Work making me ill

[Biscuitlover456]

Hi all - looking for some help/experiences.

My workload at the moment is completely unsustainable and I am now starting to feel myself burning out. I can’t sleep properly, have digestion issues, migraines, skin problems, crying lots more than usual and having some dark thoughts.

Line manager and HR know my workload is unsustainable, I have raised this consistently since autumn last year - due to a department restructure for someone else’s mat leave there will be a new person joining (an FT role whose only job is covering half my workload, which indicates how crazy my job is at the moment) but then the person going on mat leave will obviously bring me back to square one with not enough support and too much work to cover. I have discussed adjustments with manager/HR on several occasions but aside from others picking up one or two small areas of work I still have no real change in the overall picture and finish most weeks feeling destroyed.

I am usually a really organised and motivated person but things are grinding to a halt right now, I can’t do basic things and keep leaving stuff which I know needs looking at but just can’t get into the headspace to do anything. The quality of my work is suffering and I hate not only feeling awful but also feeling like I am performing badly. I have lost a lot of confidence.

Looking for advice/help please from others who have been in this situation before - is leaving my only option? Should I go off sick? Try talking to manager again? Any words of wisdom gratefully received

I joined the workforce in the early 1990s and while I've had plenty of busy jobs, employer expectations have definitely worsened and become beyond unrealistic in the last ten years or so. When I was first in the workplace companies would get a temp in to cover holiday and sickness and mat leave. Not any more, or very rarely now, the rest of the team just has to suck it up as far as employers are concerned.

Burnout and work overload and expecting everyone to be able to do the job of three or four people just seems to be an expectation now. It's not sustainable, and so few employers care these days.

Your first responsibility is to yourself, and things don't have to be perfect, just good enough. And no matter how good you are, you're still only one person. The most brilliant person on the planet still only has 24 hours a day to use, even if some batty, ungrateful and downright abusive employers do think we should all be spending all 24 of those hours devotedly beavering away for them... we're not robots but too many employers seem to think we should be.

I'm presuming you've kept a written record, preferably emails you've sent, of every time you've raised this with your boss? If not, you really need to, so that you can point out, with proof, every occasion when you raised this as an issue and no mitigating action was taken, in fact your boss made it worse by piling more work on you (I'm hazarding a guess here that they've never done your job so have no clue whatsoever how long things take).

Also, what's your company bullying and harassment procedure? Are you at the stage where you're thinking it's a grievance? Do you have an occupational health team? Health and safety, duty of care - failing to safeguard these can prove very costly for organisations. Can you see your GP and ask to be signed off for stress? And are you in a union?

I've been where you are and it made me very ill, to the extent I had to drop out of the workforce for a couple of years. I'm much less invested in my career now, it's just a job. I'll never be that senior or well paid again but I actually don't want to be, it's not worth the hassle.

You only have one life to live, as this you, you deserve to be happy. I hope you find a solution that will work for you.

In your position I would find a new role and leave ASAP. If you go off sick for any meaningful period it doesn’t sound like anything will improve in your absence and when you return you will be looking for a new job and having to explain a long sick leave absence to a new employer. After your current project finishes, can you take some annual leave to rest and plan next steps?

In your shoes I’d work next week to get the project complete whilst at the same time emailing both your manager and HR to explain workload issues. Then take two or three weeks off with burnout and apply for jobs after initial period of doing nothing. Engage with HR on your return, ask them to coordinate your workload with manager.involve the managers manager to keep them in the loop

@Feuillemille23 Thanks for sharing, that is all really helpful and I’m sorry you’ve been here too before.

I do have some email evidence of raising my concerns but annoyingly in our catch ups my boss has not taken notes (until very recently which is probably to do with me escalating the workload issues as this was raised with HR!) so we don’t have a nice clear record of all the discussions over the last 6 months. I have learned a valuable lesson though, wherever I go next I will ask for notes at these types of meetings.

Grievance has crossed my mind - the person in the job before me left under a bit of a cloud and I’ve never got a full explanation of what happened so perhaps they ended up in a similar position? It seems they left by mutual agreement because they ‘weren’t very good’ (in bosses words) but they worked there for almost 2 years so well out of any probationary period so something seems a bit off there. My boss is OK but quite distant; my impression of her against some of my previous LMs is that she is quite inexperienced in managing people.

