I work in a team which delivers specialist training. We used to just do London but have since expanded and now travel all over the UK. There are standard materials that we use but the preparation includes a lot of research and creating parts bespoke to the company we visit, so there's a fair amount of work that goes into it on top of the 3-4 hours of the training itself.
We do this 1-4 times per month and as you can imagine it's pretty tiring and stressful. To save costs we often leave London early and avoid overnights at almost all costs.
My issue is that we are not given any time back or given flexible working hours to recover. No working from home the day after training, for example, no time off in leiu.
I raised this with my line manager and she snapped at me that we were all tired, not just me, and that I wasn't going to get special treatment. My contact is apparently very clear that from time to time I will be expected to undertake as hoc tasks which means I have to work beyond my contracted hours.
I'm clearly not asking for special treatment, I'm just fed up of feeling run down and exhausted all the time and I know my colleagues feel the same although they have not raised the matter with our manager directly. One is actively looking for another job. We are all mid-late 20s and our manager is about 35 so we think she just doesn't trust us, although she has never raised performance concerns with me or any of my colleagues (according to them).
We also usually have to wait ages for holidays to be approved, she gets annoyed if we book time off over scheduled training days but as the calendar is packed full of training or prep work it's basically impossible to pick a "good" time off. One guy dropped out of a group holiday because by the time she approved his days off the flight prices had tripled and he didn't feel it was worth it.
Is there anything I can do or shall I just admit defeat and look for a different job myself?