• Replies 55 replies
  • Subscribers 113 subscribers
  • Views 2721 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

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.

  • 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.

Reply
  • 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.

Children
  • in reply to Mr T

    Oh no - that’s horrible. Though sadly not that surprising. I actually suspect my previous PhD supervisor very much changed his view and treatment of me after finding out I was autistic, and tried to push me out (which did succeed as one of labs closed). Can’t know if that was it or something else but it is a possibility- he was not willing to accept me and I tried so so hard to work and be the way he expected me to be- worked incredibly hard and burnt myself even more with trying to fit into the mould

  • in reply to Mr T

    I was diagnosed 6 months after I took early retirement, so never asked for adjustments, or knew that I would be able to ask for any. Luckily my various managers were very straightforward to deal with, if I was producing the goods, they had no problem with how I went about it. For my last decade of work I was essentially my own boss. I had two joint line-managers, but I knew lots more about the technicalities of my job than they did..