I did manage to see my GP this week and talked about the stress - I chickened out a bit with trying to get signed off though because of this looming deadline which I realise is absurd. I also do have an irrational fear of racking up absences; I worry it would affect my future prospects even though at the moment I have near perfect attendance (one sick day so far in 14 months) so could afford some slack here.

Your words about only having one life are very true. I do spend a lot of time at the moment daydreaming about quitting tomorrow and going back to a part time job and actually having time for myself and my interests. Who knows, maybe today is the day :-)

I’m in a similar position. NHS band 7. I started the role two years ago and the place is in a mess - the person who has my job previously still works there but had another role created for her as she couldn’t cope with my job (as I have found out). I have worked in the NHS since 1996 and in another band 7 role so know there is something seriously wrong.

My manager is hopeless. He is lazy too so delegates as much of his job as he can on to me. I am absolutely bogged down. Most of the issues are due to old fashioned ways of working and errors that come out of this. Staff morale is low and has been since I started. I have never felt like this before in all of my years of working in the NHS. I’m not sleeping etc.

I am stuck for now as I am also going through a divorce which is also having a massive strain on me, emotionally and financially. I have, however, started to look for other jobs. There are none, in my field, locally so I have made the decision that I have to relocate. My son goes to university in September. My siblings and parents are RIP. I have to do something.

And for the first time…I am thinking of leaving the NHS.

Thanks, I have got a week booked off in a few weeks’ time but I might try and bring that forward to after this project is done so I can rest properly.

What I’m finding is that the projects I’m leading suck up all my time but I have a bunch of other responsibilities as well so when the project is complete there is another mountain of work waiting that I‘ve had to park - it just feels utterly relentless.

I daren’t go on the sick either as it would affect me getting another job.

I am so sorry, that all sounds incredibly difficult - hope you can find something somewhere else and make a fresh start 💐

My concern about going off sick is that I would return to even more work because there is no capacity in the team to cover things like sickness. Even taking holiday is stressful because I have to work so hard in the lead up to get as much as possible done. I agree with PPs who have said things have changed in the workplace, employers just want more and more for less. It's all short term thinking, we have all the HR career pathway progression bullsh** but no thoughts about how some people are doing the job that 2 or 3 would have done 10 years ago.

This.

As for this My boss is inconsistent, she will sometimes offer to help with things and then immediately give me more work so I don’t think she gets how much there is (or does and doesn’t care!)

I'll give you a clue.......she doesn't care! it's called management, support staff, get more from staff, support staff, get more from staff.......

Sounds like my last architectural job. They kept taking on new clients even though we were juggling so much work. In the end there was so much work that it caused delays with clients and it was evident via Google reviews and Glassdoor (lots of people left!)

Then there were redundancies as they lost business. (Only women, of course!)

But I made myself very ill and left work shaking, lost 2 stone from anxiety and worry and couldn't sleep. My skin turned grey and sore & my hair fell out too.

In hindsight I should have just left like everyone else but i was too hung up about my reputation. x

Companies see overwork near burnout as “boosted productivity” and “high performance teams” - it’s all bullshit to work you til you drop to maximise their profitability. You comply because you’re told your next raise/promotion/offer of help is just around the corner. That’s the carrot that will always be dangled just out of your reach. It’s a system, it’s capitalism, it’s what our culture is built from. I find it sickening. Quit and find out how to make money doing something you love and that makes you happy!

This sums up the world of architecture.

I was in a similar position up until about a month ago (started in October) and my tipping point came when I burst into tears in front of one of team (thankfully a lady I'm close with) and her shock when I told her my hair had started falling out.

She then spent the next few weeks subtly checking in on me which really helped. I spoke to my DH who was struggling to cope with me being in such a state, I also spoke to my GP and took a day off sick to give myself a little reset. And you know what, the world didn't fall apart with me not being there. I realised no-one is going to die because I couldn't get everything done. I made it very clear to my boss what I couldn't get done and left it to him to either let it be missed or reallocate it to someone else. I think the fear that I'd go off sick with stress put him into action. We also had a very positive meeting where I highlighted all the good stuff I was doing and reorganised a few things, because at this point I had escalated my concerns over his head via a letter which I sent on an email.

Aside from that, I started to make time for me. I took the weekends gently, started to fit in some exercise, thought about how short life is and how insignificant my job will feel when I'm lying on my death bed (morbid I know but it put things into perspective) and now I'm on my way back up. I still have days where I revert back to feeling anxious and stressed but somehow I control it a bit better and it passes quickly. I hope things start to improve for you soon but I only made a difference when I got a bit angry and decided not to accept the shitty situation anymore.

