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Burnout Rant
Call center work is burning me out. For the past year I’ve been working in a strictly sales position (and I am not a salesperson by profession) with no break in my work routine. There is also no work-life balance to speak of and it’s wearing me down.
Several times throughout my tenure there I have tried to go into other positions to get out of the aggressive and often dirty sales tactics we’re forced to use. Twice I’ve applied for a position in Quality Assurance and been denied, another time I applied for just customer service and they wanted me for that however before I was able to make the move, they shut down that department! The only position for me to go into at this point would be a downgrade, both in position and pay, which I just can’t afford.
My shift, which I have no say in, takes up the portion of the day where I don’t have time before or after work to get anything done. As I’m leaving for work, things have just opened and after work, most things are already closed. I get home usually around 9pm, try to decompress from the day, eat, and pass out for a bit, then I’m awake for several hours because it’s screwed up my sleep schedule so bad. I try to be asleep again by 2am so I can be up by 9:30 to do it all again.
My health is legitimately suffering. My mental health is deteriorating. My stress levels are through the roof. Management is on us constantly, pushing us for more and bigger results at everyone’s expense. With the exception of the rare nice and civil person who calls in, most of the people on the other end of the phone are utter asshats who feel they can be abusive to a stranger with zero accountability. I take it from all angles. My anxiety over walking in on Monday mornings begins in my stomach on Sunday and I dread thinking of what I’ll be walking into. On the drive in, a 45 minute commute, I get heart palpitations that terrify me because often I feel like I’m going to pass out at the wheel while driving. That Monday morning meeting is always about how terrible we’ve done and how much harder we have to push. Stop pushing me!
So, for the almighty dollar, I keep plugging. I go in every morning only to hear how bad I am at my job, to get pushed harder and watched under the microscope, afraid to stop to breathe. I’ve had medical issues this year between COVID and heart issues brought on by the stress so I don’t have time off to use for a break. Plus, we are heading into the busy season where all time off requests are in the blackout period for most of the rest of the year. I need to be in therapy for C-PTSD and stress but I have no PTO with which to schedule it. I need 2 weeks off to breathe and reset but I can’t get to a doctor to recommend a short-term for mental health. I can’t afford to just leave because I’m already living paycheck to paycheck and I am the only income in my family. This job is gonna kill me.
Covid is a Respite from Work
Disclaimer: I’m not condoning getting Covid. It’s horrible. We (my partner and I) are on day 19 of symptoms that keep coming in waves. It started Christmas Eve. We thought we just had a cold. Scratchy throat, sinusy, coughing, run-down. I started taking a ridiculous amount of zinc (Zicam) and symptoms started ebbing. Christmas night, they came back and by Sunday, I was wiped out. Still went to work Monday with a pack of tissues and a tickly cough that could best be described as annoying. My partner came in 4 hours later and told his supervisor how he was feeling at which point our respective supervisors immediately sent us to get the Brain Probe.
We tried the Health Department tent site – they had run out of tests hours ago but we were still able to register and the administrator promised to call us that afternoon saying she would hold tests for us when she got a resupply. That never happened. I tried to get us in at Walgreens, CVS, the local community clinic, and 2 walk-in clinics – could not get an appointment for over a week. Our job will not accept a home test – they must be done in a lab – but there were no home tests available either just for our own edification. We went home exhausted. I made some more phone calls. Finally I found a sketchy walk in clinic that confirmed there were tests available and they were testing every day from 10 til 2 with the caveat that it would cost $20 with insurance, $100 without. As mad as I was at that, we really had no other choice. Everyone else was no cost – as it should be in the 3rd year of a frikking pandemic – but there were simply no testing supplies anywhere.
The next morning, we tried the tent site again to no avail. Still no tests. We went on down to the sketch walk-in and were able to get right in. Within 72 hours, we had positive results in our emails. My blood went cold when I saw mine. I had no idea what I was in for, how bad symptoms would be, how it would affect my asthma, how long it would last. I had an unknown in my system and no idea how I would react to it. That was terrifying. Even more scary? How the hell am I going to tell my partner who was still sleeping and hadn’t checked his email yet? Having worked in a medical field for 20 years, he was especially up at arms about folks spreading it by not getting vaccinated. The twist here? We had both had both shots AND our booster was done just a week prior to showing the first symptoms. Plus we’d just spent Christmas with his family.
