My situation:
I'm as senior as it's possible to be before directorship in a quite new and fast-growing manufacturing company. I've been there two years and in that time I've been able to take advantage of that growth, getting promoted to my position and increasing my salary by about 40% of the starting (over that time the production turnover has more than quadrupled).
My professional background:
I have a first-class music production degree from 2004 which at this point is all but worthless. I have no other formal qualifications. I fell into what I'm doing through a coincidental predisposition to the field. Before my current job I spent seven years in a sort-of similar environment with lots of responsibility but shit money. My current employers took a punt on me because of this experience. Before my last position I had a series of lever-pulling IT/customer/service/debt recovery jobs, all awful call-centre stuff.
My problem:
I'm good at my job 90% of the time but I'm happy with it maybe 20% of the time. Some of my character traits, e.g. my attention to detail and how personally I take everything I do, are ideal for the position, but some of them, e.g. my social anxiety, my hypersensitivity and my tendency to procrastination, make it a lot more difficult. The environment is very masculine, aggressive and confrontational, as well as extremely profit-oriented, which is a mask I can wear but I don't like myself when I do it. Additionally I'm hypertensive as a result of an aortic dissection a few years ago, I have IBS from leukemia twenty years ago, I have generalised PTSD, and I have a history of substance abuse (I'm currently dry). This year I will turn 40. My cardiologist has told me that if I would like to see 50 I should take it easy.
My current routine is barely tolerable. I basically work from Sunday evening (reviewing Monday's urgent tasks) through to late Friday night, and during that time if I'm not actively working (which is from before eight a.m. until well after six p.m., no breaks, no lunch hour) I'm worried about work: things I know have gone or will go wrong, things I need to do to prevent others from going wrong. I've lately started to lose sleep over it. I did not stop working during lockdown. I worked from home for maybe three weeks. During Covid our output went up 30%
Just recently one of the directors, who let's say doesn't have much time for diplomacy, gave me such a hard chewing-out for a situation I hadn't caused and was powerless to improve that I seriously considered walking out, and I ultimately contacted the MD to explain what had happened and to point out that I wouldn't put up with being treated like that. The MD did address it and the director has since been noticeably nicer to me, but it will almost certainly happen again before long, and next time I'm honestly not sure I won't just quit on the spot.
It's not a bad company to work for. There are many upsides, and not just their willingness to take a risk on promoting me and reward me for it. They are largely decent people and I'm not being exploited. I haven't been bullied into the situation I'm in; I've taken every opportunity I was offered without knowing if I'd be able to handle it, and it seems objectively that I've bitten off more than I can chew. For long, anyway.
My options:
I've never liked working. I never aimed to have anything like a career (dreams of being a rock star notwithstanding). However I'm not in a financial situation where I can just not work. My wife makes good money and we don't have kids but the commensurate reduction in our quality of life would in any case be completely unfair on her, and I'm not even sure if it's actually manageable. We've discussed it and if I were to stop working now I could afford to be unemployed for about six months, absolute tops. This would, however, be a waste of our savings.
I've considered asking for a three-day week, as that's a pay-cut I can take and still be on more money than I was making when I left my previous full-time job. However I don't know if that's even a possibility, given the hours my current role requires me to work. To be fair I'm sure the request would be considered seriously, especially if I were to put it on health grounds (which I think is fair), but I'm also concerned that the pressure this would put on the company would cost me a lot of good will (it would also harm my future career prospects but to be completely honest I think I'm about as senior in this field as I ever want to be).
I'm also going to explore my other professional options. The problem is I don't have any qualifications, and whereas two years in my currently role is not to be sniffed at (I was headhunted a year ago by another business who threw money at me, which I ended up not going for) my concern is that a similar role on equivalent pay would be every bit as stressful, with the added stress of changing jobs, and any role on less pay is is no way guaranteed to come with less stress. I've had jobs on 1/3 of my current wage and they were horrible.
I've also considered retraining, but firstly I don't have the time to do that on top of my currently job, and secondly I'm not even sure what I'd retrain as. My only vocations are creative.
