Work stress and work bullying from management

[Worriedatwork]

At my current job I have been thrown into the deep end doing two full time roles as one person. The stress is getting to me and I have been getting extreme anxiety. I have expressed to my manager/management that it’s too much and they just say oh it will get better in time. But it hasn’t. The branch manger is very hard to approach on the best of days he is very good at making you feel lesser and belittling you. On several occasions he has called me a sook for not feeling well and that has only made me feel worse about myself. I try to push through my feelings but I can’t ignore them anymore. I have been looking for different work to get me out of this male dominated industry (my boss is 60 and thinks even if you are sick you should be at work) he is always swearing at all the other staff members and is extremely proud of how many people have quit because of him. How do I return to work after being sick and not let his comments affect me? 

[Wagtail84]

Wow 

that is sounding reallly tough and horrible 

is there no HR equivalent you can access at your job? 
I would just continue looking for another job and that would make me strong enough to ignore all the jabs or comments. 
sounds like they need you more than you need them at this point so I would start slacking off as well, what are they going to do fire you? Not likely 

best of luck I hope you get some support or help with it soon

wag x 

[Worriedatwork]

I do have this fear of me going back in after if being sick and then saying pack your shit and leave. Tbh if it did happen it would give me the opportunity to take them to fair work. We do have HR but so many other people have complained about him from yelling at them and swearing at them and he is still here. Honestly it’s just an endless cycle of fear. Walking on eggshells. 

thank you for your kind words, they do mean a lot to me! 

x

[blues23]

Have you reported to work safe they can assist you with a workplace bullying claim takes bout a month if they agree that your case is strongly which looks like it is as your mental health is struggling, or as per above use up ur sick leave and whist your doing it look for another job and quit . 

[therising]

Hi Worriedatwork

That's an absolutely horrible situation to be in. From what you say, they've been more than happy to put you under an enormous amount of stress and have a highly questionable level of sanity. When it comes to that manager, tell me how sane it is that someone is actually proud of how abusive and mentally destructive they are. How sane is it to label someone who's unwell as a sook? Personally, I'd label someone as unwell and needing time off work for their body to be able to bounce back to peak performance. A sane manager would want peak performance out of their employees. They'd encourage it. How sane is it to put one of your top performers under so much pressure that you end up losing them, driving them out of the job? Keep in mind, any boss who says 'Back in my day we were tougher'. You gotta question what 'tougher' means to some people. Back in the day, some trade apprentices were beaten or injured as some insane right of passage and if they cried they were deemed 'weak'. These days a lot of that behaviour is illegal and thank goodness.

I think it's extra tough if we've been conditioned to be someone who doesn't rock the boat too much or someone who aims to please. We can work harder than ever before, under intolerable amounts of stress, 'til we break or finally leave. We can take a poop load of psychological abuse that's deemed okay by some, until we just can't take it anymore. Sometimes it's only through a breakdown that we start to break down all the abuse in the lead up to breaking point. In a lot of ways we're tougher than what people give us credit for. We can take a lot more than those who may put us under stress (those who don't want the stress, so they give it to us in some way, to lighten their load). We can take a lot more than insensitive abusive arrogant people, who like to shut confrontation down so they don't have to cop too much of it or so they don't have to be reasonable, providing good reason. There's skill in being a reasonable person. No skill in being unreasonable.

In the lead up to finding a different job perhaps you could flip the script regarding your manager. Instead of seeing him as the tough one who's managing things, you could perhaps see him as the insane one who's mismanaging. Next time you meet with him, consider thinking 'This man is insane and proof of that will be based on what comes out of his mouth'. So, when he says something highly questionable, you can be thinking 'THERE'S PROOF!'. If he adds to what he's said with something else, you could then think 'This man has completely lost his mind'. Smile in a knowing way, when you think this. That smile will tend to torment him, for he will have to know why you're smiling when he speaks. While he thinks he's tough and someone to be feared, you will know the truth...this man is not in his right mind.

[divine_inner_goddess]

Hi Worriedatwork, 

Oh gosh, that sounds like a really horrible situation. How you are being treated is so wrong and very cruel. Sounds like your health is suffering because of it. Unfortunately, people like this rarely change. And the workplace culture is unlikely to change whilst he is the boss. That is tough to be away sick and then have to go back and face the abuse again. It's just not on. I am guessing that being under that much stress would probably make you sick again, and again, and again.  

I hope it is okay to share a similar experience I had in a workplace.... I took over from someone who had worked in the company for 20+ years and had built quite an impressive service. When I stepped in, it was like taking on two full-time roles and I was only working part-time. I quickly became overwhelmed, sick, stressed, anxious, and at times panicky. I tried to address the work overload with the big boss. I showed them my Outlook calendar with the tasks squeezed in for each day. And compared it to the list of tasks I was expected to do. And showed how I couldn't possibly fit it all in with the time I had. That helped a bit -  I was able to offload some of the tasks to others, and it helped me to prioritise the most important stuff and let the other stuff go. BUT the expectation was already there amongst all the staff that I would do ALL these things, like my predecessor. And it looked like I was slack when things got passed off to other people.

To make it worse, my immediate boss was targeting me right from the beginning - storming into my office and reprimanding me for doing things that were actually by job! I was on edge ALL THE TIME - treading on eggshells. I thought it might be just a settling in thing, but it continued. I raised it with the big boss and apparently he spoke to my boss. But it kind of made things worse. I realised that this person was not going to change, and I would always feel anxious and stressed in that role. So after 6 months of trying to make it work, I left. I was a nervous wreck and heading for a breakdown. I had to put my health first. I realised that sometimes, you just have to walk away from something or someone that is harmful to you. 

therising - I can relate to your comment about having a breakdown in order to break down the abuse that led to the breakdown in the first place. Shortly after I left that workplace I did indeed have a breakdown. I also think it takes a breakdown to break through.

Worriedatwork - I wish you all the best for finding a way to break through it, 

dig