I told my dad first, then my sister, just to practice I suppose. They were concerned and supportive. By the time he woke up, he checked his email and saw his positive, I just said, “Same.” I thought he would be mad but he was just in shock. That was 2 1/2 weeks ago and we’ve had another positive test since then, awaiting our 3rd results. We keep calling in to work every day to ensure we’re still on the payroll. We’re not getting paid because our short term disability has a 2 week elimination period so that’s hit us for about 2 grand. We’re having to get financially creative.
On the bright side, we’ve gotten a lot closer during our quarantine and isolation. We’ve had many good talks, even some including marriage. I’ve gotten a lot done around the house and we’ve gotten caught up on things we’ve been letting slide, including intimate things. We’ve not had work stress, no schedules, just time together and instead of being left at each other’s throats, we’ve actually gotten closer. I have to say I don’t mind the forced lock-in. I couldn’t ask for a better plague partner.
Next results should be ready in the morning. This is round 3. We still have symptoms. All bets welcome.
The rest of you, stay well.
Wherever You Are, Be All There
As the stress of existing in 2020 continues to build, it is now more important than ever to remember that stress itself has a wide fallout of other symptoms. Headaches, high blood pressure, anxiety… These are just a few signs of the brain and body experiencing increased stress. Taking just a few minutes out of everyday to sit still, breathe, and meditate can do wonders. While our minds are busy trying to process information about everything we are going through right now, both individually and as a nation, it is imperative that we reset often and let all of it go for a little bit.
It doesn’t take any kind of special knowledge to simply meditate. With practice however you will certainly find the effects become more tangible and you start feeling healthier mentally as well as physically. Once that stress leaves your body there is a noticeable difference. Of course it will return because these are the times we live in. That’s when it’s time to meditate again. And again. Make self-care a habit that you cannot break.
There is always time and a place to meditate.
I live in a house with three other people, my extended family. We are four people in a two bedroom house and understandably it gets a little crowded at times. I work 10-hour shifts and have some small semblance of a social life. Even so, I still find and defend my personal space and time whenever necessary.
As someone who already suffers from anxiety and hypertension, quieting my mind and achieving that peace is necessary to my daily health routine. Though I rarely have any true privacy, there are still places I can go. I have no problem locking myself in the bathroom for 10 minutes. Nor do I mind sitting in the cab of my truck with the windows closed and absolute silence. Sometimes I will drive out to the river during off peak hours and sit alone just listening to the water. Sometimes sitting on the front porch and focusing on a specific bird song, or even the conversations between the mockingbirds and the scrub jays brings me back into myself.
10 breaths is all it takes. A slow breath in, holding it for as long as I can, and slowly letting it go. As I exhale, the picture all the stress leaving my body. Financial troubles, drama at work, the stress that seeps off others… I push it all out with every exhale. Sometimes I will do this between calls at work, usually on every break. After a full day on the phone, it becomes necessary to close my eyes, cover my ears, and just stop everything for a while. Via my smartwatch, I can literally watch my pulse go down from around 120 to 78 or so within the course of a few minutes simply by physically blocking all external stimulus and consciously breathing.
When you feel overwhelmed, never be ashamed to hold up your hand and tell someone that you need a moment. Go off on your own, close your eyes, breathe. It is far better to take a few moments to yourself than to let the stress build. Eventually it has to come out somewhere.
F-Bombs
Have you ever had a memo come out at work as a “friendly reminder” about what is not to be done? Reiterating some obvious rule from the company code of conduct or a recent meeting topic that hasn’t had a chance to make it into the books yet? Every time one comes out, which is a couple times a month for us at Call Center X, we can’t help but wonder who did something so gastly that the rule beared repeating.
We get the usual:
“Please do not take food from the break room that isn’t yours.”
“Please do not bring your cell phone onto the call floor.”
“Please remember all cups must have lids.”
We get the unusual:
“Please do not deposit feces in the bathroom trash cans.”
“Please refrain from engaging in public intimacy.”
“Please do not approach, feed, or touch the alligators.” (That was me.)
Another one that was me:
“Please refrain from using foul language in the group chat.”
Yep, it happened. Give me a break guys, I was having a stressful day and it slipped. All the systems were crashing, it was impossible to work, and someone asked if it was just them. I said nope, all my systems are completely fuckered. The silence after I hit Send was so deafening you could hear the collective gasp from workstations throughout the tri-county area. Oops. It was at that moment I realized how many managers I actually answer to. They all immediately appeared in my private messages.
