Overworked and burnt out

A few years ago now, I managed to work myself into a state of burnout. I was over worked and it was too early in my career that I didn't know how to say no to my boss or how to stick up for myself. I was worried that if I said that I couldn't do it, because I already had too much stuff to do, that people would think I couldn't do my job.

Okay, so a different kind of burnout but I couldn't find a better picture to use!

When I look back on that time now it was a disaster waiting to happen! I was young and had been working my way up the ladder. My boss got a new job at a new company and took me (and a few others) with him to this new job. He referred to us as "The A Team". This was in front of the existing employees at the new company. It made things awkward. It also made me feel like I had to prove myself of being worthy. Worthy of being a member of "The A Team", worthy of being selected by my boss to come with him to the new job and to show everyone that I could do it.

As expected, the existing team members (my new colleagues) were not very forthcoming with information. When systems broke (we worked in IT in a company that was 24 hrs) I was expected to have it fixed ASAP with little or no help.

I eventually started to thrive and got up to speed with how things worked. That's when things started making a turn for the worse. My colleagues could see that I was capable and I had an attitude of taking ownership for things. So when an issue arose, I would see it through to resolution. Work started coming at me and I would take it on.

After a few months of this, I had agreed to take over support for a colleague who was going on maternity leave. At the time I was thrilled to be asked to do this. The role I would be taking on was for a senior team member and was going to be a huge challenge, but also great for my career. I was too much of a people pleaser to ask who was going to fill in for me with my current role, and I didn't know how to negotiate or let my boss know that I thought someone would need to pick up my workload, so I did both my role and took over for the role of the team member who was going on maternity leave. I naively thought that it would make me look incompetent if I said anything or asked for help.

That was the single most stressful thing I have ever done. I worked non stop. I was too scared to tell my boss it was too much; I didn't want to disappoint him. I was able to stay above water for a few months but it was hard and I started hating my job and resented my colleagues who would go off for a 40 minute morning tea break. I wasn't even having a lunch break!

The one night that I did get out to meet up with friends at a local bar was such a mistake. I was exhausted and not in the mood to go anywhere. I was talked into it by my partner. During the night I had too much to drink and at some stage I decided that I enjoyed having a social life and that I'd missed it so much by working too hard. Working was for idiots! I called my boss and told him to "stick his f---en job". I quit on the phone on the early hours of a Saturday morning, completely drunk.

Let me tell you that I had the worst hangover ever the next morning and not only due to the alcohol. I was ashamed and embarrassed. I couldn't believe what I had done. Thankfully my boss knew that I had been overwhelmed with the work and understood that I was stressed and close to burning out. He didn't accept my resignation and I was back to work the following Monday, very embarrassed, but back regardless.

The thing was though, that I wasn't happy. I didn't want to be there. I had spoken the truth through my alcohol infused brain and sitting at my desk with more work to get through than I could ever possibly do, I started feeling overwhelmed all over again. This was ridiculous. I wasn't living or enjoying myself. The work had gone past challenging and exciting to depressing, sickening and overwhelming.

I would be in tears each morning before work. I didn't want to go. The few hours sleep I was getting each night wasn't enough. I was anxious, nervous and felt out of my depth for the first time in my career. I started putting on weight and I was incredibly unhappy. I was working too many hours and was not keeping on top of the work. It was a losing battle. I had no time for a personal life. No time to exercise. No time to cook. No time for fun. Something had to change. I was not enjoying life.

Luckily, the company that I worked for offered free counselling sessions. I decided that I was going to go to one session and talk about the issues I was having. I spoke to my boss about it and he agreed to let me go during work hours.

I was not sure what to expect from this session at all. It was the first time in my life that I've ever been to anything like it. I sat in a room in an old house which had been turned into offices and I started talking to my counsellor about everything. I started out discussing my drunken rant and resignation and what had led to it.
I spoke of how I hated my job which was upsetting in itself because I had put everything into my career and doing it well and now here I was admitting that if I didn't have to make money to pay for our bills that I would quite happily run away from life and responsibilities and join the circus or something similar.

I returned to the counsellor for a few sessions; they were genuinely helpful to me and as the sessions progressed they morphed into career counselling sessions and I started getting excited about what I could do with my life. She helped me realise that I was put in a bad position with too much on my plate by doing my own full time job as well as picking up a whole other full time job for covering my colleagues maternity leave. It should never have happened like that. I was questioning if I really wanted to work somewhere like that which had just sat back and watched me burn myself out over a period of months. The answer was no. I no longer wanted to work there. I made the decision to start looking for a new job.

I found a new job very quickly. I even had the confidence to negotiate better terms for me. I fell back in love with working again. I was in a supportive team environment with new colleagues who wanted to help out. They were willing to show me how things worked and how they did stuff. These colleagues have become really good friends over the years. I stayed in that company up until I went on maternity leave and ultimately decided (with my partner) that staying home and raising our daughter is the best thing I can do right now.

Looking back, this experience was a good experience for me to go through. It has made me realise that there is more to life than just work. I think I always knew it, but somewhere along the way I had forgotten.

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