I hate my job but can't quit

[samloverzpie]

I HATE my job. I work in an office for a construction company. I write contracts for other contractors, but there is so much more work that goes along with it. I am constantly dumped on paperwork wise by my boss and the project managers. I work with mostly men directly, and despite them all saying how i do a good job (they all say i do a great job, which is really nice. Except one who says i just give everything to her to deal with. and he does. regardless of whether or not it's actually my job or not.) i am constantly put down and ignored. One of the guys will go so far as to interrupt me and my work multiple times in a day, give me incorrect information, and then fight with me about how he is right and i can't do anything right. One day, i even had the pleasure of answering the phone and being told i am not educated enough to make any decisions and my opinions should be kept to myself. I constantly feel like a chicken with her head cut off, running around. I have developed horrible daily headaches from the stress, and i feel like crying every day.

The girls i work with are all crazy and caddy. There are 3 older women, 2 younger women, my boss, and me. when i first started, the girl who trained me (one of the older ones) literally set me up to fail. another girl (older) is just...everything, and i mean EVERYTHING out of her mouth is negative or how something she did is bigger and better than yours. if you stubbed your toe, she broke a leg. if i had the best cupcake, she had the best cake. and she fights you on everything. One day in the office, we were talking about how much we enjoyed Taylor Swift. she literally fought us about how horrible she was. a couple days later we were talking about something Taylor had done and we were talking about how we didn't care for it. she jumps in with how she cannot believe we don't like Taylor Swift and how she is just the most amazing person. :/ the last older one is very nice, BUT OH LORD. EVERY SINGLE DAY SHE HAS TO TALK ABOUT SOMEONE WHO DIED OR THESE TRAGEDIES GOING ON IN THE WORLD. the older ones focus so much on the negative in life and suck all the energy out of the office, especially the one who fights everyone on everything. the younger ones are so cliquey it's ridiculous. I am the youngest in the office, but fall in with the younger girls. but one day i'm their best friends, the next day i'm eating lunch alone and totally ignored. It is so stressful going into work thinking "gee is today a day where i'm invited to lunch, or ignored for not being here long enough?" i have no idea how to read them, they're all just...ugh.

If i take a day off or call in sick, my next back is always a nightmare. The guys are lazy and can't do anything without me. For example, an engineering company CCed me on an email with plans and specs for a project. I do absolutely nothing with those, that email is solely the project manager's responsibility. I happen to be the unlucky girl who is the office contact when paperwork is missing, so i get copied on everything. I was also out sick the day they were sent to me and the project manager. instead of the Project Manager saving them in the file they needed to go in looking at them on his own, HE WAITED. HE WAITED FOR ME TO COME BACK TO WORK. CAME TO MY DESK. AND HAD ME SAVE THEM. FOR HIM. So he could go back upstairs and look at them. THIS IS SOMETHING HE SHOULD HAVE DONE ON HIS OWN. THIS IS NOT MY JOB TO KEEP TRACK OF THIS STUFF. This only adds wasted time and stress to my job.

The owner of the company also gives me a million different tasks to do throughout the day that take me away from my actual work. like walking him through buying personal items online for the hundredth time. explaining to him why an email to the guy who is working on his kids' houses that they're building isn't sending. showing him how to work Excel or Word. and my favorite: printing personal paperwork for him, but having to show him how to print it. every. single. week. every. single. time. i am not a tech savvy girl. In fact, the girl who sits across from me IS THE OFFICE TECH GIRL. but instead, the owner has me come up to his office, to waste my time showing him for the hundredth time things i have already said i do not know how to do or things i have shown him a million times. I feel so humiliated doing these tasks. because when i don't know, he gets all huffy that i don't know (one day he "jokingly" called me a in Italian. so that was fun) and the things i do know, i show him sometimes on a daily basis, and that just tells me he just doesn't care. It's easier to make me come up to his office and show him again than remember himself.

