I need to get several things off my chest in the only place in the world that may have some idea of where I am coming from. Advice is not necessary as I know what I have to do (reduce, refocus, and relax), but engagement is forever welcome.
I am currently suffering from burnout. Energy but at the same time no energy; seemingly no time to actually recover and enjoy my non-work-related hobbies and activities; sense of failure and foreboding that this will be my life forever. My diet has changed from consistent and improving to nibbling for days only to have two full meals in one sitting. Detachment is running rampant, I can't connect to even my once close friends and family so I turn down all their opportunities to hang out out of fear I will be seen as a failure or a charity case. I see negativity everywhere and in everyone's dialogue. I am emotionally numb and while motivated (habitually so), I don't see many or any reason to keep going. On top of this, I am sick alot easier – currently battling a throat and lung infection off the back of an allergic reaction.
To describe my current work would be my 'used-to-be-heaven'. It was a godsend from my previous employment – of which was grueling, under-appreciative, and underpaid after months of severe cuts to personnel. Putting in overtime that amounted to normal, hourly pay anyway in order to show how good I can be to be kept on. I was a temp at that job. I already knew I was disposable yet was constantly reminded if myself (and other temps) made mistakes. The boss there was a genuine witch. She wished ill on people openly and played the sweet mature lady when she was with people she liked and/or people that treated her like royalty. After one of the other temps (of whom I considered to be the best colleague I could have ever hoped for) got his pay docked because they 'heard' a 'rumour' that he was going to leave, I decided it was time for me to leave too. If they were going to treat their best worker that way, what hope did I have?
The leaving was messy. False accusations of me slacking off when there was literal security camera footage of me doing a job meant for three people, entirely alone, and within the shift's time frame. I was put in charge of many duties that required this license and that qualification – forklifting expensive international freight was one of them. And I had to train the flurry of temps that came in to replace the ones that couldn't handle it. One girl I got along fine with turned suicidal. Another one, a mature woman with grandchildren, was evicted from her (shared) apartment because of underpay and being refused overtime because of her age and (over)weight. And, as said before, docking wages and legally and morally entitled earnings. I myself went under a paycut below the minimum (hourly) wage by $2.50. I was still thankful as at the time, I was living with my mother (no rent only groceries) but did have massive ambitions to move out into a place totally on my own, so I had next to nothing in savings for bond, etc.. Anyway, false accusations, on top of lack of references (because I was a temp and contractually they were only obligated to permanent staff), it forced me to turn to my temp agency – of whom could only be generic in their references since they were never on-site at the place I was actually working at. So it was more or less 'good, committed, and well-respected among his colleagues' type of stuff. Real copy and paste work.
I still got the job – solely off the back that I was looking for an escape. I even said in my online interview that I was willing to wash the toilets; I was that desperate.
I am now at my current job and have been since February of this year. It was a genuine sight of the shoreline. I was promised a promotion if I succeeded and everyone, especially my boss, was eager to see me in the position. I overheard my supposedly future-subordinates say that I was better than my predecessor, I was easy to talk to if not approachable at first, I was stern and held my ground when I could and relented when I had to. I considered myself a good worker and with the release from my last job, there was so much weight off my shoulders. I could focus on my craft and learning how a (three year old) new and (by comparison) small business operated. I gave overtime – including saturdays, public holidays, I worked past breaks, and did jobs that weren't in my job description, such as office work, coffee runs, minute-taking, and interviewing other potential employees – of whom are close (and merciful, patient, conscientious) friends outside of work.
I lost the promotion.
Apparently, I didn't do enough and I scared my boss that I was going to fail. I had clear goals for my department and had a role for everyone based on strengths. I had a quota and could introduce new K.P.I.s that even newcomers could easily fulfill. The new guy came in two months ago and wrecked everything I had done. He is incredibly experienced and well-meaning. His heart is in the right place at all times, just his approach was and always has been offset. He had expectations of everyone that pushed them into burnouts of their own. People stopping coming in to work with him. People had to be reshuffled and essentially forced to work under him. People just became all round disinterested in being apart of this team we tried to scrape together from the discord I had tried to settle. Instead of the three departments I proposed (in a lengthy email), it was scrapped for the original two because manpower/attendance struggled. Now the guy does 90% of the work alone. To his massive credit, he does it and thinks nothing of it. But I'm sure he's smart enough to know that it would be a hell of a lot easier and quicker if he had established more positive relations with the rest of us.
