Work related anxiety

[idwtbs]

I've always enjoyed my job. Recently, bc of bad management the company almost when bankrupt. I feel fortunate to have my job where many lost theirs but now management is putting extra work on us. I work with the public, have 45 minutes to do each test and management wants to "squeeze" extra patients into my day to make up for the ones that don't show up. I was perfectly content with the schedule I had. This COMPLETELY overwhelms me to the point that I have suffered from extreme anxiety ever since. I can't put this into a reasonable perspective that it's only one extra bc I am afraid, I'm going to be in pain, (job is very physical), I won't be able to keep up, eventually MORE is going to added on, I'll have to quit my job, I'm going to lose my house, ect. You see where this is going? How do I stop the mental chatter, that takes over and is causing panic attacks?

[fauxartist]

I'm sorry your getting all this work load added on. You have a right to talk to management, what does your original contract stipulate as far as your expected work load. If an unreasonable work load is forced on you and you suffer physical harm from it....that's grounds for a law suit. I would tell them that you are doing your very best to keep up with demand, but feel that you have reached your limit, and that you are asking for the work load to either lessen, or that they hire part time help to compensate. Usually management would be up for part time as they get no benefits and are disposable when not needed in their eyes. I would start out with that as a solution first. You don't have to loose your job because management are making bad decisions that could get people hurt.

[idwtbs in reply to fauxartist]

Thank you. Lots of good insight.

[hypercat54]

Hi I am afraid this is very common these days and I have experienced this myself. Management push you to the limits when you are just trying to earn a living and not everyone can take the extra stress and pressure.

Maybe this could be a case of not having to work harder, but smarter? Are there short cuts you can take which won't affect the outcome? I used to work in the civil service for a call centre and the pressure was relentless and the targets endless. Stress was a major problem for lots of my colleagues including me. One of the biggest problems was many long emails which we were supposed to read in between calls. Trouble was there was rarely time so people dealt with this in different ways. Some used their breaks to read them (not smart), others deleted them all and some had a quick flick through then deleted anything which didn't appear to apply to us - I did the latter though sometimes I just deleted them when we were extra busy.

One of the tricks I used when I was extra stressed was to go to the toilet and just sit there taking deep breaths to get my head back together. Good luck with it. x