He also likes to have me start new projects that directly affect how i am doing my job. for example, we took a fairly easy process that i had down and made it so complicated and so broken and so tedious. it takes me triple the time to do this task now, and he has me keeping up 3 binders all with the same information, that shows the same thing, just with a different "how i requested this" form. AND when i point out flaws in these processes, he gets mad AT ME for not doing something right! then he ignores all the issues i brought to his attention, and when he starts going back through and finds the very issues i brought up multiple times, gets mad at me for not bringing them to his attention sooner.

I am a smart girl. I will be going back to school in September to start a 2 year dental hygiene program. I am very smart when it comes to the human body and biology. Construction and computers is a foreign language to me. I had no proper training in this job, i am literally making it up as i go. I have no idea what i am doing 90% of the time, and if i ask questions i get yelled at. I have been here a year and a half. IT will be 2 years in May.

Everyday i feel like i'm suffocating. i have 7 months to go until i quit. but i don't know if i can mentally survive another 7 months of this. I am not even in the busiest part of the season yet. that starts around May. Where i live, we don't do construction in the winter, and yet i am still so swamped with paperwork this year. I am a hard worker, and i try to do a good job. But where i am now, i feel so defeated and so worthless. I am so stressed out and know i am minutes from a breakdown.

I have talked to my husband about quitting and getting another job (preferably in a dental office) but because it's so close to me starting school it's almost a waste to quit and start someplace new. I will be going to school full-time, but until then, we need to save up money to cushion the loss of my income over 2 years. not to mention, we still have some bills and debts that need to be paid off before i quit. with what i am making now we will be all clear.

I just feel so lost, and i'm trying to keep my chin up. but at the same time, i feel like it is taking every ounce of me to mentally fight to see the light. and the worst part is this job is taking so much away from who i am, and how i am interacting with my friends and husband. i just feel like a crazy wife and a horrible friend. i want to quit soooo badly. but at the same time...there's not really a whole lot that pays what i'm making now and i don't know if its even worth it to quit so soon when i'll just be quitting again later for school.

[Batya33]

It sounds like there are fairly typical annoyances and irritations that go on in many workplaces including the requirement to do multitasking/repetitive tasks/grunt work and it sounds like your expectations are that work should be a place where you also are comfortable socializing. Well in my reality sometimes that happens, sometimes not. It's work. It's not place to hang out or make friends (it can be but you cannot expect that IMO). Dental offices may have the same issues but you might like the work more which is key. Find what you love to do or at least like a great deal and the annoyances won't seem as bad. I would stick it out and work on an attitude shift. One suggestion is to join a women's networking group if that is available so you get a different perspective perhaps - I did that in order to find my current job and belonged to a different one for 4 years in my prior city to help me advance professionally. Wonderful experiences. Highly recommend it.

[samloverzpie]

When i come to work i don't expect it to be social hour. I realize it's a job. i am not expecting to walk in the door and have everyone be best friends and hold hands and hang out after work. I realize that i am here to write contracts and input data. on the other hand, i feel like how i am treated and spoken to is humiliating and dehumanizing. I have never felt like more like a dumb woman than i do working here. I manage hundreds of companies and up to 120 projects each year. I. Work. Hard. i don't think i deserve the snide comments, or being told i am not educated enough. I don't think i deserve caddy office girl bull when i do just as much. i don't deserve to be bombarded with ridiculous requests for personal garbage that actually takes away from my work load that is large, tedious, and time consuming. I do try very hard to come in with a good attitude and to make the most of this job. But it really ing hard to come in and suck it up when i am being humiliated and degraded on a daily basis for being a woman who isn't educated in construction. It is difficult to express how i feel and what the work environment is like in a shorter post. I am not expecting every place i go to to be roses and rainbows, but i do expect to be treated with some human decency. Regardless of where i am on the totem pole, my job is just as important at the project managers, since i am the one who keeps track of the work being done, and the contractors being used, and how much we're getting paid, if material certs are submitted, if all the contractors have correctly submitted their documentation and final quantities. for up to 120 jobs. a. year. I don't mind working with people i don't like. I am pretty easy going, and able to look past personalities i do not mesh well with because i realize i have to work with this person. I do mind working with people who have zero respect towards me. The same coworker who fights with everyone, has invaded my personal space and gone through my stacks of work on my desk to "see what i was doing, because she was looking for something." I don;t deserve to put up with that. The humane thing to do is ask. I do have a problem when one of the guys is talking in the kitchen about me, telling the others to send all their tasks to me regardless of whether or not its my job because "I don't want to deal with it. i just give it to her and she can figure it out for me." I am not a doormat. If i say there is something i do not or cannot do, then the answer is no. when i tell these guys no, i am badgered and insulted for not doing what they want me to do. I have been called names in the work place. I have been put down. I have been told i am embarrassing. I certainly hope what i have experienced here isn't a typical annoyance or irritation. Because my character has been beaten down and my mental health is wavering. No work place should leave a person feeling so sick and defeated.