I'm sure a few of your guys have been in similar situations and I hope you might have some good advice for me.
To others I'm sure this must look like first world problems, especially at the moment when so many have been laid off or have jobs at risk. I'm really sorry if that's the case. I'm just trying to find the best outcome.
TL;DR: My senior, well-paid job is really stressful and it's making me sicker than I already am, what should I do?
Comments
The wife quit a long hours stressfull job, for health reasons.
She now works for minimum wage and the quality of life Vs money doesn't even factor for her now.
Never underestimate how much a shit job fucks up your personal life, physical and mental health.
You've got one life. Why spend it being miserable ?!
you'll get a new perspective on everything trust me
I come from a family of teachers to the extent that at one point I just assumed I'd do a PGCE after my bachelor, but I've discovered through guitar tutoring that I'm not cut out for teaching.
If you don't mind me asking, what kind of job does your wife do? My concern over actively going for a low-stakes, low-pay job is that in my experience they've not been that much less stressful or demanding. If anything I was treated far worse by the people who paid me ten grand than by the people who pay me four times that.
you'll do OK I'm sure, when you ask for advice it usually means you know what's what, good luck man
I know the whole introvert/extrovert thing is largely clickbait, but the underlying truth is that I am far closer to the quiet, solitary homebody end of the spectrum. The reason I mentioned a three-day week above as a realistic consideration is that I've heard the intro/extrovert dichotomy described as "people who are drained by social contact" vs. "people who are fuelled by social contact". Obviously introverts need people and extroverts need solitude, which implies there is a balance to be found. My suspicion is that if I could reduce my exposure time by 2/5 and double my recovery time, my stress levels would become wholly manageable.
That may also be a load of rubbish, of course.
Perhaps you could try a "statement" route by bringing in an "illegal immigrant" and train him/her to do your job for a fraction of the cost, you keeping the change of course.
Try to set your financial outgoings so you can take a drop in pay if it doesn't improve, you lived on less before you can do it again.
You laid out that you're working 50+ hours a week & also taking work home that's hard enough when you're 100% invested in your work if you don't even enjoy it it's a recipe for disaster.
Think about what you want to do for the next 25 years, if you can get a 3 day week then use the other 2 to do an OU or part time college course
Currently my weekend is about a day and a half, which is taken up with the usual laundry and house maintenance, plus wedging in what small social life I've managed to retain. I can't write during the week. I can't focus on it. My rationale though is that four days off a week would enable me to actually write, and the other three would earn enough pro-rata to cover the bills.
I'm going to discuss it with my wife, as she obviously has a say in this. I honestly don't know how my MD would respond. I know they'd rather not lose me, but whether that extends to the kind of reshuffle that would be necessary is another matter.
+1000 on this.
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
Lockdown has been a great eye-opener for many people. I was off for 12 weeks on the 80% furlough pay but being at home all the time meant I wasn't spending money and I've actually come out of it financially better than if I had been getting full wages every month.
I started back a fortnight ago but only doing 2 days. This week it goes up to 3, then in two weeks it'll be 4, then full time come September. I'm seriously considering asking about going part time and sticking at 3 days a week.
There was a recent change to employment law that says that every employer must consider an employee's request for a change to their work hours, whether that's for health reasons, family commitments or whatever. If you want to work less hours then your employers must look at your request. It sounds to me like less hours might be a good solution for you.
Guess I kinda fucked up though because I would like to get into music therapy now and to do that you really need a music based degree haha.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/rights-at-work/flexible-working/flexible-working-what-is-it/
i know its incredibly easy to say but your employer is taking the piss and you're letting them. If you're going to stay then you need to have a genuine conversation with them---"My doctor has advised that I can't keep doing this, you need to get me some help to take the workload off me" and then you have to learn to delegate (reading your description of your worries makes me think that you have a hard time letting go of work).
If that doesn't work, you need to get out before they carry you out.
Good luck.
I regularly work 50 hour weeks. last year I earned 23k. I dont have enough energy at the end of the day to start job hunting. I wish I had the guts just to walk away