My wife’s feeling very low at work.

[WillfredJohn]

My wife works at a big company and it’s been extremely full on for the last 6 months, as the business has expanded quite a bit.

This requires her to work very long hours and always be available - which annoys me a fair bit because it slowly creeps into all aspects of our lives together. This week things have escalated a bit and follows a pattern of a particularly tough few months.

In another division they hired some external consultant to do some aspects of her job. It appeared that no one had thought to loop her in and I think this more remote team forgot she even existed.

Then about 2 months ago a good colleague of hers left and instead of quickly filling that role, they asked her to take up the slack, adding to her already busy schedule. She’s now doing this role in addition to hers - which I think is really unfair.

Then this week she had shared a document with her boss. The document was a working draft, but they became fixated on a single mistake. The boss sent a curt and belittling email back to her, copying in others. “Challenging her to find her mistake and stop wasting his time”.

its really difficult to see her put in so much time and effort then look so broken and dejected. I read the email myself and it was very rude and passive aggressive.

How can I best support her and beyond listening, is there any sage advice people who’ve been in a similar situation can share.

Wilf

Encourage her to look for a new job .

Not to the same extent as your DW but my work has also gone to crap. I’m job hunting. What else can you do when it’s that toxic?

Letting her talk is excellent @WillfredJohn and you could try having a set time limit so that work doesn’t dominate everything and to help her focus or talk about other things. Is there a new interest you could share like learning to do yoga or Pilates at home just for 20-30 minutes a night? Or tell her you’re interested in learning massage can she be your Guinea pig? If her life was a pie chart, her work sounds like it would take up a bigger chunk than is healthy… so could you both look at ways to reduce that by adding in nice things? In terms of work, maybe she needs to record her concerns in writing and ask for HRs advice?

I've been in similar positions. I'm guessing that the problem is less about the work and more about the environment? Being unappreciated regardless of how much she puts in, being belittled in front of others, game playing. Yeah, been there.

Honestly she needs to get whatever she can out of the job then leave. I negotiated a job title change before I left which meant I could put a better job experience on my CV. But I was gritting my teeth to get through each day by the end, fantasising about crashing my car during Monday morning commute etc.

It really isn't worth the risk to her mental health to stay. Every job I have had since then has been better paid and better generally. Make a plan to get out, there is no fixing a place like that.

Speaking from experience here, she probably needs to look for another job. This is really time consuming and can take months. Picking up the mental and physical load at home so she has time to job hunt is probably the best thing you can do for her right now. She will feel like all the energy has been sucked out of her so anything you can do to help her restore some of that will help.

And flowers. It is a simple thing but just showing you care regularly is really important right now. Settle in for the long haul. This could take a while.

Your wife needs to get a new job. This company is taking advantage of her and she’ll go nowhere.

Research shows that people who are unhappy in a job tend to stay longer in their role than their peers. This is because their company and manager sap so much of their energy and self worth that it takes them a long time to get on with their job search.

If your wife is in agreement, the best thing you can do for her this morning is to get her home laptop out, find her CV, open it up, sit her up in front of it, work on it, proof read it and send it. Same for her LinkedIn CV.

There is a function you can activate on LinkedIn to let recruitment agents know you’re looking for a new role. She could activate it.

There are also jobs on LinkedIn where you can do an “Easy Apply” (ie: apply in a click) If she does a few today, she’ll feel so much better for it.

She can then contact recruitment agents on Monday.

Whatever you do, I’d be very cautious about involving HR. These people tend to make everything much, much worse.

Good luck.

Hi Wilf

Are finances such that she can resign and do temp jobs for a bit? I've been in a job where nothing I did was right all of a sudden, it's demoralising and it sounds like your wife is in the same sort of situation.

There’s loads of great suggestions, thank you all. She’s gone today to spend some time with friends having a hobby day out. I think some productive time spent putting together a bit of a plan will help. It’s a shame about the timings being so close to Christmas but as I said to her - it’s means time off and hopefully gives her some separation.

I'd actually say it's NOT a shame it's so close to Christmas - many companies leave their vacancies to January. If your wife gets her act together with up to date CV, can fit in a couple of sessions with a career/interview coach etc etc, she will be at the top of her game when these jobs appear - leaving every else who is in 'getting ready for Christmas mode/post Christmas mode' standing when the perfect post appears.

Second what Ariela said - nothing much happens recruitment wise in December due to Christmas and people being off. If she can take some time off to relax, recover and regroup she can hit the recruitment agencies in January.

Leave and yes get cv ready. Lots of them need to be AI ready now. a spa with friends. A spa with you. Massages. Facials. Acupuncture. Country walks. Dog cuddles.