[thisisrichey]

i disagree. now is the PERFECT time to look for another job!!!
1. It will be impossible to find another job once you have ft school - SO LOOK NOW while you can!
2. You are basically wasting your school time if you are so distraught, distracted, and emotinoally/mentally drained by this job!

You should LOOK NOW while you can and get ANOTHER job! Even the alternatives of holding off on school until you find another job, then enroll later to start school later is a better option than keeping this job and start school (you're basically wasting your education being so drained with this job to even study... or even have time for HOMEWORK!)

so yeah.. LOOK NOW. if you can't find one. Either un-enroll school (and enroll later when you have a new job) or quit the job now and un-enroll until you get a new job and then re-enroll.

To waste time/money on school while working this job makes LEAST sense out of all these options.

[Hollyj]

Send out your resume!


Continue with your plan for school. You can work part time

[LC8328]

I totally feel you, OP. I've had many office jobs, and a lot of what you're saying sounds familiar.

1) Does the company have some kind of HR manager? Calling you a name in Italian (even as a quick side joke) is horrible!!

2) The owner of the company needs an assistant. I'd guess that the rest of the staff realizes this, but they don't want to fork over the money to hire someone new, but I agree that is not your job to do those little tasks for him. They need to hire someone part-time even. Have you tried something like the following:

Boss: Hey, Sam. I need you to come in here and show me how to print this file/ go shopping online/ etc.

You: Sorry, I absolutely have to finish processing this and after that I have 5 more things to do before I can even think about taking a lunch break. I don't mind helping you, but this is all on me, and I need to get this done.

How would he respond to this? By the way, if you don't do this already, always have typed out (or written down) your entire to-do list. Shove said list in boss's face when he asks you for help with stupid little things. You have been hired to do a job...that is your priority, and he knows it!

3) I agree that it sounds like you get 'dumped on'...no one wants to do this project, give it to this nice young woman who doesn't complain. Putting the treatment of you aside (that's a separate issue), do you think your assigned work flow is fair? Assigned, meaning...not the extras people tack on to you, but what you are actually supposed to do. It would be good to sort of itemize these things as a focal point for your daily tasks. These tasks are first. It is ridiculous for anyone to expect you to just drop everything, anytime anyone asks you. It may not seem like it, but your job is very important, and I think focusing on the important tasks and putting blinders on to the extras, might help. It won't make you more popular, but as you said you're already having issues on that front. Which brings us to...

4) Getting along. I have worked in an office where there were a LOT of very catty employees and even supervisors. Oh, the stories we could share. I admit it was tough. Just by reading your post it sounds like you have really been keeping it all in, and it's going to explode and possibly make you do something you don't like, if we don't handle this right now. Yeah, it's stupid that one lady is taking it personally that you do or don't like Taylor Swift, I mean really? Is it really going to ruin HER day if you have your own opinion?

