I joined a very small firm (sub 20 staff) a few years back to manage a particular aspect of its operations (let's say, Finance just to be generic). That was my skillset, I have years of experience - I was previously a consultant advising other firms, and I'm good at it.
Upon arrival I found myself unexpectedly being bumped up from mid-senior level to c-suite. I thought that's OK, it will get me that board level experience on my CV even if I have to learn as I go. Can't lie, I enjoyed the kudos - I didn't expect the equivalent pay grade because I had no c-suite experience at the time.
Trouble is, I'm not simply working in my area of expertise - over time I've effectively become MD, HR, recruitment, operations and compliance on top of finance. The business owner simply delegates everything to me, mainly because he doesn't trust many people and he's decided I'm a reliable and trustworthy pair of hands.
I'm grateful to be recognised, so to speak, but it isn't what I came here for and it's not what I'm getting paid for. I don't have the skills or experience for all of this but everyone is now relying on me and I have to muddle through as best I can.
The work is piling up, much of it with short deadlines which will have a detrimental impact if not met, but I'm just firefighting every single little thing every day whilst staring blankly at all the priority work and hundreds of external industry updates about what changes and processes need to be implemented to adhere to regs. I have nobody to delegate to. I don't want to fail but I'm mentally exhausted and suddenly my thoughts feel incoherent.