Oh that is terrible, did you escape in the end? The taking on too many clients thing rings true for me too, we don’t have ‘clients’ as such but projects and groups. The org has just gone through a couple of years of aggressive expansion and change and now is completely overstretched - HR admitted that we are behind where we need to be with staffing. I was hoping to get an assistant as a couple of our team leads already have support as does my LM but this request was rejected so it’s not for lack of trying, they just feel the money is better spent elsewhere I suppose

Yes, I think you might be right… she isn’t unpleasant or rude or anything like that. She is just quite disinterested in the team I think, and not someone who does people management well. It feels like she doesn’t see her priority as being a team lead and supporting us but rather the other aspects of her job. She doesn’t seem to want to invest much in the team, we don’t have team days at all and rarely see each other in person which I find quite isolating.

Thanks for your reply - this is giving me hope! Sounds like you devised a good strategy, going past your line manager and further up the chain is a good idea if things aren’t being addressed.

In my case I don’t know how it would land - the next person up from my LM is right at the top and I don’t think he would be that fussed really, he knows already that we have capacity issues but was quite happy for requests for extra staff to be rejected so I think he would probably ignore me - or listen politely and do nothing :-)

They made me redundant. All my hard work meant nothing in the end. X

She doesn’t seem to want to invest much in the team, we don’t have team days at all and rarely see each other in person which I find quite isolating.

I think this is a key part of why you are struggling. If she does not work with you day to day or take an interest in the team then she cannot actually see you are stressed and overloaded. It is her responsibility to look after her team and I assume she is being paid for that responsibility. If she is not doing it well then that needs to be addressed above her head.

I am so angry for you, that’s awful. Companies have no problem ditching staff as soon as they need to save money and at the same time expect staff to show loyalty when being overloaded and made unwell. It is so infuriating

I started work in the early 90s and this is my experience too.

Great advice.

I now think that if you are on a fairly average salary (although it doesn't sound like you are) then it's more beneficial to be paid on an hourly basis. I worked in a previous field on a freelance basis for a number of years. I got paid for exactly the hours I worked and only worked the hours that I wanted. On paper, I earn more now but work so many hours that pulls my hourly rate down. I actually dread to work out what it would be. I did that once many years ago when I was doing a ridiculous amount of hours for not a huge salary and discovered I was actually earning less than minimum wage.

If you can afford it then just get out and create some space and time to rest. If not, find yourself something sharpish. It doesn't have to be the perfect job but hopefully it will be better than what you are having to put up with now.

Biscuitlover, if this is admin (which I strongly suspect it is) then this situation will not improve because it's very likely you are working for managers who have never done the job themselves. It's one of the worst jobs for having work piled on with useful advice from above advising admin staff they just need to manage their time better.

I'm not sure where you are but there are a lot of office support jobs here at the moment and salaries have risen in the last year or so.

Thank you @Biscuitlover456

I just reiterates that no job is worth losing your mental health over. Your job will be readvertised tomorrow if you left but you'll need weeks / months / years of therapy to build yourself back up after burnout. X

i started work in the 80s and i think it's a whole different ball game now.

OP you had good advice on the first page. If your Manager/HR aren't prepared to sit with you and prioritise, you must do it for yourself.

list with 3 columns - those tasks that you must do, those tasks that someone must do, and the nice if someone does this. (your opinion, so pick tasks that you really can do)

Then tell them that you are dropping column 3 since they couldn't be arsed to prioitise with you. You will do the first column, you will fit in what you can from the 2nd but you will also leave the things you can't manage in your allotted time.

Then work your hours. I hope you are in a union. Join one now, if not

Yes, part of my role is admin - the project bit is different but I am essentially doing two jobs. I’ve had all sorts of different areas of responsibility before and I do like variation in work, it’s nice to move about between tasks and can feel refreshing when it’s done right.

This just feels chaotic and random, there is not much in the way of internal policy/processes for a lot of the work we do which I find challenging as I am an ‘information’-type person and like to see things laid out clearly.

And yes, the piling on is pretty endless - plus managers assuming all I do is sit in meetings and take notes :-) I moved into admin from another industry and it blows my mind how undervalued this work is, it has been a real eye opener

That is very true. Hope you are doing better now you’re out of there x