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Work anxiety and fear

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  • August 23, 2018 at 7:41 pm #222803
    Alia
    Participant

    Hi,

    I started a new job at the end of last year. At first it was awesome. I liked the work and my manager was great.

    Fast forward to now. I still like the job, but the job duties that I have now aren’t what I was hired in to do. I can’t help but feel like I’m being set up to fail and I don’t know why.

    Im worried I’m going to lose my job. I need this job to support my family. I don’t know of many options out there anymore for someone my age.

    Im really down about this. My mental health can’t take it if I lose this job.

    My manager tells me we need to have a conversation when he gets back from a business trip. That doesn’t sound good.

    what can I do?

    August 24, 2018 at 3:45 am #222817
    Alia
    Participant

    Updated to add: I feel like I’m being set up to fail because the duties I’m performing are in an area completely unrelated to what I was hired for and I don’t have much experience in what I’m doing. Also adding that I’m in my early 40’s but my town is small and there just isn’t the opportunity here that there is in other places. I’m established here so moving isn’t an option and commuting would not be cost or time effective.

    August 24, 2018 at 4:40 am #222821
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alia:

    You want to keep your job the, that is your goal, correct?

    Prepare for that conversation with your manager, you can prepare for it by writing different scenarios of what he might say to you and prepare your response. This may help you during the real conversation, so you don’t freeze or say something impulsively, without thinking.

    Do you know why your job duties are not what you were hired to do? If in the beginning they were and then changed, maybe the business needs changed, a new customer or supplier. Maybe an employee who performed the duties you are now doing quit, and so the duties fell on you. Anything like that?

    anita

    August 24, 2018 at 9:49 am #222863
    Alia
    Participant

    The company is new to this area and this is their first location here. My duties started in one area but because of need they’ve expanded to include positions that they felt were not going to be necessary in our office. (Employees at the home office we’re to do them but it quickly became unmanageable.) I’ve done everything asked and more but I’m still feeling there’s something going on that I’m not aware of behind the scenes. I just got a glowing review two weeks ago but now that doesn’t appear to be the case. I have not changed my working style or attitude.

    You have a good idea in creating a plan before the meeting. I’ll start on that tonight.

    August 24, 2018 at 9:50 am #222865
    Alia
    Participant

    My duties have expanded, but they also include what I was originally hired to do. I’m doing the work of 4 positions right now.

    August 24, 2018 at 10:06 am #222869
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alia:

    So it reads to me that it was not a malicious plan by the management to change your duties, correct?

    And it is a burden to you, to do “the work of 4 positions” ?

    Because you received a glowing review only two weeks ago, and you have been flexible in performing duties you were not hired to do, and because you do the work of four positions, I am thinking you are not about to be fired. I suppose it won’t hurt to prepare for that scenario.

    In one of the scenarios you can bring up the distress of doing more work that you able  or willing to do, that would be you bringing up your concerns to the manager. You may want to ask about the behind the scenes activity you are concerned with.

    anita

    August 24, 2018 at 1:02 pm #222903
    Alia
    Participant

    It has quickly become overwhelming and some things have been missed here or there. I would hope that I wouldn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I was.

    August 24, 2018 at 2:57 pm #222917
    Alia
    Participant

    I talked with a trusted advisor who helped me realize that I am the problem. My ego was too big and I don’t bring what I thought I did to the table. Now the question is, can I accept that? I don’t want to, but that seems like the lesson the Universe keeps trying to teach me that I just refuse to learn. I don’t want to be worthless or useless but that is exactly what I am. Maybe once I learn this things will turn around. It’s hard to wrap my head around but that’s why life keeps tossing this back to me.  This is my life lesson.

    August 25, 2018 at 7:31 am #222993
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alia:

    You wrote: “My ego was too big”- I would like to understand, therefore I ask: how did your ego express itself as too big at work and otherwise?

    anita

    August 31, 2018 at 8:06 pm #223929
    Alia
    Participant

    I seem to have issues if I seem confident or set boundaries. I was trying to do both. I did get let go. They didn’t really have a good explanation for that. (Said it was just not a fit but not why even when I asked for clarification.)

    September 1, 2018 at 5:34 am #223961
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alia:

    So you did have the conversation with the manager and you were let go, no longer having the job, my goodness, this is sad news to you, isn’t it? I don’t understand what happened, you were doing the job of four positions you wrote, had a glowing review a couple of weeks ago, but then there was some ego issues I didn’t understand, a setting boundaries difficulty.

    You wrote earlier, “I don’t want to be worthless or useless but that is exactly what I am”- I feel sad reading this. Will you tell me more about what you mean by this sentence?

    anita

    September 1, 2018 at 11:29 am #224017
    Alia
    Participant

    I feel worthless and useless being let go from the job.  I feel like there’s nothing out there for me. I feel like there’s nothing I am talented at doing.

    September 2, 2018 at 3:21 am #224041
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alia:

    You shared very little about yourself. All I know is that you are in your early forties, have a family to support (married with children perhaps, I don’t know), live in a small town with little work opportunities, moving is not an option, commuting is cost ineffective.

    You believe that you are “worthless and useless”, at least in the area of work, and you suffer from “work anxiety and fear” as a result. I am not clear about the ego thing, if what you meant is that you behaved at work as too confident, sort of went to an extreme from the worthless belief to display the opposite?

    What I do know is that I shared your belief myself, that I was worthless and useless most of my life. It is only recently, while still in what I refer to as my process of healing, that this core belief has been changing. Before I was much more anxious than I am now because I felt that I didn’t know what to do in this or that situation, that I didn’t know the right thing to do, how to respond to people, how to protect myself or even know when I was supposed to protect myself. I didn’t have me to count on, to trust. So I was anxious. Can you relate?

    anita

     

    September 29, 2018 at 4:10 pm #228155
    HoneyBlossom
    Participant
    • Hello,  this is my first post hete.  I just want to say that I truly understand because I am currently going through a very similar situation.  I am 58 years old.

    I did actually make an error.  I know this sounds like Im making an excuse,  perhaps I am,  but I was wworking under extreme duress in that I was being rostered to travel 992kms each way to work a one hour shift with no financial rrimbursement because of how my sshifts were structured that day.  I klive in rural Australia where petrol costs are high (Im a community carer in aged care).  I wotk for a Christian-based organusation.

    From what my manager had said to me,  the organisatiin has not gotten the contracts they expected to, and it couldcbe that the jibs in this region will fold up.

    I know for a fact that until very recent times,  they got a lot of good feedback from clients on me.  Since this hapoened,  I feel Im being demonised. Now there are other accusations made against me.

    I thI think its possible that they are looking for a reason to either sack me or be so unpleasant that I will leave of my own accord.

    AAlia,

    It doesnt make sense to me that a person with a good work record is in ssuch a short time then regarfrd in such a different light.

    I pray the universe will taje goid care if both of us.

    September 29, 2018 at 6:19 pm #228163
    HoneyBlossom
    Participant

    Im so sorry for my typing errors.  Luckily. i am not employed to type and just messaging from my phone.

     

    I should have typed that I had to drive 92kms each way for a one hour shift at $22 per hour and received no reimbursements for petrol or wear on my car. Cost me more for petrol than I earned.  I rang them about it before the day of the shift.  I spoke to an office worker who manager has since said I was rude to but know I wasnt.  He said she says that about everyone including him,  but he still “confronted” me about it.  Nevertheless,  I sent an apology to her,  but this has not been acknowledged. There are a few things like this of unsubstantiated accusations.  I feel deeply hurt as I was commited to work and my clients,  and always tried to do a good job.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by HoneyBlossom.
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