I apologized dozens of times, after which I got tired of trying to make amends and just landed in the, “you know what, fuck it, I’m only human and we all have bad days” mindset. That afternoon, the memo came out. Everyone knew who the impetus was for this one. They were all there. I didn’t hear any more about it though I’m certain it will be in my annual review. All I can do is move forward and maybe take a little more CBD before I log in for the day. It does make me a nicer person 😉
Couch Surfing Grandmas
I’m not entirely sure what’s happening but every year when I look at my earnings over the years, I find myself making less than I did a decade ago, even as a teenager. Doing relatively the same work, I earned more in my 20s then I do in my 40s. This mystery drives even deeper when I do the math and realize that at my current wage, there is no way to afford my own place whereas before 2012, I’d lived on my own since I was 17. I also was reminded of this when I heard from a friend who let me know that she would be staying with one of our other friends until she could find a place to live.
We are both mature adults with a long career history. I have a grown child, she has grandchildren. What has happened that neither of us, nor many others we know, are unable to afford basic shelter on our own? Where has the income gone? The LIVABLE income that we used to make? Rents have tripled in the past 10 years but pay rates have gone down. The company we work for does not give annual merit pay increases. Some folks have been at the company 10+ years and are still at their starting pay, stuck because of the lack of work available elsewhere in the area. Middle class is now low income. Here we are, with college degrees and solid work histories, with children and grandchildren, and we are living off food pantries and friends’ couches. Something is very wrong here.
In the recent election, florida voters went all in to approve a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. It will happen gradually over the next few years. In 2025 myself and many others will be back to making what we did 20 years ago. But now what is that going to do to rent prices and other necessities like food and utilities? If the cost of living increases even slightly, we’ll be right back where we are now, struggling, savings depleted just to cover a few months of hardship. Something’s got to give.
When the Rules Get Ridiculous
Working for any company, regardless of size, rules are going to be there. In my experience, smaller companies have fewer rules and the larger ones like to have these massive handbooks of things by which we must abide. The Employee Handbook. The bible of how one is expected to conduct themselves. Most of it honestly comes down to common sense. Conflicts of interest: don’t. Sexual harassment: don’t. Insider trading: don’t. When they start edging the rules into your personal space however, that’s when I start to take issue.
This particular one gets under my skin to the extent that I’ve vehemently spoken and acted against it: no smoking or vaping in your vehicle while on company property. I beg your pardon? I quit smoking nearly 3 years ago but I do still vape. How do you get off telling me I cannot vape in my own vehicle? If this were coming from some type of business like a hospital, I might understand. But let’s be honest. I work for a call center. This is not a business that deals in person with medical practices, we do not have customers coming in and out. The building does not have a smoking section nearby. It’s a 10 minute round trip walk – breaks are 15 minutes – to the edge of the property, at the edge of a pond (alligators included), with no shelter from rain or sun. There is no separate vaping section for those of us who have quit smoking and now cannot stand to be around it.
When I worked on-site, I would retreat to my vehicle on lunch and breaks, not only to get a break from people (call center work is very high stress) but to seek shelter from 90+ temperatures, pouring rain, etc. And I would vape. I was not bothering anyone. No one had to smell my horrible strawberries and cream or cheesecake clouds. There were no ashes, no cigarette butts, just me and my nicotine Zen. To tell me that I am going to be written up (and to actually do so) for vaping in my own vehicle is far overstepping the bounds of realistic and practical rule-making. I feel like it punishes me for quitting smoking and wanting my privacy and quiet time.
Thankfully due to Florida’s stay at home orders issued in March I was able to start telecommuting to work and no longer need to deal with such nonsense. I was only reminded of this when a mass email was distributed this week reiterating this ridiculous rule because apparently others who still work from the office are still breaking it. Good on you, my peers! Keep breaking those rules that stifle your personal freedoms in the few minutes you get to yourself each day to decompress in the privacy of your own car.
Working Sick: Where’s the Line?
Recently (meaning a couple months ago), NPR did a report featuring workers who go to work sick. For the majority, it was mainly older employees who tended to stay home while the younger workers were more apt to push through their illness to not miss work.
The major difference between these two groups were the ones who tended to stay home were those who had tenure and got paid sick time off or would otherwise not be punished for taking time off. This was the older set. Of those interviewed in the younger set, they told the reporter they almost always went to work sick because they did not have paid (or even unpaid) sick time that they were allowed to use. Illnesses ranged from painful migraines to colds, flu, and other contagious illnesses that involved vomiting and diarrhea at work. Those who went to work sick said they did so because they could not afford to lose the pay or their jobs.
I was reminded of this radio spot as I forced myself to go to work sick today out of the same fear. I’d called out the past two days with severe bronchitis but could not afford a write-up for missing any more time, so I stuck it out. I ended up getting worse throughout the day because I wasn’t able to rest or take the medications that I have been at work – they put me to sleep. Upon returning to work today, I also heard from several others that they’d had to call out sick this week too for the same thing and I know where it came from. One person who came in sick 2 weeks ago coughing up a storm and even bragging about having the flu and still working.
The question is: where does someone who lives paycheck to paycheck draw the line between going in sick and staying home for their own health and others? Is it worth losing money or even your job to keep others safe? How do you handle it? Comments are welcome.
Down Time
Daily Prompt – Money for Nothing?
In response to: Daily Prompt – Money for Nothing
Dream jobs… we all want one. For some, that dream job just means sitting back and collecting on a winning Powerball ticket. The most joy, I think, comes from the satisfaction of doing work that you love that also pays the bills. My dream job is not going to be found in any newspaper or on Monster. It will have to be crafted with hard work and a hefty sum of funds to start – where they would come from is unknown but… prayer does bring miracles, especially when it’s for a good cause.
This is something I’ve been half-heartedly plotting for years – half-heartedly due to not knowing where or how to acquire the funds to start and run it all. I started by listing three of my main interests that I would love to make my life’s work: animal rescue, social work and a bed and breakfast. In combining these things, I came up with an idea: An unwanted horse rescue which would be run on a ranch. As part of a ranch, there would be housing. That housing could be used as a battered women’s shelter. The name: Renewal Ranch. The organization’s “icon” would be a simple sunrise, signifying each day bringing new light. Something like…
…Without the green screen of course 🙂
Horses are taken in to be cared for. Women are taken in to be cared for. In return for their shelter, the women would get to connect with nature and the horses by helping to care for them. Both the women and the horses would be safe, sheltered, fed and helped to recover from abuse, neglect and un-want. The joy to me would be in helping everyone involved, give the women a purpose and the horses a second chance. The positive energy would come full circle as the women rehabilitate the horses and the horses help rehabilitate the women. I’m giving myself 9 years to find a way to acquire the funds for this project because I would like to “retire” from the corporate world at 50 and spend the last half of my life (yes, I plan on being around until at least 100!) doing good for some of those most in need. My dream job – a labour of love.
ISO: Stability
Bear with me as I reflect on some out of the way things here, like the connection between Daytona and God. I’m still unsure which led me to which, but here I am, borderline homeless in Daytona (defined soon) and wondering why after such fervent prayer, life keeps throwing me one backhand after another just trying to knock me down – which, admittedly, it has a few times in the past five months – and keep me from getting back up.
After losing my job in January 2013 due to the death of the owner of the company and subsequent company closure, I spend the next 8 months looking desperately for work that would pay enough to cover my basic expenses: rent, utilities, transportation, food… I’d taken a couple temp jobs in that time frame because they were all that were offered, but it was still nowhere near enough to cover even rent. After my tax return had run out, rent of course fell behind. I had given up numerous comforts (if you can consider a proper diet and asthma/heart medication comforts) in order to start paying a little over each week on my rent to catch up. By August, I was essentially destitute. Knowing I couldn’t continue to pay rent, I gave my landlord 2 weeks notice and moved in with the man next door for a couple weeks. That turned out to be a nightmare, as he was an ex felon and was extremely controlling and cruel. He was also just plain disgusting as a person. His treatment of me made living there unbearable and so I got out before I got into a situation that I wouldn’t be able to escape.
In September, someone I used to date back in 2010 contacted me from Daytona and offered to let me move in there. It took a lot of very difficult decision making as this would put me 3 hours away from my daughter of whom I have shared custody. Seeing her 4 days a week would then mean seeing her only once every 4-8 weeks due to miles, gas, funds, etc. Without work and without a place to live however, I had to make the decision to relocate to try to get back on my feet. You may as well have ripped my heart out of my chest and taken my last breath away because that’s what it felt like as I started heading to Daytona without my baby girl. There was no work, unemployment had run out, my tax return and savings had run out, and I was without shelter. What else could I do?
