Note: This is a very rough draft, so I hope you'll bear with me as you read through this; I will edit and revise this as people ask clarifying questions in the comments section.
EDIT: I added a paragraph about my experiences with my boss and may flesh it out some more when I have time. (Fourth paragraph from the bottom, if you consider each block of text, no matter how short, a paragraph).
Hi! I'm a 27M currently working in public health as a Research Assistant. For quite some time, I've been feeling worn out, stuck, and am not sure where to move forward in my career. I don't feel safe at work (i.e., I don't feel that I can speak my mind), and I don't know who I can trust or have anyone in the workplace that I trust with whom to confide in. I was not always in the mental headspace that I was in, and lately I've been reflecting and perplexed on how I got to where I am now. What went wrong? Was it my personality? Was it my inability to let things go? Were my feelings not valid given the situation that I was in, and did I inappropriately respond to said feelings? Was I just not thick-skinned enough (and if people have advice on how to be more thick-skinned in the comments section, please let me know). Was I just too immersed in my feelings and should have worked on separating my feelings from the rest of myself and just “done my job”?
When I first started my job, I was not in the mental state that I am currently in. I was bright eyed and bushy tailed, eager and hungry for work. When I was given my first project, I put together a more or less functioning survey tool in two days. The truth is, I was probably pulling two 12-hour days to get that done, working a second job at night, at the time, I was very focused and motivated. My predecessor at the time, who was working with me for a brief moment before she transitioned to graduate school, said that I did a good job, especially given the circumstances (working remotely during COVID-19). My manager had even come to me and communicated that my boss said that “I was the right person for the job”. Things were going pretty well at my job for the first five months or so. I was sitting comfortably in meetings and felt as if I was treated as an equal, or at the very least positively regarded by my colleagues. Then I made a mistake, a big one.
At the day of project launch, I asked my manager if she wanted to clear the “test data” in the survey tool before it was published. She said “Yes,” but that was assuming that all the data in the tool was test data. What I did not account for at the time, was that people were already taking the survey, so I could have inadvertently deleted real data. It was a miscommunication and had I thought things through a little more or sought clarification, I probably would not have moved ahead with the deletion of the data and just left it. When I let my manager know, she was not happy about that and was quite harsh about it. We tried different ways to fix it, but when we couldn't, we went to our boss. Our boss was especially not happy about it and said that she didn't know what to say except that she was “disappointed”. For the next two weeks or so, my boss gave me the cold shoulder. I felt ostracized by my team and no longer felt as though I were a member of my team of equal consideration. It felt incredibly lonely. I did apologize to my boss, and she did accept my apology and said we could move on, but it never really felt as though people moved on during that project period (or perhaps I did not move on; input regarding this would be much appreciated). I think my manager was still frustrated with me at this time, and while in the data collection phase, she was making requests quite regularly in a given day. I was feeling overwhelmed and was working longer than 8 hour days and taking 10 minute lunch breaks. I did not feel comfortable telling her that I was feeling overwhelmed give the recent mistake, so I just kept chugging along. I'm not sure if my discomfort was valid, or if it was due to my anxiety. Maybe it was a little bit of both. As a result of me just feeling overwhelmed and just feeling the overall negative energy of my team towards me (whether imagined or real is hard to tell, possibly might have both), I was making careless mistakes here and there, which probably exacerbated my manager's frustration.
Fast forward several months, there came a time when a higher-level manager came to me and asked if I had given any thought to moving to the city/state where my job was located. I was working remotely at the time and living with my parents, given the pandemic. I thought it was a casual inquiry, but in fact, our employer was requesting that all out-of-state employees move onsite due to state tax issues. The manager said that she did want to be inflexible and asked what month would work for me to move onsite. We established that moving by August was reasonable and to aim for that.
I went to my manager about this and talked more about moving dates. After some discussion, she said that it would be ideal if I could move by May or June ( I can't remember how the discussion led to this, but I guess I was discussing a more firm deadline just so that I could plan accordingly; August was a loose deadline when I discussed with the higher level manager). I must be a terrible negotiator, as my timeline for moving was suddenly moved to June, which was just four months from our conversation. When I tried to discuss this more with my manager and expressed concerns about financial issues, she got frustrated, and said that there has been a lot of back and forth with my salary, with asking questions about tasks, and now with this moving issue and that it was not a productive use of time. She said that my financial concerns were a nonissue, as I knew what the salary was when I took the job, and flipped out. I just stopped talking about it after that. However, the financial issues were not the only issue on my plate. My dad had recently lost his job during COVID, and my mother was supporting the two of them between her salary (which is not much more than mine, think a little over $20/hour) and my father's unemployment. Moving at the time was a great financial and emotional strain for both me and my parents. Also, when I resigned myself to moving, I soon found out that it was not easy to find housing for June in February or June in general (the city my job is located in revolves around the academic cycle, so most apartments are available when the school semester starts). I was also still working two jobs at the time, so I was essentially working from 9 am (sometimes earlier) to 5 pm at my Research Assistant job and working from 5 – 8 pm at my second job. Sometimes, my second job would run late, so I would sometimes be working till 10 – 11 pm. Afterwards, I'd be staying up till 2 am – 3 am browsing through Craigslist and Facebook for apartment listings, without much luck, just to wake up at 6 – 7 am in the morning to begin the work cycle again. I was working my second job on weekends as well, so I didn't really have a lot of free time.
