Workload is causing me to feel I want to quit or I may have a breakdown.

dekaspace1

Shortest way of describing it, is pre this year there was always times I felt overwhelmed but something like a weeks holiday sorted it, but in past year not due to cutbacks but upper management just not replacing staff workload has hit extreme levels and already had a few staff quit due to this making workload even bigger.

For example i'd say it was the norm to have 10 staff on not including supervisors which we normally had 2 most days and 3 on certain days, now the norm is 5 staff and 1 supervisor, one person has been on sick for about 4 months, another person was on maternity leave but that finished October and for some reason is getting paid but not doing any call centre work, sometimes they do emails and don't even need to come into the office and can WFH, don't want to judge so assume they have other issues but it is annoying when I have seen them a few times come into the office and joke how they are doing no work when I am at point at times I feel like punching walls, and have to shout loudly between calls when I WFH and swear to help with the stress.

There has been times when there has been 2, yes 2 people taking calls as managers always want someone doing emails to clear the backlog so have 1 or 2 people doing them add to the managers emailing us telling us to do emails between calls.

The only reasons I haven't had time off or quit is I was injured last year and had 2 months off work as was housebound, was given even more time off by GP but work said upper management said if I took longer off I would likely be fired, but even that was stressful as instead of a 8 hour shift with 1 hour break and 25 minutes of smaller breaks during day I was expected to work at first 5 hours then 6 hours straight, and that included the lunch hours which are busiest of day so caused me high distress, Outside of the injury I had 3 sick days the entire year due to norovirus and was given a meeting to discuss my time off (they did exclude the time signed off just their policy) I haven't had any sick days this year but afraid to take any but since others are off often far more than me I find it upsetting I can't take any off but know if I do even less people will be able to do the calls.

I need time off, I'm not talking a few days I am talking about 2 or 3 weeks straight.

On the subject of staff, supervisors have said management have approved 3 new starts, but that still means we have less than before, it took them over 6 months to authorise this.

Point of this thread is to say what could or should I do? I cannot continue like this but I was unemployed around a decade previous so don't want to go back to doing that, have been there 7 years now.

EDIT - For information I used to do about 35-40 calls per day and could do 15 emails on average and 20 if it was a quiet day, now the average call amount I do is around 70, and there was one day I did 88 calls on top of 17 emails, and I was always a person who did more than the average calls, there was colleagues who used to do under 30 calls a day and maybe 1 or 2 other staff that equalled my amount of calls done, I was praised quite a few times due to the amount of calls taken.

Woodstok2000

This sounds like a really difficult situation, and I'm sorry this is where you find yourself. In an ideal world you would be able to discuss your concerns with your manager and work out ways of managing your workload without having such a detrimental impact on your mental health. Is that possible? It sounds like you are a high performer within the team so it's unlikely they'd want to lose you. If you can't speak to a manager, maybe a colleague? 

 Breaks at work are legal rights, so make sure you can take them. Constant working for hours is definitely going to make things worse.

If things are really getting on top of you, speak to your GP and they may sign you off for a period of rest.  You're not immune from being dismissed, but you do have rights when on sick leave, so you can take advice on that if you're worried about repercussions ( try your union if you have one, or citizens advice - https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/dismissal/check-your-rights-if-youre-dismissed/if-your-employer-wants-to-dismiss-you-because-of-long-term-sickness/). 

If you have concerns about how your work view this, make sure you put all communications and requests in writing, and that any requests to you (e.g. to skip lunch breaks) are also in writing. Keep a diary and document everything.

There may also be things you can do to try and manage the situation. For example, if you know others are completing fewer calls or emails, start to reduce your output to match them. It may seem a bit woolly, but I find mindfulness exercises and breathing really help work stress,and also remaining committed without being too attached to your work.  Try this as a starter: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lucianapaulise/2023/06/27/how-to-cultivate-non-attachment-to-work-performance-to-find-balance/

Above all, prioritise your own mental health. Everyone is different and only you know what is or isn't manageable for you. Good luck!