I get to Daytona and just as I arrive at the house, I find out the water has been shut off. Not a good omen. Ex is scrambling to find the funds and we are out of water for days. It goes ok after that for a couple months, I learn my way around town but never quite feel welcomed. These people have a completely different set of ethics (or lack thereof) from the way I am. I find work within a week of arriving, but instead of being helped to get on my feet as was promised, I end up financially supporting a household of seven people, sometimes in full, on bills, food, gas, cigarettes, personal supplies, household supplies… The ex… he makes a decent sum of money, netting far more than I ever have in a month, but spends it all as soon as it comes in. As many times as I asked him to sit down and create a household budget with me, he changed the subject. Soon, the money I was making was running out, leaving me with nothing at the end of the week for having to support everyone but myself. That’s December, about the time his whole personality changed. He began to withdraw, to push me away, then one of his own exes came back into his life. He stopped coming to bed, started staying up all night on the phone with her, spent nights out (taking personal supplies that made it obvious it was a planned “sleepover”), and started becoming emotionally abusive. Then mentally abusive, eventually moving into screaming, cussing, threatening and being all out vicious toward me. At that point, I was scared as I’d been through this before and each time it only escalated. This man was becoming completely unraveled and was getting progressively and rapidly worse.
Come January, he’d left me for the third time. The final time he broke up with me, he did so online without telling me, then told me finally and had the nerve to immediately ask me for gas money. Upon refusing to give it to him because – well – he’d just left me, he threw me out, first with 30 days notice, then with 3 days notice. I came and went, sleeping where I could but the room he had just haphazardly thrown my few remaining belongings into was unlivable – it is a storage room, full of junk and mold, there is no door, no privacy, no bed, only a bare box spring, and a filthy couch that made me sick to sleep on one night. I felt like an unwanted dog being banished to a filthy kennel, only I think he’d have treated a dog better than he was treating me.
My dad being my angel, he ended up providing a clean, safe place while I looked feverishly for a roommate but Friday will be my last night there. In the interim, a woman I’ve known for several years and used to work with ended up offering a room to me with her in Sebastian. We talked about it, sorted out the details, and I was to move in with her this coming Saturday, the 8th. Trusting that my friend was acting honorably, I gave my daughter the good news that I would only be 45 minutes from her now instead of the impossible 3 hours and that I’d get to see her every week like normal again. She was ecstatic, as was I as we miss each other terribly. Well I don’t know what happened, but 3 days before I was supposed to move in with her, I noticed she’d deleted me from Facebook. I called, no answer. I texted, no response. An hour later, I tried to go to her page to message her and it turns out she had blocked me. There was NO warning or reason as to any of this. I left her several voice mails yesterday and still no response, so my dearest William sent her a message on my behalf asking her what was going on and still has not heard back.
Still have no idea why a friend of several years who so happily offered to have me move in with her, saying I’d done so much for her over the years, would – without any warning – delete me from Facebook, block me, refuse to answer her phone, return a text or a voice mail. Why would someone do that? She knew what I had at stake. She knew I’d already told my daughter that I was moving back to the area, she even offered to come up to Daytona to help me bring some of my things down. The last conversation we had, she gave me the new address and we were making plans for the move this coming Saturday. It was all a go and she said she was happy to help, that I owed her nothing. I would really love to know what is behind all this, why someone who was always so sweet would out of the blue do this to me. Does anyone have any insight to offer as to why someone would do that?
So thank God I did not turn in my resignation at work, as I would have had to do had this move gone through. Something stopped me from doing it, “Just in case.” I returned to my search for a roommate and happened to call on a listing last night for a room for rent in the area… a little more than I was budgeting, but I will have to work something out if it goes through. I spoke with the homeowner last night for a solid hour and she was very friendly, an older lady, who really seemed to resonate with me. In exchange for helping her around the house, she offered to drop the deposit and pay for half the internet that I would be transferring over. I will be meeting with her tonight and am praying to God that everything works out and I can move in Saturday. At this point, I have no other options so if anyone reading this would please join me in that prayer that I find a place to move into this Saturday, between my faith and your intercession, God can do some amazing things.
The other question bothering me so much is why does God continue to test my faith by allowing me to come into worse and worse situations? I mean I have lost everything over the past 18 months, including access to my child who is the single most important person in my life. I’d go as far as to say she IS my life. Every time I have prayed on this, I have received the same answer: “I do this to draw you nearer to me. If you see that I can raise you from nothing, then you will have everything.” But how much more pain and loss can I take? I realize God knows my limits, but life has become unbearable far too often, especially in the past five months. In RCIA, they discuss depth of faith often. It’s so difficult to have faith when all you’re doing is futile even down to your most basic needs being stripped away and the longer it takes to get an answer – or see a miracle – the further that faith sinks. This becomes a vicious cycle as God detests the lack of faith and puts the person in an even lower situation, pressing the faith to return. It’s a Catch 22 – how does it stop? As life – and faith – elude me, I will leave off here, hoping some answers come in the way of a safe place to live with my meeting of this seemingly nice woman tonight. Thank you for listening, and please – keep me in your prayers.
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