- Work Environment: As I've mentioned many times before, I'm very sensitive to environments and often to people within that environment. The environment I encountered when first employed was very easy-going and quiet. Even with my insecurity kicking in with all of the new experiences, it was an ideal situation for me to learn all of the new things that I needed to learn. However, with time came growth in the community requiring company growth to address the needs of the community, and that meant changes. It meant more staffing and more people looking for services. That naturally brings an increase of business and noise. Some corners of the building remained wonderfully quiet, and I was able to work in some of those corners many times; however, I was always moved and eventually got moved to areas that didn't suit me so well. They were places of movement, phone ringing, and a lot of talking. I'm good at zoning things out when I need to, but there's still a part of me that remains completely aware of my surroundings. When things are busy, I pick that sense of hurry and that amps up my anxiety. I'm much more level-headed in quiet places.
- Task procedures: It may have been part of all the newness, but being assigned a new task always caused anxiety and a little bit of hesitation, and that may stem from the younger years when I'd go for things but always end in disappointment. It was part of the job, so I took them on. It required time for me to feel good about it, but there were some things that ended up suiting me well. These changes were always stressful, but there was one change made that I think was perhaps the beginning of the onset of chronic stress which led to my burnout. It was a change in procedure of one of my tasks, and it was changed in the name of efficiency, though efficient for whom, I don't know. It certainly wasn't more efficient for me. It caused more work, and became a nightmare for me to handle, particularly when, in the following years, that particular item was no longer a seasonal task, but lasted year-round.
- Flexibility: Ah, flexibility! It was one of the main reasons I liked working there. Having a family of aging parents and a disabled sibling at home, it was a comfort to me to know that my managers were easy-going. I knew that if anything came up, they were fine with me leaving work to take care of it. That happened a few times. One time was when I found out my grandma passed away and they let me leave to process the news. Another was when I witnessed a coworker have a medical emergency, nearly dying in my presence, and they let me go home to process that as well. I may mention also that in both incidents the managers and staff were very friendly and reached out to me while I was dealing with them, expressing support and comfort. That didn't happen later on, but that's not part of this topic, so that's all I'm going to say for now. As changes in the management were made later on, that flexibility slowly began to disappear. It wasn't so easy to get time off, and I didn't feel quite so free in requesting time off. There was also a push to make employees stop going into overtime and keep below 40 hours, which was understandable, but it was almost too austere in the manner they requested it, so it got a lot of backlashes by more than just me. I also had some little scheduling frustrations with the newer managers, one situation being a schedule change that was approved, but later retracted by the same person who approved it.
- Workload: I loved going home feeling like I accomplished something. That happened for several years, but as with the growth of the company, work increased. Some things changed as the advance of technology began to be necessary for particular services. I was completely in for adjusting to the changes; however, not all changes made within the company suited me, and a good portion of that had to do with the company's desire to combine the resources of all the offices into one central area, which happened to be my office location, and I was put in charge of handling my particular specialty for all of the five offices (and travel locations). That along with centralizing the phone system in which I was asked to participate in, got exceedingly overwhelming to me. I could have done one or the other, but not both together. It was too much.
- Constant relocation: Moving from one place to the other became common for me. When I first worked in the upstairs part of my building, I moved at least three times, and when I went downstairs, I was moved four to five times. It seemed that just as I was getting comfortable in a spot, I would be asked to move again. I was easy-going about it, but it did give me a little bit of a sense that the managers were taking advantage of that. In my last place, I think I was sent there, because they (well, on manager in particular) wanted me where I could help more with answering phones, because they liked the way I dealt with them. That ended up turning into a nightmare and led me to my wits end.
- Manager and department switches: I've mentioned before that the changing of managers and the new ones coming in being stricter, but this isn't what I'm meaning to talk about here. I am speaking of department managers. The first manager I was under kept me for as long as she worked there, but she left either to take care of her terminally ill husband, or after he passed away to live with her children in Texas. I don't remember exactly. It was too long ago. The person who replaced her kept me during her time, but she moved up, and the person replacing her requested to take me out of the department and have a manager in another department deal with me. She was really good to me, but she was older, and retired, leaving that position open to another person, which I got along with fairly well, but she changed management positions. The person replacing her was someone who from the beginning showed signs that things weren't working between us. With the department change and other changes (the constant relocation mentioned above being one of them) I'd felt like I was being tossed around, and that I wasn't really a part of any department, that they had all disowned me, and I was left alone to deal with things. That may have been a part of my chronic stress and/or burnout brain thoughts kicking in there.
There are probably others out there who are the opposite of me and would love this environment. I know there are people who exist who thrive on the constant movement and action as well as changes. As someone who's more introverted, these things only cause stress. I'm entirely capable of being a hard worker, and many who worked with me there can attest to it, but to have me at my best, I need space and at least some quiet to keep my mind clear.
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| Meme from introvert website (see above link) |
