36
What was a hard pill to swallow? (piefed.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 week ago by [M] to c/womensstuff@piefed.blahaj.zone
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 7 points 1 week ago (1 child)

oof this feels like a vision from my future. im only 6 years into my engineering career and my last job i managed to stay at for almost 4 years before i got so burned out i literally couldnt stand to be there for one more minute and just got up and left one day, never to return. ive been interviewing but i get this vibe from every company that gives me ptsd flashbacks and i dont know if i can convince myself to work at one of them. i suspect theyre catching on to my lack of enthusiasm to some extent so i havent gotten an offer, which is its own kind of stress.

the worst part is that i love the actual day to day work of being an engineer figuring stuff out and solving problems, and im good at it, but i struggle to deal with the social stuff. management in particular seems to just create problems and stress that get in the way of the work and make everything harder. and the stupid pointless meetings that waste time and force context switching that makes keeping up with the work even more stressful. im holding out hope ill find something thats sustainable at least, but its a distant hope.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    For me it was the work itself that also was the problem. I love engineering. That's what's so tragic about it. I love engineering as a discipline or academic subject. But put me in front of a computer and ask me to do the same type of work for 40+ hours a week? I break.

    Don't be afraid to seek outside help or to consider wildly different career options. If you can do the work just fine, maybe you should look into finding a way to exercise your skills as an independent consultant. Don't work for anyone. Just take on work and do it.

    But yeah, I totally get just wandering off. At this last job, I initially quit after three days. My partner and our real need for the money at the time was enough motivation for me to give it another go, and the company was willing to work with me. But in my heart, I knew where this was headed from day one.

    After about 8 months, I reached a breaking point and requested to go on unpaid leave. I took two months, worked with a therapist in the meantime, and got on some medication. I spent my time pouring myself into my hobbies, hoping to reset the burnout.

    Last week I went back, and I quit after three days. When I finally got back into the work for real, nothing had changed. It emotionally felt exactly the same. (And that was enough to have me curled up into a ball, rocking myself though a panic attack at my desk.)

    There might still be a way to make it work for me. Maybe on the right medication and therapy I could find a way to make it work.

    But frankly, I just don't want to anymore. I'm tired of the pain. I've built up so much emotional scar tissue relating to office work. I'm just done.

    I'm just going to do teaching now in whatever form I can. Maybe someday I find a way back to an engineering classroom. Maybe I just be a career tutor. Maybe I become a high school math teacher. I don't know. All I know is if I keep doing this to myself, I'm going to end up on a bridge somewhere. It's gotten that bad.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    yeah... i had recurring thoughts about the roof of my apartment building for a long time before i quit and a while after. im doing much better now since ive been focusing on spending time with friends, building community, and transitioning more. im hoping i can continue that after i get a new job and that it will make it bearable.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago

    Yeah. It really builds on you. I go through this downward spiral where it's like:

    Poor ability to focus -> depression and frustration -> emotional pain leads to more inability to focus.

    I basically end up Pavloving myself into avoiding the work. I get to a point where even looking at it just creates intense emotional pain. When I get to that point, I can't even engage with it. When I'm at that point? You could take away every single distraction from me. Take my phone away. Give me a locked-down computer with no access to the net. Lock me alone in a room with absolutely nothing other than what is required to do the job. Even that would not be enough. When I'm that broken on a job, when it's reached that level of pain? Put me in the perfect distraction-free environment, and I would just end up staring at the wall for hours disassociating.

    While the ADHD distractability is always the immediate problem at a job, the emotional pain and avoidance is the real long-term killer. If it were just distractability, maybe I could reach some stable but modest level of performance. Maybe I could just accept that I would always be a fairly modest engineer, just be content with being fairly low on the totem pole. And if it were just distractability, I could do that. But the emotional side causes things to build. To the point where engaging with the work feels like PTSD.

    It also doesn't help that the emotional toll from one job carries over into the next. At the start of my career I could at least start a job fresh, with complete optimism that it's going to work out. After burning out at seven industry jobs, that's just not possible anymore. From day one I immediately start recognizing the patterns. From day one I can see things that will likely grow to kill the job. If I could reliably get 2-4 years out of a job before burnout, that would be manageable. I could make a viable but modest career that way.

    But because of the carry-over of the emotional pain from job to job, the time to burnout has been declining over they years. Right out of college I could manage two years at a job. Now I can't even make six months of reliably solid perfomance. And what's worse, this has prevented me from ever moving beyond the introductory career level. I've had an active EIT status for 17 years at this point. I've cumulatively had more than enough years to qualify for a PE, and I'm sure I could study for and do well on the test. But that would be pointless. In order to apply for a PE, you have to provide positive recommendations documenting a certain number of years of successful work history in industry. And I essentially have zero positive industry references. I have glowing teaching references, but zero industry ones. At this point I can only really get hired at places that don't ask for references or don't check the ones you do provide. And in my field (civil/structural), the PE is a really big deal.

    And yeah, I get the mention of the roof. When I start consistently having thoughts like that in relation to a job, that's usually the point where I quit. (If I haven't been fired already.) I reach a point where I start legitimately fearing for my personal safety. And that's usually enough for me to get over my hopeless optimism and finally admit to myself that a job isn't viable.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent