I was recently reprimanded for not doing enough on a work project and I can’t find the capacity to care. Anybody else? Not sure if this subreddit is the right place to post this.
Some background:
I graduated college during the pandemic and moved out of state to work for a startup in a pretty niche industry. Once I got there, the job was nothing like what I imagined with completely different responsibilities. The culture was awful, with a lot of drinking, long hours, poor leadership, just a classic toxic work environment. I found myself learning a lot here, but I was losing hours of sleep every night and was so anxious that I eventually started anxiety meds.
I quit that job and moved back home to work for a nonprofit whose mission, theoretically, I believed. I thought the mission driven work would be a way for me to take the skills I learned and better the world around me.
Of course, the new org didn’t really know what they wanted from my role. They haven’t given me super clear direction on my role and they keep asking my to define my own work plan, without actually setting any tasks for me. There are some disparate projects but no leadership.
I got reprimanded for not doing enough work on a project, which was fair, but I didn’t care at all. I can’t bring myself to take any initiative to find things to make work tolerable or even imagine a job in which I would care about what I do.
I suppose I’m just looking for other people who relate. Maybe it’s depression/mental illness or just the state of our work environment, but I have no motivation to care about work.
Some other context:
I still have a lot of hobbies I care about. I’ve picked up woodworking, I got into the gym again, and my anxiety is much lower. Am I just taking advantage of a workplace?