I've worked in my current job for about a year. It's probably the first 9 to 5 I've ever had. At first the structure and the fast paced nature of it definitely staved off the suicidal ideation. But it's now become excessively exhausting, lunch times and break times have been reduced (all within the rules). I've been pushed and pushed to do more and my anxiety is through the roof, so I am back deep into wanting to die again.
I know I don't want to continue this line of work as even advancing here I know would lead to more stress.
Does anyone here enjoy what they do for work?
I enjoyed what I did for work, but I can't go into details. Let's just say I worked intelligence agency adjacent. Very adjacent, but those were the types of people I worked with. They are not good people. Let's just say that. The work was great. The people were awful.
So unless they have quotas, just do what's called "quiet quitting". Just do less or take your time with tasks and extend how long it takes to complete them. If they don't have strict monitoring, you can give yourself breaks, since they won't give them to you. Also since you've been there a year, that should give you enough leverage to mention you feel overworked to your manager. If they are a good manager, they will back off your workload. The sad reality is that 20% of the people in any organization do 80% of the work. So if you work hard, and they know you work hard, they'll just give you more work.
So, step 1: Ask your supervisor for a bit more breathing room. If they refuse and you have leverage then point out the additional workload you've been under and ask for a raise. At least you'll make more money. If that doesn't work:
Step 2: Slow down your work on purpose, but still obviously do a good enough job to where they can't fire you.
While you're doing this, find a different field of work, put out resumes for different companies or jobs, etc. Yes, it'll be a hell of a lot more work on you already being overstacked, but if you know you can't continue this, best to do it now before you get fully overloaded.
But a lot of managers will work with you. They
should know that if they overwork their staff and they get a lot of turnover that that is not good for the business's bottom-line.
It takes a lot of money to hire a new person. Leverage that.
