Job no longer a good fit?

Mineral1

I've been in my current job 3.5 years and over that time it has changed considerably. When I first started I was at a very junior level and the workload was tough but manageable, and I think my keenness to learn helped drag me through the tougher parts. Now we have grown from a team of 7 to a team of around 20, but the workload either is too much for the team and we haven't recruited fast enough, or the target turnover is too ambitious. Either way, I am now burned out on the job and I don't have the interest or drive to pull me through the workload anymore.

As an aside I suffer from anxiety and depression and find it hard to separate work from that, always wondering if the job is contributing to those, or if they are making me view the job as worse than it really is.

Above all else the job just doesn't fit my core beliefs anymore as it's always just about getting paid and invoicing the work rather than providing the service the client would expect. I have however had several pay rises and promotions whilst there so it is pretty secure and I must be doing something right.

It's a good market for employees at the minute and I wonder if it's time to make a move to somewhere that fits my core values better. My low confidence and self esteem is preventing me at the minute though.

I guess the question is how should one balance financial reward and stability with core values and engagement with the work you do?

MovingForwards

Only you can weigh up the pros and cons of staying or moving on.

For me it's not about money, it's long-term prospects, what I do being valued and enjoying being at work / doing my job, together with a work / life balance, plus being aware of my health.

I recently left a secure role, where I was vastly underpaid for what I did, putting in long hours to do everything, self-teaching myself to do all the work, with so many manager changes and it was evolving into hybrid working but I would have been in the office each day. 

My new role pays less, but I've had training every day, there's support on tap if I want it, I'm working as a team and I happily go in to the office each morning. I start and finish on time, get breaks and there's loads of little things which make a nice environment.

MalMonroe

I hope you are seeking help for your anxiety and depression, your GP should be able to help. I don't just mean medication but with a referral for therapy and maybe just a chat. A few years ago I felt my job was killing me as I had ended up taking on too much and, like you, felt I was burnt out. One of my work colleagues told me that she thought I was depressed - I had never even considered that possibility. But then I saw my GP, who was lovely and who talked to me about depression and anxiety and offered me medication and counselling. I burst into tears (which didn't faze him), said I'd try counselling but I didn't need medication and he signed me off work for four weeks. A week later, I was back to see him to ask for the medication as I felt so bad I wasn't sure I could cope. Long story short, I never went back to that job. Instead I went to Uni as a full time undergraduate and had a whale of a time and started back on the road to recovery. 

You could always retrain. But please seek help for your anxiety and depression, which are not an aside, they're an illness and you can get help to cope with them. Therapy can help with most issues too, including self esteem and confidence. 

When a job is making you even more ill than you were before, it's time to go. It sounds as if you are good at what you do so hopefully you won't have trouble finding another job but do take good care of yourself. 

Own_Worst_Enermy

I am sorry it is not an Employee's job market right now.  Other way.  Isn't the time to look for new job.

I have a very clever cousin left school with top marks 3 years ago, went to work for a supermarket via agency for this xmas, as a better job, who he gets 2 shifts per week from when they just aren't calling just before he starts to not go in.
Third of the training group I started with a week have gone, one whom I will really miss even if it has been remote training.
I got a message about Customer Service Advisor this morning at 7:30am - think that's sitting in a contact centre as some sort of trouble shooter/complaint handler - wrong.
You get a van and £10 fuel card per week towards travelling the UK.....
I've cried on a couple of recruitment agencies when asked what is it like out there.

So many agencies of late shared they change job titles now compared to what the clients give - to get a wider range of people applying.

Wait till warmer weather.

74jax

Own_Worst_Enermy said:

I am sorry it is not an Employee's job market right now.  Other way.  Isn't the time to look for new job.

I have a very clever cousin left school with top marks 3 years ago, went to work for a supermarket via agency for this xmas, as a better job, who he gets 2 shifts per week from when they just aren't calling just before he starts to not go in.
Third of the training group I started with a week have gone, one whom I will really miss even if it has been remote training.
I got a message about Customer Service Advisor this morning at 7:30am - think that's sitting in a contact centre as some sort of trouble shooter/complaint handler - wrong.
You get a van and £10 fuel card per week towards travelling the UK.....
I've cried on a couple of recruitment agencies when asked what is it like out there.

So many agencies of late shared they change job titles now compared to what the clients give - to get a wider range of people applying.

Wait till warmer weather.

I don't really understand this reply, it's a bit all over the place?  Do you mean in summer it's more the employee can pick and choose, but in winter it's the employers choosing? 

It's hard for people to comment on how close someone else should stick to their core beliefs. If financially you can move, then given the anxiety you mention, I would certainly be looking. 