Myci85

It sounds like you are burnt out. My partner was feeling similar this last year and eventually acted on my advice to go and see his GP. He explained how he was feeling and they signed him off work for 2 weeks, then a further 2 weeks, recognising it was work related stress seriously affecting his mental health. 

In your shoes I'd suggest the same, and take that time, once you're no longer in survival mode, to think through what you want/need to do longterm. No job is worth your mental health. Jobs aren't so easy to come by, but instead of thinking that if you leave you will be unemployed for years again, see it as an opportunity to maybe explore another career path. 

TELLIT01

The OP needs to adopt the mantra of 'I can only do what I can do'.  I accept that it's easy to say, and less easy to do, but the longer they allow management to put more work on them than they can handle, the worse the situation will become.

If there is work left over at the end of the day, pass it back to your team leader/ manager.  Excess workload is their problem, not yours.

At one place I worked we had to clear 'x' number of claims per day.  However, if somebody regularly exceeded that number they were given more, and then expected to do that new number every day.  Fortunately the team quickly cottoned on to what was happening and slowed down, so that we just hit the required number.  Managers moaned about the backlog building up, but there was nothing they could do to force us to do more as we were all hitting the targets - which were set nationally.

dekaspace1

Since it's inbound (mostly) call centre work I have slowed down for that reason but this has a knock on effect as all our call times are logged, so if I have things to do after a call and go on code it shows as a lot of "off call" time, my direct supervisors are great overall, it's as usual the upper management causing issues, we don't get a pay rise but the higher ups do whilst telling other departments we have to make cutbacks.

Another thing I didn't mention is all my work can be done from home, but the CEO has claimed the organisation feedback is that everyone prefers being in the office, yet every department I have spoken to has said the opposite, I wake at 7am on office days and not home till 6pm, and I have some health issues and when I am in office I have had hypos, and at very least dazed at my desk due to the overall weak feelings and then not home till 6pm then I am exhausted for over a day after even if it's my day off mix in that in the past 2 years I have broken my leg badly I was off work for 2 months, and my ankle this year and up until 2 months ago when I was given arthritis medication I was struggling to even stand and had to use a walking stick I hate being in the office.

It all mounts up.

I did ask if I can work from home more and was told it's not fair on other employees, yet often when I am in I am the only person from my department, we share the office with another department (who are somewhat linked) of about 7 people and I am there myself so whats the point of me even being in.

Marcon

dekaspace1 said:

Point of this thread is to say what could or should I do? I cannot continue like this but I was unemployed around a decade previous so don't want to go back to doing that, have been there 7 years now.

Sometimes the most useful 'advice' is to suggest someone reads their own thread. Putting your thoughts down on paper can, often subconsciously, give you the answer to your own question. You say you 'cannot continue like this', so what needs to change to make it bearable? Either you stand your ground to keep your workload at levels you can manage, or if that's not an option (and it may well not be, from what you say), or you look for another job. That might sound glib, but going on what you've posted - and that's all anyone here can go on - those are the only realistic options.

Letting the status quo continue when you say you're heading for a breakdown isn't exactly a sensible option, so decide what you are going to do - and do it. Good luck!

SiliconChip

While I'd agree that if you really feel you are heading for a breakdown that you need to do something to try to prevent or minimise that, given that there are more members of staff due to start I'd suggest that if that happens soon it would be sensible to at least wait to see whether that has a positive effect on your workload before doing anything that can't be undone. 

dekaspace1

I'm hoping so, I was stressed out when we had about 7 staff on 3 or 4 months ago due to the workload increase believing we would get more, it can say a lot when lets say when we have 0 or 1 in the queue and I take a break the call queue can shoot up to 3-5 even for a 10 minute break then when I come back on within about 10-15 minutes it's back down to 1 or 2, I literally have seen for a 10 minute break that queue of 3-5 people waiting around 8 or 9 minutes so it literally seems that the queue jumps up when I take a break.