Back to me, selfishly. Because I had done so much admin-related work, I impressed the higher-ups – the owner of the company included – and my boss and his own boss tried to come up with THREE different jobs that my talents for writing, administration, compliance, and HR, could be best suited to. None of them came to pass. It was either too under my supposed 'skill level' or someone else was about to be hired. Fair enough, either way, but they kept telling me their goals and what they needed from me only to tell me 'it just won't work' AFTER I produced the goods. Several times, I've approached my boss to explain what I would need but he puts me off saying our workload is far too heavy and to wait a few months. less than two weeks later, every single time, he would pull me aside and ask why what I had proposed was not completed yet, and he had to give the job to someone else. He said and I quote 'your desired position is slipping between your fingers, don't let it.' Never have I once intended for it to. I just did what I was told.
Bringing us to the present. I am in a different department serving under the supervisor I was initially stationed under while I learned and developed my promised role. I do simple and predictable tasks to give time for me to work on a set of compliance and HR projects (such as a complaints and internal-investigation/conflict-resolution systems and checks). But the workload on the floor (usual workspace) thus far has been so immense, that all of last month (september) I never had a single break, even union mandated breaks. Nine to ten hours straight of constant lifting, recording, moving stock, counting stock, and shipping stock from a desk (pick up requests), only drinking water and having two minute sit-downs. Worst part is, I was again proposed a new position. Compliance and Quality Assurance (internal and external standards and safety). I have to initiate projects to more or less flesh out the position's details so I can be made official. But as just mentioned: I have no time. We are about to hit our biggest, company-wide workload, of the year (Christmas, obviously) and orders are already flooding in (current state, obviously). Several projects (severe in terms of external, even governmental, auditing) are not completed and won't be until the new year the way things are going. I can feel it. This gut feeling I've had the other twenty-something times where what I have and what I've worked hard for will be ripped from me…
…again…
My thoughts and feelings (pure, unsubstantiated claims, only off the back of how I've seen things transpire):
I think I am a good worker. I really do. I care so much about what I do because it has an effect on other people's day/order/mood. But others have just stopped caring, which is gone unchecked. But when I stop caring, i'm pulled aside and told to buck up. I have a way of focusing obsessively on something until it is done. By no means perfectionist, I know when things are not beautiful or presentable, but they are always done. Give me a timeframe/deadline and criteria/higher-standard to measure, and you can consider it done. I can time manage to balance my work life and my personal life to make sure I show up on time, ready, and impartial (feelings of late notwithstanding). How I see things is this:
- I will never get the job I want.
- I have been pushed into a position where I am needed but never wanted
- I am literally cornered (physically; in the workplace), and have had some of the hardest orders and duties dumped onto me.
- They have brought in people younger, hungrier, and more gullible (potentially to replace me if I act up), also, the boss had me interview the older and more relaxed office people and not them.
- Even though I am in a new department, I am still laden with duties of the one I was about to lead because I am the only one able to do it with speed and accuracy – such as filing paperwork or counting stock into the systems.
- I am left for days without supervision or check-ins but asked for a purely statistical report on my order completions in email form only.
- I am still put off for bigger projects while upstairs (offices with the major marketing, sales, and my desired position) are being filled in monthly – my position's desk is (cruelly) located last in the arrangement.
- My initial replacement has a shot at the overall manager. He came with the promise of supervisor pay regardless if he got the position or not (about $8 more than everyone else). He also worked with my boss in the past.
- Our team is falling apart – sicknesses that seem too close together and all of a sudden. Overlapping bereavement leaves and returning from break hours apart.
I feel like I am being rubbed into the dirt. I am given responsibilities but no reflecting authority nor pay. I am listened to but only in so far if what I am saying is relevant, timely, within resource limitations, and workload. I am told constantly I am good at things, I'm a good worker, the top three authority in my wider department say 'give that to Lament, let Lament do that, that's more Lament's skills' without any help, time, or resources.
I really do like my boss. He means well and is very inspiring, he's committed and has multiple times sacrificed his weekends and family time to help with the orders and stock shifting. But what he wants (I think) is an equal. Someone that can do exactly what he can do if not better. If I can't, that's totally fine with me, I know when to admit that I am useless. I'm just hating how I am told I am useful then left with nothing to work with or show for. I am thinking about emailing his boss to explain but I am afraid (potential trauma from the expendability from my previous job) that I will be let go since my boss and his boss are very close – so my boss will no doubt be told immediately in the form of a 'workplace concern'.
The question I pose to those that have read this far:
Do you ever get the feeling that you are pulled two ways: needed and unwanted?
If I say any more it'll just be repetition. Thank you so much for reading. I hope you can feel some relatability and no longer feel loneliness and burnout. All the best to us in the coming Christmas period. Stay true, don't let them break you.