If you find something whilst in your current job, excellent, if not at least you have had a good look. 

Marcon

Mineral1 said:

As an aside I suffer from anxiety and depression and find it hard to separate work from that, always wondering if the job is contributing to those, or if they are making me view the job as worse than it really is.

Above all else the job just doesn't fit my core beliefs anymore as it's always just about getting paid and invoicing the work rather than providing the service the client would expect. I have however had several pay rises and promotions whilst there so it is pretty secure and I must be doing something right.

Anxiety and depression never helped anyone to assess a situation accurately and objectively, let alone see the positive side of things. If you change job, you still take your anxiety and depression with you - so addressing the medical issues might actually resolve what you perceive to be the work issues. 

If it doesn't help, then yes, perhaps the work situation is making things worse, so a little gentle job hunting could be no bad thing, if only to give you a sense of 'I could move if I wanted to'.

ACG

I used to work for a bank, when I started there I was in customer services. Service was good, calls were answered promptly etc.
When I left, if your call was answered in less than 20 minutes you were lucky. We became a sales team or "sales and service" - the whole miss sale of PPI is why I left, people were being "sold" PPI and other bits dubiously. 

Team mates who had previously helped each other were all of a sudden dumping on one another to get an extra bit of commission or to get the sale so nobody gave them any grief. 

I had previously been getting good reviews and within the space of 6 months I had gone from being groomed to be given the next managers position to being pulled in for meetings about my sales figures. I handed in my notice because I felt customers were being treated badly.

I left, took a bit of a detour and a couple of years later ended up doing exactly what I wanted to do (mortgage broker). I am glad I did what I did. But I think if I had not left when I did, I would probably have got the sack where as it does not sound like you are in that position. 

Mineral1

Thanks for all the opinions and experiences, it does help. I had a meeting with my line manager today and went through a fair bit including some new skills I can learn and it shined a better light on things. There are others leaving pretty much every month but not for reasons that should worry me too much, from what I can tell.

getmore4less

Mineral1 said:

Thanks for all the opinions and experiences, it does help. I had a meeting with my line manager today and went through a fair bit including some new skills I can learn and it shined a better light on things. There are others leaving pretty much every month but not for reasons that should worry me too much, from what I can tell.

You have take a step their to restore your control of the situation.

Many give up managing their own situations and can find themselves on a path that no longer satisfying and often spirals out of control.
Sometimes it is accompanied by a culture of passing the s**t down(bully) and sometime just incompetence.

In situation where there is growing workload and staffing issues(through lack of recruitment and people leaving) there are often opportunities. 

Identify and pick up the tasks that make a difference, look for productivity gains, look to eliminate bottle necks and stuff that just gets done because that's what you do. 

Workload management is often overlooked and employees have to resist just getting more stuff added then finding they are working longer hours missing breaks etc, they have to push back,  if you want me to do this then is that higher priority than what I am doing for XXXX?  will you tell them or shall I........

The everything is important is just a fob off of by management making their problem your problem.

The exact approach will depend on the type of work, but there are solutions, going after the good stuff and learning opportunities is a great step forward.

Mineral1

getmore4less said:

Mineral1 said:

Thanks for all the opinions and experiences, it does help. I had a meeting with my line manager today and went through a fair bit including some new skills I can learn and it shined a better light on things. There are others leaving pretty much every month but not for reasons that should worry me too much, from what I can tell.

Workload management is often overlooked and employees have to resist just getting more stuff added then finding they are working longer hours missing breaks etc, they have to push back,  if you want me to do this then is that higher priority than what I am doing for XXXX?  will you tell them or shall I........

The everything is important is just a fob off of by management making their problem your problem.

I find that part really hard to do. I try and work on it but I'm not good at resisting.

Marcon

Mineral1 said:

getmore4less said:

Mineral1 said:

Thanks for all the opinions and experiences, it does help. I had a meeting with my line manager today and went through a fair bit including some new skills I can learn and it shined a better light on things. There are others leaving pretty much every month but not for reasons that should worry me too much, from what I can tell.

Workload management is often overlooked and employees have to resist just getting more stuff added then finding they are working longer hours missing breaks etc, they have to push back,  if you want me to do this then is that higher priority than what I am doing for XXXX?  will you tell them or shall I........

The everything is important is just a fob off of by management making their problem your problem.

I find that part really hard to do. I try and work on it but I'm not good at resisting.

You don't need to resist - you need to assert. See if your local authority runs any courses (they are usually only a day long), or get hold of one of the many books on the subject from your library/Amazon.