Despite these challenges the past two years, I’ve showed up to work consistently and did my best under the circumstances. During my performance review in January, I had a very negative review. I was told my productivity had declined and I “consistently had challenges” the past year. There was no empathy or understanding of my situation. Employers see us as tools to use, abuse, and throw out with little care of us as an individual. I’m doing the best I can.
A good manager will be flexible in these scenarios.
Why? They have less power than you to influence things.
I came here to post specifically about this. I have been there. In the last 1 year, my FIL passed away, grandmother passed away, wife had 2 IVFs and one full-blown miscarriage, Dad was hospitalized for blood sugar spikes, mom was bedridden a few weeks due to blood issues, MIL needed help with property documents and setting up her old age, and my wife's career took a shot because she was a victim of corporate politics.
Notice, I haven't talked about myself because I haven't had time to even think about my own well-being. Am I burned out? Likely. What does my employer (and line manager) care about? Why is a risky service being rolled out slowly and why are other reviewers taking a long time to review code. I get a poor performance feedback for cherry-picked instances, thus creating an environment where perfection is required. Walking on eggshells if you will.
When someone asks what is wrong with American corporate culture, I empathize. America is an immoral, corrupt and exploitative society.
> Employers don’t care
Relatable. I once spent a couple days in hospital because my friend got into an accident. The first day I show up in office my manager calls me into his office, asks how my friend is and then immediately starts grilling me on how I am behind on my work. And this manager was a good _person_ but these companies push you to be less human at times.
Here's hoping that you are able to keep your job. A poor performance review still leaves a chance to stay. It sounds like at least some of the things that have needed your time and attention are no longer overlapping, which might be enough to be able to satisfy your employer without going into full burnout.
My company values me as an employee and I value them as an employer. That's how it should be. They're not all horrible out there, but if you find yourself in a horrible place like you are describing, they are not worthy of your hard work.
One of the most gratifying things in work is when you are finally fed up and quit, the surprise on your manager's face, like they never saw it coming.
Fortunately it was mostly in my head and passive aggressive worked very well in reducing expectations. To a point where I became stressed that I was asked too little. Literally "they" forgot about me for a while. So while enjoying a paycheck for nothing, I realized that cannot last so sadly I became more involved, which lead to more work. At least for the time being I seem to have mastered the screws to throttle productivity and become a classic "do the minimum" loser from the Gervais hierarchy. (Which if you familiar with the concept just means long term sustainable amount and nothing more, nothing less).
I got burned out when I wasn't in a good place. Having the same experience when you have a stable relationship/friendships/family life, healthy hobbies and not-too-limited finances, is probably much different than what I experienced.
Anyways, in there I fell in love with a broken girl and I suddenly had a future. She was very broken and it hurt me to see her hurt herself all the time. I worked for 1-2 months until I quit and went to the Peruvian Amazon for 4 months and tried traditional medicines. It really changed me, when I came back I got another job and everything was fine for about 8 months until they restructured the company and things got really stressful. I went to bed on friday and when I woke up it was tuesday. Another doctor put me on sick leave again and they prescribed me other pills, but instead I resigned and went back to Peru.
I don't have money but at least I'm sane.
For anyone who read this.. listen to your body and get help before you crash. Take vacations often, don't accept overtime. It's not worth it. You're gonna spend all the money you make on recovery. Change jobs if you have to. Find a therapist.
And be sure the vacation is long enough. 2 weeks straight is probably the optimal balance between practicality and relaxability. Though in many cases you may be capped at 1 week straight, but that is still far better than no break at all.
Heh, one time I asked for vacation 6 months in advance. My girlfriend had planned everything, booked all the hotels etc. And one week before the vacation they said I couldn't go because everyone who wasn't fired had quit and I was the only developer they had. In the end they agreed that I could go if I brought my work laptop and had my phone on 24/7. This was about 2 weeks after I had been on my first stress related sick leave. I got a panic attack at work and ended up at the psychiatric emergency where they told me to stay home 2 weeks and that I needed antidepressants (to which my response was "I don't need any f*cking pills, I need more consultants!!" but they couldn't help me with that. I stayed home 1 week staring into the ceiling before going back to work. I was going on vacation soon anyways so I thought I could endure 1 week more.
Had a hard time disconnecting during that vacation.
One doctor recommended me a 4 month vacation and told me "go to India or Peru and do something completely different" and I quit my job and did just that. Should have done that earlier.
Companies in the US can put limits on consecutive vacation days. Both jobs I've had in the financial industry had a limit of 7 business days. While not impossible to go beyond that, it ends up needing approval that goes higher up than your manager.
I'm sure some industries provide more flexibility on consecutive days off, but if they do it's likely because workers don't even have enough days to take much more than that off. According to Forbes[1] the average number of vacation days an employee in the US gets is 11. That average moves to 15 after working at the same place for 5 years. Even though 15 days is enough to take 3 weeks straight, it would be a terrible idea to use all vacation days in one shot. A year is a long time. You're certainly going to be needing another break before a full 12 months has elapsed.
It's this or homelessness and no treatment, though.
But for some, it's all about looking like they care about productivity because that's what their job or manager expects. Certainly this was the case for me. Throughout my twenties, I pushed myself to be more "productive" in my career because I thought I had to look like a go-getter to the people who paid me. I put in extra hours and effort, and even enrolled in an online university course to further expand my skills (resulting in me having next to zero free time!).
I still like to work hard and do good work, but I no longer push myself to be very good at everything I do. "Competent" is my aim. Doing my paid work to a standard that is "good enough" is not only easier on my stress levels, but my managers continue to report satisfaction with my work.