take on.
Most evenings I am in tears after the stress of a long day and the thought of what will come tomorrow. Every morning I stand on the street corner opposite my office, waiting to cross the road, and fantasise about walking in front of a car or bus rather than walk through those doors. I’d never actually do it but the fact that I’m capable of these thoughts really scares me.
DH is very understanding but this job has also destroyed my relationships with other family members. I hardly see friends and family because I’m either working or tired from so much work and they all think I am making excuses. My parents get angry because I am never in when they call, my sister tells me she doesn’t want to hear about my work and she doesn’t believe that a job like mine could possibly be busy because the sector in which I work has a bit of a reputation for having nice, comfortable jobs. My own role, however, is rather niche and there are not many opportunities to move around in this field. I’ve been with this company for 3 years and in that time have applied for 2 other posts – one was unsuccessful, mainly because I was going through such a hard time that I gave a terrible interview just trying to stop myself crying when talking about my experience with the current company, and the second looked promising, I had pulled myself together, but the post was withdrawn due to lack of funding and reprioritisation. Believe me, I am trying to get out but I have worked and studied hard to get where I am so don’t want to change career path or take a post which could end up being detrimental to my future career. We need the money so I can’t just quit but in the meantime, this situation is utterly unsustainable. I went to the GP six months ago to talk about the effect this is having on my health – I don’t know what I expected, I can’t be signed off as that won’t solve the problem, there will just be more for me to deal with when I get back and my boss takes a very dim view of people who “claim to be stressed and can’t cope with work” – anyway, I was just brushed off with the GP saying she also didn’t believe my job could be that stressful and I must be exaggerating. She did say that my blood pressure was very high but refused to accept that it could be due to stress, just saying I need to lose weight (my bmi is in the overweight field and I am trying to control it but it is hard with this job as I’m usually eating on the go and have no time for exercise. I used to run and go to the gym regularly but have put 1.5 stone since starting this job) .
I don’t know what advice I am hoping for. I just need to vent and hopefully find a sympathetic ear before I go completely crazy.