Work related stress and anxiety

[Dark_Knight47]

I work part time in a busy retail environment. My duties include door greeting, registers, collecting trolleys, returning stock to departments, cleaning and tidying front ends. Yesterday at work I was feeling really overwhelmed and emotional. I couldn't cope with the demands from customers and some of my team mates. I think part of it was the fact that I was being constantly shoved in different areas of the store and there was too much going on. It was very hard for me to keep a brave face on in front of everyone and I nearly broke down emotionally during my shift.

[Croix]

Dear Dark_Knight47~

Welcome here, a good place to come to, there are many here who would understand that overwhelmed feeling.

I guess there are a few things to consider. The first is the work environment. With all those tasks, which are basically all different, I'd be most surprised if you were the first person to feel that way. Is there any chance you could mention it to your supervisor or team leader and ask maybe to be kept more with things you know and work up gradually to new tasks?

Second would be to pace yourself, and have a moments thought before each new event. You have manged today, which was probably the hardest of the lot. Tomorrow you will have that much more experience. You said there were fellow workers, are there any friendly enough to lend a hand if you get too busy to cope.

It may be in some small way you can make preparations, having maybe a list of stock locations, writing things down you need to remember for a moment and so on, you would have a better idea than me.

Having a healthy lifestyle out of work helps too, with nutrition, sleep and exercise to make you as fit and relaxed as possible. Coping with stressful situations can be easier if you can gain confidence. I find distraction, with book or movies or whatever you enjoy helps too.

It does get easier with practice, and you have already done it successfully once, even if you felt very stretched inside I'm sure on the outside you would have appeared OK.

Please let us know how you go

Croix

[White_Rose]

Dear Dark Knight

Hello, lovely to meet you and a warm welcome to the forum. So pleased you found your way here.

It's sound like you are having a miserable time with your job. Have you been in that job for long? Being the junior person it seems everyone can order you around. Not very nice. I think we all want to know what we are supposed to do and be able to get on and do it. Being chased off somewhere else when you are in the middle of a job is frustrating.

May I ask a couple of questions? Have you felt overwhelmed like this before? I wonder if this happens at other times and places or if this is the only experience you have had. If it's a one off you may be having a bad day but if this happens elsewhere then you may want to look for ways to manage.

I know I get overwhelmed in that fashion at times and it takes a while to get my breath back so to speak. For me it feels as though someone has tipped a bucket of water over me and I find it hard to get my breath back. And inside I go to jelly, especially the legs. No time to think about how to manage. I find I need to think of ways of coping when I am not upset. Cannot think clearly, or maybe that should be cannot think at all, when I am pitchforked into a situation like that.

It's no good worrying about letting others down. You are not Superman and stuff happens at times. The trick is to learn how to minimise the damage to yourself in order to carry out out your job. When you have a quiet time, probably away from work, can you think about what happened and why everything became so emotional. If you can work on that it may help you in the future to take a short time to collect your thoughts, take a deep breath and start functioning again.

Work out where and when you felt overwhelmed and if possible, why that was so. Then look at ways to look at what is happening and metaphorically put it to one side and say "I'll come back to this later". It's surprising how effective this can be but you need to remember to do it and give yourself a few seconds to draw breath.

Love to know how you go.

Mary