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Those of you who work - what is your job?

illustrated.lady

If you don't want to read and would just like to answer the question then thank you - feel free to skip Slight smile

I suppose I'm looking for some inspiration.

In what is a familiar story for many, I am completely burnt out from my work, struggling to cope in an office environment and really just feeling at a loss of what to do. 

A bit of background on me for anyone interested - I'm fairly intelligent and well educated (BSc Psychology and Criminology, MA Sociology - graduated 2018) but I have never been able to transfer this over to the workplace, I have ended up off sick with stress/anxiety/overwhelm in every job I've had and the longest I have lasted in any job is my current three years.

My jobs have included - 

Food service

Retail

Care (elderly, dementia, mental health)

Call Centre

Medical reception/admin/secretarial (current job)

I have worked all hours from 12 hour days, 12 hour mights, 9-5, full time, part time, zero hour contract. I always end up burnt out. 

Ultimately, I have to work and ideally full time. Office work is a struggle because there's people there, constantly with their smells and their noises and their conversation. 

As much as I loved elderly care, I think my sense of justice made it too difficult to overlook the poor management that understaff care homes in order to make as much money as possible. 

I just don't know what to do, I don't need to find a dream job, I just need something I can do and go home and not feel like all my energy has been drained. 

Any ideas, comments, suggestions, all are appreciated.

Parents

  • I think for me the answer was not to consider a public-facing job. I am retired now, but I think I had my ideal job. I was a researcher into the molecular and cell biology of tropical disease causing pathogens. I could hyper-fixate to my heart's content, had my own projects, so I could pace myself, all the way from working far into the night to taking days off (or at least very easy days) to recover from burnout, and had only about 7 or 8 people that I had to interact with closely on a daily basis.

    For the last decade of my working life I managed scientific services in a university research institute. This meant I had some man-management duties and had to interact with many more people on a daily basis. I found this much more stressful, though having my own office was a saving grace.

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  • I think for me the answer was not to consider a public-facing job. I am retired now, but I think I had my ideal job. I was a researcher into the molecular and cell biology of tropical disease causing pathogens. I could hyper-fixate to my heart's content, had my own projects, so I could pace myself, all the way from working far into the night to taking days off (or at least very easy days) to recover from burnout, and had only about 7 or 8 people that I had to interact with closely on a daily basis.

    For the last decade of my working life I managed scientific services in a university research institute. This meant I had some man-management duties and had to interact with many more people on a daily basis. I found this much more stressful, though having my own office was a saving grace.

Children
  • in reply to Martin

    That’s great! I am doing a PhD in Neuroscience right now but I am starting to wonder whether it’s actually the lab work that has been contributing to burnout all these years. I love biology but struggle with health issues and lab work can be very inflexible and relentless at times and I just feel that many things take me longer because I am so precise and I take a long time to make decisions as I need to carefully analyse and consider evidence etc. In addition some supervisors don’t let you have flexibility with hours which was disastrous for me in past as I could never recharge. In my current lab I sadly also do not fit in - I always managed to find people I connected to in the lab and I loved that I could be myself more and just talk about my interests but I don’t have that here- it is sad. I am really good at asking questions, raising possible issues and alternative explanations and making connections when someone is giving a talk or presenting their data but I just feel that I suck at the day to day work as I overthink and I now worry it is affecting my health. I still want to finish the PhD (hope I can without destroying myself) but I am even considering doing a second bachelor (maths). I want to stay in academia but I worry maybe the wet lab is not sustainable in long term. It is really good to hear that you managed to make it work so well! I wish more autistic researchers could feel safe to say they are autistic- I do think there are quite a few of us- I have met several individuals that I strongly suspect are autistic and a lot of my autistic friends are in research labs too. 

  • in reply to Martin
    Martin said:
    a researcher into the molecular and cell biology of tropical disease causing pathogens.

    Very similar role for me. I'm or rather was a microbiologist, before having my career ended by my manager for asking for some pretty small reasonable adjustments. Now I'm drifting along waiting for my ET to progress. The result may be early retirement.

  • in reply to Martin

    Having your own office is a godsend. I don’t always use mine without clients, but I do have access to it if I ever feel overwhelmed.