I apologize for this rant, but really looking for advice out of this situation. I'm not insane am I?
I (29F) don’t even know where to start but wanted to get some help on how to proceed at my work, especially with my higher up (Director A) who has caused high turnover lately, I feel like I'm his next target for firing. He's been mentioning alot about how I'm not able to meet my deadlines as accurately as I used to, which I acknowledge.
I do have depression and anxiety, but I go to therapy once a week and also try my best to get my work done despite this. Sometimes things fall through the cracks because I would get extremely busy, but no one else would manage the project with me or check in until it was way too late since majority of the time, we are overwhelmed—I end up project managing alot of my own work. I talk to clients directly, I pull in people for approval, I ask clients for assets and timing, I check in on my own schedule, there isn't a real project management system. I don't have alot of guidance at work, my direct boss had to take medical leave because of her own stress.
My company has a small design team of 4 people but we’re asked to create agency scale projects within a day. Everyone else we work with is 1 person with 1 specialty (example: 1 web developer, 1 copywriter etc) so our team is less than 15 people at most.
Director A gets frustrated with us when the vendors we work with flat out say “no it’s not humanly possible to produce a 300 foot image and install it in 2 hours.” Needless to say that he is the same with our team as well. I try to finish my work on time (within reason, alot of the time if my project is late, it is because whoever Im trying to contact does not respond to me, or the scope is just way too unrealistic.)
I'm a designer but also a video editor/animator (lol not by choice), so it takes me a while to edit videos because that is not my main job title or in my main work wheelhouse. Since we have become so understaffed, this has become my life. There was one weekend I had received 100 videos on Thursday afternoon at 6pm that I needed to edit and stitch together before Monday morning. I pretty much was expected to edit several videos for social media and cut all these clips or I'd lose my job. Director A seemed anxious if I was able to complete this weekend, because either way, I'd have to do it regardless and thats what he wanted, and he wanted it perfect. ugh.
I ended up working from 8am to 2am that whole weekend for 3 days, while sick (and unpaid!! even though I'm salaried its still annoying), and still got in trouble for poor timing because Director A would reply to me in a timely manner over the weekend for revisions. I know its a bit wild looking back, but I did not have a back up plan at the time and I didn't know what else to do since I work paycheck to paycheck.
The last time I worked with him, I had a meeting where I asked him to pick out the photography, colors, text that he wanted for a social media post going out. I did this as a precaution because I knew he changed his mind 30 times up until the graphic was posted. It often ends up being late because of this. The next day he yells at me for the images that he chose, colors he chose, etc. Its like he just forgot what he said and I just had to deal with his insults like “do you even know the brand language? It doesn't seem like you even read the guidelines. Does that look like a circle to you?” in a really snide voice. The whole time I told him that he picked those out but he chose to ignore that.
Lately I feel like I'm missing my deadlines because I don't get notified by Director A that things are due until the day off, there is no job board or brief, it's something that was word of mouth 3 weeks ago I was supposed to receive info from X person allegedly. I end up scrambling or working late because of this. Some days I'm just apologizing because theres so much miscommunication or information I was not given, or just in general, I was overwhelmed and anxious.
Needless to say, I tend to get alot of flack lately for those types of projects that fall through the cracks. At the same time, I feel I am not doing as much as I could because I see my other 3 teammates with even more work than me on their plate. I'm really exhausted end of most days and have lost motivation. I know Im good at my job but logging into work has been really bogging down my mood more than usual because of all this.
My friends tell me to work my wage, but it's a little hard when I try to 'work my salary', but also feel like I'm not doing as much as I could for my team and I think Director A is starting to notice my decline the last few weeks. But not in a good way.
I took off 2 weeks in May (which I had planned a couple months ago) which he was unhappy with because it was suddenly busy season (I did not know that it would be busy when I scheduled in December) and Director A has started monitoring when and why when I asked to take time off now. I was denied a Friday off today because 'we are so understaffed and I should be mindful of my team.' so now I really feel like I'm on the chopping block. I understand about my team and the work, but I'd like to also say that up until May, I had not taken time off since August/October last year.
Today he had a call with everyone to remind them “this is not a slow time, there's plenty of work to do, plenty you could be doing ahead of time. if you're not busy there is something wrong.” and also added that he'd be harder on people for not being as productive or timely.
Like I said before my direct boss left for a 2 month mental health break, and my other coworker also said she's not coming back after she has her baby. Another coworker I talked to do today said that he's updating his resume, and another coworker I had to help because she had a breakdown about Director A the other day. Director A has fired 3 people already out of the blue so I'm a bit worried about all my small mistakes piling up. At this point all I can do is own up to things if he brings them up.
I guess it doesn't help that I'm really introverted, so I tend to be on the quieter side so I don't say as much as I could during meetings. I wonder if standing up for myself more instead of keeping my head down and just silently clocking in and out would be better in the long run like bringing up how Director A does not respond to my emails until the end of the day either, or that he constantly changes his mind. All these also hurt my deadlines but he suddenly has memory loss when I bring it up.
I'm lowkey just terrified to do anything at this point. I know I'm not perfect either, but this just overall seems like a job that is so disorganized and unhealthy.
Anyways, apologies for the huge dump, but wondering what I should do? The job market is so rough right now, so wondering how to deal with this boss in the meantime? Im even contemplating going into a new industry entirely.