Overwhelmed at work.

[Mallika]

Things have gone downhill at work over the past month.

It all started with my boss giving me a project to do with no clear instructions. That’s just the way she is with assigning projects to any of our team members - her instructions are never clear. As a consequence, she wasn’t happy no matter how many times I refined and submitted my project deliverable and kept sending snappy emails and texts. It came to a point where I stayed till 7pm on a Friday to try to get her what she wanted, till a senior colleague of mine helped me out and took over to submit it. I didn’t get a single word of thanks or anything that suggested an ounce of appreciation for my week of effort from boss. Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected it either, but it is demotivating to work without any appreciation whatsoever.

Then a few days later, during a meeting, she very randomly dropped the news that the company sponsorship she had promised to fund my master’s degree tuition would probably not be available (in all honesty, for a valid reason). That was unexpected and surprising in and of itself, but the fact that she said it in the midst of a regular meeting in front of the team made it harder to digest. If I were her, I would have called my employee aside, in private and in-person, and explained to them why the company sponsorship might not come through.

All these things aside, she has given me a total of 9 projects to work on alongside my routine tasks. Recently she had a personal chat with each team member and I politely brought up the fact that I had a lot on my plate and requested if I could get an extension. But she turned the tables on me and said that I was being inefficient, which upset me a great deal. She told me “everything on this list can be finished in 2 days” - which is absolute trash because that’s not humanely possible. I know that I am not an inefficient person - I don’t procrastinate, I swear by timetables and to-do lists, I work fast, and yet I am feeling unfulfilled at the end of each day. I know it’s not me, because my time management skills served me well in the recent past while I was in uni and also in other scenarios - I was a straight A student at uni, I had extra-curriculars, I managed my own cooking and household chores and still had me-time each day. I told my senior colleague about this, and she said that she has been through the same thing in the past and that my feelings were valid. In fact, the following day, my boss told this senior colleague that she was being a bad supervisor to me, which is highly unprofessional if you ask me. My boss always says she wants to “train me”, but I have begun to think that if she wanted to genuinely train me, she would actually understand me.

It’s not even been 4 months since I started this job. It’s my first full-time job after university. I’m left feeling incapable all the time, because work never ends. It won’t, because the workload exceeds my threshold.

A month ago, I was a devoted employee. I would be wary of stepping out for too long from the office. I would hesitate to go to the nearest mall to get myself sugarcane juice or takeaway some lunch. I would actually look forward to going to work.

But things changed this past month. In a way, I’m happy the company sponsorship is not going to come through. Because if I accept the sponsorship, I would have to work for 4 years with the company, under my boss, after completing my master’s degree (this is called a bond and is quite common in Singapore). However, I think with everything that has happened, even if the sponsorship were available, I wouldn’t have signed the bond. The master’s degree programmes I’ve applied to are in the United States. Now that I don’t have a bond to worry about, I’m actually looking forward to the future with greater interest. I could perhaps seek opportunities in the United States subsequently. Perhaps I might even do a PhD. The options now seem endless.

I can definitely put up with her for 8 months more or so till I can begin my master’s.

I just had to rant because it’s been a tough month. If anyone has any tips on how to deal with a demanding boss, please let me know. Thank you for staying till the end to read my post.

[Rivière]

Your boss sounds like an absolute nightmare. She clearly has no understanding for your side of the fence. Her demands are too extreme. I had a manager at work that was completely out of touch with his employees. He would place classes on the timetable and some of them were 45 minutes long, 3 of them back to back. Working in a gym is a physically demanding job. Having to come from studio to studio and do all that exercise with gym members back to back for that length of time was absolutely horrific. His attitude was all about hitting number statistics and targets. He didn't care about his employees and how they'd feel about all the work he was placing upon them. It sounds like your boss is somewhat similar in this way.

She seems to place a lot of undue stress on you because she's either completely out of touch with what it's like to be at your level, or that she's trying to hit a specific deadline/target and so is pushing employees like yourself incredibly hard in order to reach them. Not good.

What I can suggest is that you perhaps see if other employees are also in the same boat, or possibly speak to a senior personnel higher than your boss.

On the plus side, at least you only have around 8 months of dealing with her. Though at a time like this, I'd feel like those 8 months can't come quick enough!

[Mallika]

Hi Rivière,

Thanks so much for your reply! Oh God - your previous manager seems terrible! I can't imagine working over 2 hours continuously in a physically strenous job at a gym. I hope you didn't have to stay too long in that role!

Yes, my boss can't seem to understand things from another person's perspective. She is really after getting things done, which is great and all, but not at the expense at employees' mental health.

Thanks for suggesting that I speak with my other colleagues. I have had conversations on this before. To be honest, we all are overworked and overwhelmed. And no prize for guessing who the root cause for our stress is

I'm keeping myself motivated by planning some exciting things for myself - I'll be finally enrolling in lessons to get my driving license, volunteer at a gardening community and hopefully take some Sanskrit language classes. That way I have other things that will keep me occupied as well.

Here's to hoping 8 months will fly!