Struggling to cope

[Everglow.]

I'm sorry I'm posting because I don't think I'm looking for advice or anything, I just feel completely helpless and need to vent somewhere I guess. I've not been doing great lately and today I feel myself getting closer to slipping over the edge and breaking down and I honestly don't know what to do.

Work's been a nightmare for a while now. I work in an opticians and all throughout lockdown we've been open and I've been working. We try to keep it to urgent and essential eye care only, but it's a store policy not a company policy, which means any time we get a visit from the regional managers we have to justify if we have gaps or appointments blocked out, and since we advertise that we're seeing routine appointments, we have no excuse. Most days, we run on 2 fully booked clinics, and we're usually booked solid for at least a week in advance. So it's busy. We have no time to triage for the next day to find out if people are isolating or if there are appointments we need to rearrange due to them being a child etc, so most days we're literally overrun. From 9 until 5:30, it's just manic. And with two fully booked diaries, we usually have a maximum of 5 staff. And it's not enough. Even when we had 7 on Saturday, we were still so ridiculously busy that we couldn't manage. And it isn't letting up. If anything, it's getting worse as every week passes. I don't enjoy the job anyway, because I'm paid minimum wage to do so much work that at the end of the day I feel physically and emotionally drained and very unsupported by the company who think that if you're unhappy you can just go.

I'm looking for another job, but realistically, right now there isn't a lot out there. I have two degrees I'm not using, and I don't want to be in this line of work anymore. It's been 5 years and I'm just done with it.

To make matters worse, I found out today my manager is changing. Which isn't necessarily bad because my current manager has been an issue, but the manager taking over was the person who ran my previous store. I transferred last September because I really didn't like her as a manager and she and I had a few issues. When she took over, it seemed a lot like she wanted to scrap the team and rebuild her own, and as a result many people ended up being pushed out. I nearly broke down in tears when I found out she was taking over because I had so much anxiety working with her after I bought up something that had really upset me and she then avoided me and never resolved it.

Transferring could be an option, but they're closing stores left right and centre, and right now my store is stable and I know they won't close us. So moving is a risky move, and there are no other jobs, and I'm having sleepless nights and crying on my lunch break at work because it's so bad.

Sorry for rambling. I don't know what I'm looking for out of this. I just feel at my whits end and my fuse is growing shorter and it just all feels so helpless on top of the other stuff going on in my head lately making me not okay outside of work either.

[Stacey]

Hi Hollie,
How you're feeling is totally valid. Even without COVID it's difficult to manage a practice like that. I work at a chiropractic clinic so I imagine we have a lot of overlap in what we do, so I totally get it.

You have to consider too that COVID brings up a lot of other issues in terms of burnout, while we're lucky we're working through all this we have the stress of being at work and not safe at home which is stressful, the increased protocols, just interactions with patients alone are very draining now because the nature of those interactions has changed and come with a heaviness.

I'm glad you've recognized that you're burnout and unsatisfied with your job, and if you hang in there I'm sure you'll find a job more suited to you soon. Things are starting to look up in most places now and hopefully, the job market will soon reflect that.

Feel free to PM me or send me a message on discord if you ever need to vent to someone that has a similar job to you, I'm happy to lend an ear and commiserate over similar struggles, haha.