My manager did come to me the next week and said that based on the discussions at our leadership workshop (our department hired an external group to run a month long leadership workshop), that how she spoke to me during our discussion about moving the week prior was not the best, and asked if there was a way we could improve our working relationship. However, I didn't know what to say to her. How could I tell her that what she said to me the week prior was insensitive? I didn't think I could talk to my manager in that way, so I just said that I would get back to her but never did. I could never find a diplomatic way to discuss the topic, so I did not say anything at all. After reflecting on the conversation more at the time, I feel that my manager was apologizing for how she said what she said rather than the content (e.g. moving was still more or less nonnegotiable, at least that's how it came off to me at the time). Thinking back, I think that if I did bring up my challenges of moving, perhaps I would have been able to negotiate my move-in date, but at that point, I had already felt that I lost my voice and felt disempowered. I tried advocating for myself, and it felt that I was shut down, so I didn't bother trying further, at the risk of more conflict and discomfort.
At some point soon after my discussion with my manager, I had a discussion with a higher up manager and asked her for feedback on me as an employee (it was an activity for the leadership workshop). At some point, the move was discussed, and she said that they (the department, my manager, etc.) felt that it was reasonable to ask for a June move-in date given that the project was starting at that time and that they might need me on-site. She said she was willing to help me with leads for housing, which was nice of her, and that there should be lots of openings for June. As nice and civil as the higher-level manager was, it was still disheartening to hear given my circumstances mentioned in the previous paragraph, but I didn't say anything, as at that point, I just resigned myself to moving.
My parents told me that I had options, that I could quit my job. I guess I was too stubborn at the time and didn't hear them. Hearing that I could quit my job was disheartening because I had spent a whole year searching for jobs, and this job was the second offer (next to my part-time second job) that I got. My part-time second job, which could be made full-time, was a contracted role and had an end date contingent on staffing needs, and I was not overly eager to search for jobs again after being rejected and ghosted so many times. I guess I was also stubborn because I thought my Research Assistant role would be a foot in the door in terms of the trajectory I wanted to follow career-wise.
Once I actually moved to the city where my job was located, I was exhausted. My manager was going on leave soon, and left me a list of things to take care of while she was away. It seemed straightforward at the time, but when my manager was actually away, things were not as self-explanatory as they seemed. I did the best with the resources I had and actually pulled pretty late hours to keep up with everything. [I feel this portion of the story needs to be fleshed out more, but I will do so in a future edit as people ask clarifying questions]. I unfortunately did make another mistake.
When my manager came back from leave, all she could say was, the next time I made a mistake, she would have to document it. That was demoralizing to hear, and at this point, I was just so worn out. I didn't feel very supported during that summer while she was on leave, and it seemed that my efforts meant nothing. I lost my motivation and going to work was a chore. I wasn't as productive and I grew almost apathetic for a lack of better words.
[in the spirit of finishing up this story, the next few paragraphs are going to be a lot shorter and may be missing contextual details; I will edit and flesh out these paragraphs in the near future as questions arise and as I see fit]
A few months later, I missed a deadline. My manager was not happy, and said that as she noted before, if I made another mistake, she would have to document it, with this being my next mistake. I told her how I felt her evaluation over the summer was unfair (e.g. lack of support, resources, clarity, and how I did the best I could with the resources I had), and she agreed not to document it. I also had to work really long hours one day to try to get deliverables competed as close to the original deadline as possible. I was granted overtime, but this was flagged by my higher-level manager and a discussion was had with my manager about this. Since this was flagged by my higher-level manager, this issue was no longer just between my manager and I and was brought to the attention of my boss. Although no formal discussion was had between my boss and I, my underperformance had a further reach than just between my manager and I.
When it came time for my evaluation, I received a bad performance review. Shortly after, my manager told me that as I knew, my role was funded by a grant, and after reviewing the grants with my boss, that this particular grant that my job was funded by was ending in the new year and that my role would be removed. She was letting me know so that I could plan accordingly. Hearing this was a double whammy as far as bad news goes, right after the performance review, especially after that hard summer where I truly did the best I could. I just don't feel like a valued member on my team, and it really feels like my role ending has less to do with the grant ending and more to do with my performance. I never asked my manager if my role was being removed was truly due to the grant ending or due to my performance, partially because I'm not sure if I have the heart to hear it, and partially because I feel that a discussion at this point would be moot (let me know if you feel otherwise in the comments).
[In a future edit, for this paragraph, I want to speak more about my discomfort of speaking with my colleagues about what I'm going through, but for the sake of brevity, even though my story is anything but brief, I will omit it for now]
[EDIT: One part of my job that is uncomfortable for me is my boss (whether that is due to my own anxiety), or if my boss' personality brings about the same emotions and reactions in other people. She comes across to me as short-tempered. Even when I was doing a good job (the beginning months of my job), she was particular about how I behaved on Zoom meetings. When we were going over the survey I was working on, it must have looked to her that I wasn't taking notes, as she asked if I was taking notes while she was giving feedback on my survey, even though I was. When we first started the meeting, and she had issues with pulling up the survey, I thought reading the survey would be helpful to her, but she snapped at me and said “Don't read it to me; I can read it myself,” or something along the lines of that. I remember what she said almost verbatim as I remember how that meeting made me feel. She has gotten frustrated at me just for asking questions when I'm unclear on something. I feel I'm always walking on eggshells around my boss, and don't really feel empowered to bring something up to her, ask questions, or otherwise. ]
I'm applying to jobs currently, but I feel so disheartened, and I'm incredibly fearful for the future. I also don't know if the next job will align with my career goals and or my interests, or if I'll find a job before the grant runs out, as I don't feel as confident as I was when I first started my job, and looking for a job when I was bright-eyed, bushy tailed, and eager was hard enough. I don't know if I'll be able to end up back in the area of public health that I'm interested in.
If anyone has input on how I can move forward from this, and what my next steps are besides applying to jobs, it would be so, so, very much appreciated. There are days when I just feel so alone in the world, when I just feel everything in my chest, and I just don't know what to do anymore.
Thank you so much for reading!