Sorry this is long…
I have been at this large company for two years. We have a very small internal daily news team for which I am the only creative-focused role (handling photography, design, dataviz etc).
Every single time I take time off (which truthfully isn’t frequent, and our company has “unlimited PTO”), I actually make sure to work ahead and cover as many stories that are already in drafts or posted for future publication on our calendar for the dates I am requesting.
So yeah, I spend extra hours doing this, but I do so because I try to be considerate and helpful and not just leave a load of extra work for the managing editor to have to cover.
I recently had a very positive peer performance review, but no promotion, even though I enthusiastically take on more work (and roles) than what is in my job description and title and it is clearly known. (recently, a senior colleague butted in to remind my boss to include me in the list of people he was thanking for some delivered project…)
I feel incredibly unappreciated by my boss and manager who never express positive things and are always complaining about something or other in general. For example: Recently I got a last min request at 8pm, and I delivered it by 8:15. The next evening I got another off hours request but didn’t see it (I was packing for a move) until the next morning. My boss made sure to scold me for the ONE I missed, but made no mention of thanks for the one I delivered asap on…outside of work hours.
I care about the quality of work I contribute and I care about communication. But my managers leave me on read more often than not. I don’t pester them, but the few times I reach out, it seems they can’t even spare a few minutes to just acknowledge my message.
I never say “no” to my colleagues, truthfully. I’ve become very burnt out and discouraged to the point of mental and physical deterioration due to the reasons mentioned here as well as some others. I have severe depression and feel very isolated.
I cried on a zoom call with both of them last Thursday even though I tried hard not to. Neither of them checked on me after that.
Later that same day, I decided I couldn’t handle this and put in a PTO request for the next week off and noted it was for mental health reasons.
The next day, my boss called a meeting with me and said “it’s unacceptable to request A WHOLE WEEK off with such short notice.” (Monday was Labor Day so it was only 4 days…didn’t think it would be a huge deal…) He knew already what I was going through (the crying on the call I mentioned earlier) and I was honest with him about why I needed this, and yet he was still angry with me.
Also, I guess a colleague had told on me to him because for the first time, I said “no” to a time-consuming request sent to me that day (Friday) because he questioned me as to why I couldn’t do it.
I said since I’m covering all of the following week’s stories for when I’m on PTO, I don’t have the bandwidth. But he wouldn’t drop it so I gave in and said I’ll re-prioritize and work on all the stories through the weekend.
Sunday, after finishing, I sent a slack to my boss and the manager stating I completed all that was there and would make sure to check once more in the evening in case any editors added more stories to the calendar.
I never got a response from either of them since. Not a word.
It’s a really really shitty feeling for me.
He also made me feel so guilty I almost canceled my PTO request…
my stomach has been in knots with anxiety and stress and anger because this all feels really unhealthy . I don’t know how else to describe this feeling. I work really hard…and it seems I won’t achieve any growth, and it feels all so stupid.