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Antiwork

9-5 Is Making Me Even More Depressed

I work as a Personal Banker for a large sized regional bank in the US. I have worked for this bank for about a year and a half now, before that I worked as a restaurant manager. I worked 50-70 hours a week as a restaurant manager with 2 vacation weeks and 3 personal days, no sick time, so making the change to 9-5 Monday-Friday, paid holidays, 15+ PTO Days (including vacation and sick), was definitely better but the struggle that I've been fighting to get the urge to want to go to work every day is so real. I drive a 30-40 minute commute to get there, even though there are branches closer, that is where they placed me. I have to sit in traffic for at least 20 of that both ways. ​ In high school and now, I was very into music and for my age was…


I work as a Personal Banker for a large sized regional bank in the US. I have worked for this bank for about a year and a half now, before that I worked as a restaurant manager. I worked 50-70 hours a week as a restaurant manager with 2 vacation weeks and 3 personal days, no sick time, so making the change to 9-5 Monday-Friday, paid holidays, 15+ PTO Days (including vacation and sick), was definitely better but the struggle that I've been fighting to get the urge to want to go to work every day is so real. I drive a 30-40 minute commute to get there, even though there are branches closer, that is where they placed me. I have to sit in traffic for at least 20 of that both ways.

In high school and now, I was very into music and for my age was quite gifted with solo and ensemble performing, sight reading, etc. I take private voice lessons with a great teacher who is now a close friend of mine, he and his husband run a professional ensemble mostly filled with music professors of nearby colleges, and just music professionals in general. They allow me to sing in this group and get paid for it, also a local church that also pays a small paycheck. It's not very much, I'd say $3000 in total a year from the church and the group, the group only performs probably 3 times a year. I do enjoy this really well, but I've kind of been told that the only way to get into something music related is with a degree, which makes sense but do not want to put the strain on my girlfriend and I financially while I pursue college, which I really have never been interested in doing.

My boss at work is very bipolar when it comes to support and help with the position, I am still newish into banking and I definitely do not know everything. I've told him that once I get told/shown once, I never need it again which is true, but there are a lot of situations to where he gets mad when I ask for help with something, and will tell me I need to just figure it out (with a customer sitting in front of me). This raises my anxiety a ton, when I have to try to figure something out with the person sitting there. I have brought these matters to his attention before, and he claims that he understands how I feel and that he will work on it but will then continue to do it. He'll claim he's busy and throw appointments that he accepted for himself onto us, and sit in his office on his phone the entire day. Expect us (bankers) to help cover the teller line at our branch instead of him, and then get mad at us when our banking numbers are not up to standard. I had to be out for 3 days with the flu and not to me, but to others in the branch said that he figured I was faking.

All of this combined, plus my mental health, makes me really depressed. Over the past 2 weeks, I've called in sick 5 days because I wake up feeling depressed. This has hurt my numbers drastically, has drained by PTO time that I really cannot use because I have scheduled time off planned. I would love the chance to just work from home, even if that is still 9-5 and 40 hours, I'd feel way more comfortable but I cannot find anything that is work from home that pays similarly that I can get without a degree or something very advanced with specific experience.

I don't mean to seem like I'm whining in this post, and I know that a lot of people's situations are worse than mine, but this is making my anxiety spike and make it feel like I am miserable. Any help or advice or even just nice words are appreciated, thank you in advance. Happy to answer questions or clarify in the comments.

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