The difference with the workload when we had more staff is I may of been more fed up before especially on what I would call a "busy" day or week, but what I considered busy then is more like an average or even a good day now.

With a breakdown, I have been having mental health issues most of my life bullied at school etc but it wasn't until my 20's when a few traumatic experiences that I never got support for at time made me go from shy/nervous/lack of social skills but still loving life to not going out at all for over a week, living off junk food, always feeling low etc and never got much better hence my long term unemployment, when I finally got my job at the start of 2019 I noticed my life got better in relative terms very quickly, whilst I wasn't on the same level as pre my early 20's I was able to get out of bed easier, had the best dreams I had in over 15 years, lost some weight etc which of course 2020 destroyed and made me feel around the worst I have ever felt, so whilst I have held on al this time, I get worse year by year so I can crack at any point, I feel I am always just able to hold it off.

When I was housebound after my injury in quite a few ways I felt better than I had in over 10 years, wasn't like before my issues, in some ways better than when they skyrocketed but worse than the start in others i.e I could wake up 6am every morning feeling I couldn't sleep any more and literally just get out bed, didn't have an appetite, had a long attention span, stopped stuttering as much, never had a single headache and did a huge amount of DIY in my flat.

Which is why I know I need some kind of rest, when I get say a week off work for annual leave I mostly use that to catch up with a few things around the home i.e put up a few pictures so it feels I don't have a chance to actually relax, I need longer to stop full burnout.

penners324

Get on LinkedIn, Indeed and other job boards.
Get your CV sorted out.

Work isnt worth that much stress 

Savvy_Sue

How soon could you book 2 weeks' leave? And rather than use it for DIY, job hunt. You might feel better just for doing something about your situation.

And are you in a union? If not, join.

Marcon

dekaspace1 said:

I'm hoping so, I was stressed out when we had about 7 staff on 3 or 4 months ago due to the workload increase believing we would get more, it can say a lot when lets say when we have 0 or 1 in the queue and I take a break the call queue can shoot up to 3-5 even for a 10 minute break then when I come back on within about 10-15 minutes it's back down to 1 or 2, I literally have seen for a 10 minute break that queue of 3-5 people waiting around 8 or 9 minutes so it literally seems that the queue jumps up when I take a break.

The difference with the workload when we had more staff is I may of been more fed up before especially on what I would call a "busy" day or week, but what I considered busy then is more like an average or even a good day now.

With a breakdown, I have been having mental health issues most of my life bullied at school etc but it wasn't until my 20's when a few traumatic experiences that I never got support for at time made me go from shy/nervous/lack of social skills but still loving life to not going out at all for over a week, living off junk food, always feeling low etc and never got much better hence my long term unemployment, when I finally got my job at the start of 2019 I noticed my life got better in relative terms very quickly, whilst I wasn't on the same level as pre my early 20's I was able to get out of bed easier, had the best dreams I had in over 15 years, lost some weight etc which of course 2020 destroyed and made me feel around the worst I have ever felt, so whilst I have held on al this time, I get worse year by year so I can crack at any point, I feel I am always just able to hold it off.

When I was housebound after my injury in quite a few ways I felt better than I had in over 10 years, wasn't like before my issues, in some ways better than when they skyrocketed but worse than the start in others i.e I could wake up 6am every morning feeling I couldn't sleep any more and literally just get out bed, didn't have an appetite, had a long attention span, stopped stuttering as much, never had a single headache and did a huge amount of DIY in my flat.

Which is why I know I need some kind of rest, when I get say a week off work for annual leave I mostly use that to catch up with a few things around the home i.e put up a few pictures so it feels I don't have a chance to actually relax, I need longer to stop full burnout.

Then you need to sort it out. Long posts here aren't going to resolve matters. Tackle the real issue - often very much easier to say than do, but that's the only possible answer.