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Antiwork

Recovering From An Abusive Job

I did not find full-time work until age 28. From age 28-30 I was a civil servant doing some financial administration for grant-funded infrastructure projects. I thought this work was perfect for me: I had family who'd been in civil service and I'd done some grants administration before. I even knew that civil servants were overworked and underpaid but didn't care because I needed the above-average healthcare benefits. I had good coworkers, but they were not able or even allowed to step in when constituents/grantees got nasty. I had citizens, even elected officials, email me lewd criticisms. “Whose cock do I have to suck to get funding?” one mayor asked me. I never got through all my emails, I never fully mastered each little process, and I began avoiding my files, getting scolded twice for being on social media during work. Frustratingly, state senators and state representatives had to approve…


I did not find full-time work until age 28. From age 28-30 I was a civil servant doing some financial administration for grant-funded infrastructure projects. I thought this work was perfect for me: I had family who'd been in civil service and I'd done some grants administration before. I even knew that civil servants were overworked and underpaid but didn't care because I needed the above-average healthcare benefits.

I had good coworkers, but they were not able or even allowed to step in when constituents/grantees got nasty. I had citizens, even elected officials, email me lewd criticisms. “Whose cock do I have to suck to get funding?” one mayor asked me. I never got through all my emails, I never fully mastered each little process, and I began avoiding my files, getting scolded twice for being on social media during work.

Frustratingly, state senators and state representatives had to approve all of our work before we could release funding. This added weeks and months to our grantees' wait times, but we civil servants weren't allowed to tell grantees what the wait was for. We were just the shield between elected officials and their angry constituents.

While my coworkers were great, my superiors weren't. The work never stopped. At the worst I had 314 different grant projects, each one vying for my full-time attention. By the time I was getting ready to leave, the worker's union at my office was getting ready to bring some of the abuse we went through to light, but I was pretty much checked out.

After 2 years in civil service I did 4 years of the same work in higher education. Things weren't bad there, but I noticed I couldn't relax. I was always looking over my shoulder. I almost always took critiques to heart and convinced myself that this or that coworker loathed me. The workload was lighter, but I was still convinced that if I didn't pay attention to every detail of every case that I'd be fired.

I'm now 7 months into a new job where I'm trying to become OK with asking questions. I still get tripped up because I don't know how to act around some coworkers (If I try being friendly they'll inevitably be formal. If I try to be formal, they inevitably wonder why I'm not friendly.) but at least they seem forgiving.

Only now am I realizing that my 2 years as a state employee may have had an impact on me. I am 35 and I'm gonna have to either keep job hopping to bigger paydays or settle in and build a career, which is tough because I don't dare ask any current or former colleagues for references.

If anyone has any free or low-cost tips on how to keep recovering from an abusive job (which I guess can cause a mild and niche form of PTSD?) let me know. And thanks, r/antiwork, for letting me type this out and come to a realization.

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