Overloaded and Anxious

Had a super rough day

For the past few weeks – the pressure has been piling on at work. I have a list of priorities for the week – with timelines attached to them. First off- the list is pretty hefty, and more than I think I can manage in one week. Then on top of that, there are ‘urgent’ requests that need to be turned around within 24 hours that are piled on top. It was getting a bit much, and I was starting to get headaches and dizziness just through feeling anxious. My housemate encouraged me to talk to my manager about it – because if they don’t know if there is a problem, they wont do anything to solve it.

It took a bit of working myself up to get the courage to do this, but today I decided I would talk to my boss about it. Needless to say it didn’t go so well. I explained why I am finding my task list difficult to manage, and her response was but you’re getting everything done. And I told her, only because I am working over time and skipping lunch. She just said, all I need to know is that you’re going to get it done – I can’t be worried about anything else.

So yeah, I get it, that’s how work can be, its kind of a turn around from how it was when I came back from sick leave but I understand – we all have our roles to play in the team. I just can’t cope with it right now. When I reached out to my dad, he told me, ‘well just don’t get anxious about it’, my best friend wasn’t much better - he said ‘maybe you should just leave the job instead of having sporadic good days’. Not going to lie, I kind of feel like a popped balloon. I feel like the steps I’m taking aren’t enough. I feel like I’m not getting well fast enough. I feel like I total burden to the lives of my loved ones. Most of all, I just feel isolated. I don’t want to be anxious or depressed, but it seems like my go-to people think this is some kind of choice.

17 Replies

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fauxartist

9 months ago

okay, I hear a lot of what's going on at work your kinda doing with your personal life feelings too...one thing at a time, don't pile everything on all at once....go back to your boss, and let her know you have to have time for lunch, so she can find someone to work during your lunch time if she wants to keep up the quota she gave you, that's your right to do that, and I hope your getting paid over time. It's against the law for an employee to work through lunch, or do overtime without compensation, depending on how many hours a week or day you work, it's in your contract with your work. Second, sometimes friends tell us the easiest solution, quitting your job may not be such a good idea, and as far as your family goes, just say, 'hey, I just need some understanding and need to just vent a little, I can't help the anxiety I'm going through'. But from what I'm reading, your job is stressing you out, your making your company money by doing more work than maybe you should have to so they don't have to hire someone else to balance the work load. So you have choices to make. Take care of yourself, and don't take on board anybody else's crap, you deserve to be treated with respect.

Chris2013

Hey.

I dont know what sort of work youre company does. I have been in a similar situation. if your bosses attitude is like what you said, do any other employees have the same issues with the management? Have you spoken to any of them? Do you share the same opinions? Are you all overworked? Is everyones workload equal?

It happens so often in companies, you get people who do alot and people who get away with doing very little. It sounds like you are the first of these two categories and unfortunately if you are good at your job and you get things done you will be always expected to maintain that speed of work and you will also have to pick up other peoples slack to keep things on schedule.

Do you feel you are being unfairly treated? Im a marine engineer for a well known production company. I was poorly paid from day one and in the summer things got incredibly hectic we as a team of 15 worked 10hours a day 5 days a week. Poor management was too blame and a blind management at that, people picked and choose what jobs they would take on. I found it hard to get myself noticed, I was one of those people who got all things asked for done and I still am. I have three years experience now and I have made it to the top, I have taken over the distribution of work, and you know what? the people who got away with next to nothing are now pulling their weight, granted im still poorly paid but the work load is now more evenly passed around and you can see that everyone is a lot happier within their jobs and stress levels are at an all-time low.

I dont know if this helped at all but it was as much a therapy for me as I hope it will be of help to you. But for goodness sake dont beat yourself up about it! It is not your fault and you need to take some action! Do you think you could improve anything within your company and its workings? If you have ideas put them too your boss!

Chris

priyanw

in reply to Chris2013

Hi Chirs,

thanks for your reply. The feeling in my team is that we are all quite overloaded. Over the past 12 months, we have lost 3 team members since they have left the company. Instead of rehiring, the work has been redistributed onto the remaining members of the team. For a time we were managing okay - but unfortunately we're all very junior and working with other teams can be a challenge because requests come from more senior people.

I actually really like my boss as a person, and I know she is under pressure too -so i am conscious of adding to it. I've suggested how I believe we could better manage some projects and come up with a couple of sheets and reference points to try and make it easier. It backfired a little bit because now i am being asked to co-ordinate a lot of team projects. I take it as a compliment because i guess they wouldn't ask me unless i was doing something right - but the volume of work is really rather difficult, and short of getting into some bad habits like taking my laptop home and working over the weekend I have no idea how to get everything done.

Your response was super helpful to me. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with me