Stress made me ill.
The week was too horrible, too stressful, too much.
On Sunday I felt dreadful of Monday. This is the first time in this job when I felt this terrible just because I had to go to work. So on Monday (though already on Sunday) I woke up ill. Thank my immune system, it’s nothing very serious but scared me anyway. I stayed home for two days. Spent money on pills, thank you insurance for paying for hospital.
Honestly, I didn’t want to return to work. Maybe it was just last week that took everything out of me. I didn’t sleep enough, I didn’t drink enough water, I didn’t walk enough (though I used a scooter). I didn’t do enough. I wasn’t enough at work too. I work in customer service, IT support, and there were days when I couldn’t help them, even on the
I wasn’t enough at work too. I work in customer service, IT support, and there were days when I couldn’t help them, even on the easiest thing. It made me believe that I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t helpful enough. On Friday I almost took it out on my co-workers. Everything annoyed me, I was so frustrated that I could’ve punched someone. Would that have helped? I doubt. See, in this work, we’re asked to work faster, answer calls for a shorter time, solve more and more cases. I have to switch between two languages. Already that is making everything harder. Brains sometimes overheat. Then comes all the thousands of programs, errors, problems we need to solve. Impatient customers, customers who don’t listen. In the beginning, when I started to work, it was easier. Now, our management makes us do more, for example, answer about access rights, even though there’s a SPECIFIC group for that, but, oh, they don’t want to deal with those questions. If only they had made instructions for managers about how to do THEIR job. Yeah, we often have to teach people how to do their damn job. Funny enough, even we don’t have enough instructions, quite often we improvise and guess what we should do. Then comes the program updates which usually cause more problems than solving them. Or the new programs, those often don’t work properly so again, we cannot work fast. Also, we don’t have enough people, some 7 people left and what, only, 3 are hired. Doesn’t seem too horrible but the amount calls of are increasing. According to law, every two hours we are allowed to take 15 minutes break but do you think it’s possible? No. Of course, those who work on the other language line, they can do it. But for us 5 people? Pretty much no. Because we work on two lines. Very effing fair. See the difference, there are 15 people, some of them work on two lines, one of them calls a bit less. Then there’s the 6 (5 because one is the ‘elder’ and answers calls less) and we have to work on two lines, on one of them, the original I was hired for, call quite a lot. So, we don’t have time to relax. Lunch time is all we have. The noise, the damned open space office, I cannot hear the customer, I have to repeat everything twice or I cannot hear what the customer says.
I want to call it a poor management.
Now, I try to think what to do to not be in this situation again. I guess I’ll take my 15 minutes break matter how long the call line is. I’ll take fewer calls if that’s the way how to save my health. Not worry that much (pharmacy, here I come, I need sedatives).
I could try to speak more about it. But no one wants to hear it. I told about the noise but all I got was “You’ll get used to it”.
As much as I like the place, the people, the paycheck (not big enough for all the work we do), I don’t think it’s sane to stay there long. It’s a great place to learn and I have learned a lot, this is an amazing experience but I cannot kill myself (nervous breakdown every other Friday isn’t healthy) because of work.
I wish more people would understand that. ESPECIALLY THE ONES WHO ARE IN CHARGE OF THEIR EMPLOYEES. HR do your job!! Or does IT Support need to teach you that?
Thoughts that keep me up at night. 