This tells me that she is either really catty, and/or has no life outside of work. I know that sounds mean, but I have little patience when it comes to idiots. I have also worked in an environment where the owner and her favorite employee didn't like me. I get it. You want to enjoy your time at work, or at the very least, not want to go postal while there. That one lady that has to one-up everything you say: You handle it by nodding, saying that's great Mary, and keep on plugging.

As far as getting another job or not...I'm not really the best person to give you advice on that front. but I can certainly advise you on keeping your sanity while you do have this job.
1-See if there's an HR manager or someone who you could talk to about the name-calling and possibly creating a hostile work environment. That same person can be told about getting a part-time assistant for the company owner.
2-Make a list of your daily tasks. I recommend typing it on Word every day and then as you finish, update your list. Have it right there on your desktop so that when someone says "Hey Sam is going to do this paperwork" then you can very plainly shout out "No Sam is not, I have the Miller project to file and the Johnson project to work on which is due today. First priority. Sorry folks." (not that you are actually sorry but imo that makes it semi-'final.'
3-Put blinders on with those darn coworkers. By that I mean let the things they say and do go in one ear and out the other. They don't want to include you for lunch? F them. They want to show you how they're better than you? F them. You're not marrying these women. They're just people who have to be in your life for a few more months, and then goodbye for good.

Now I'm not saying it'll be easy by any means to do these things. But in my opinion, working in offices my whole life (I'm in my 40's), this seems to be the best approach, at least with my limited knowledge. I hope it helps.

[Batya33]

When i come to work i don't expect it to be social hour. I realize it's a job. i am not expecting to walk in the door and have everyone be best friends and hold hands and hang out after work. I realize that i am here to write contracts and input data. on the other hand, i feel like how i am treated and spoken to is humiliating and dehumanizing. I have never felt like more like a dumb woman than i do working here. I manage hundreds of companies and up to 120 projects each year. I. Work. Hard. i don't think i deserve the snide comments, or being told i am not educated enough. I don't think i deserve caddy office girl bull when i do just as much. i don't deserve to be bombarded with ridiculous requests for personal garbage that actually takes away from my work load that is large, tedious, and time consuming. I do try very hard to come in with a good attitude and to make the most of this job. But it really ing hard to come in and suck it up when i am being humiliated and degraded on a daily basis for being a woman who isn't educated in construction. It is difficult to express how i feel and what the work environment is like in a shorter post. I am not expecting every place i go to to be roses and rainbows, but i do expect to be treated with some human decency. Regardless of where i am on the totem pole, my job is just as important at the project managers, since i am the one who keeps track of the work being done, and the contractors being used, and how much we're getting paid, if material certs are submitted, if all the contractors have correctly submitted their documentation and final quantities. for up to 120 jobs. a. year. I don't mind working with people i don't like. I am pretty easy going, and able to look past personalities i do not mesh well with because i realize i have to work with this person. I do mind working with people who have zero respect towards me. The same coworker who fights with everyone, has invaded my personal space and gone through my stacks of work on my desk to "see what i was doing, because she was looking for something." I don;t deserve to put up with that. The humane thing to do is ask. I do have a problem when one of the guys is talking in the kitchen about me, telling the others to send all their tasks to me regardless of whether or not its my job because "I don't want to deal with it. i just give it to her and she can figure it out for me." I am not a doormat. If i say there is something i do not or cannot do, then the answer is no. when i tell these guys no, i am badgered and insulted for not doing what they want me to do. I have been called names in the work place. I have been put down. I have been told i am embarrassing. I certainly hope what i have experienced here isn't a typical annoyance or irritation. Because my character has been beaten down and my mental health is wavering. No work place should leave a person feeling so sick and defeated.

I never ever wrote such exaggerated advice at all -please reread my post - I am not sure why it triggered this level of escalation and defensiveness -it's a spectrum, not black and white. If you are being verbally harassed or harassed in any way of course that's unacceptable. And that is not what came across in the least in your intiial post and then somehow you took what I wrote to extremes.

I would avoid like the plague telling anyone "no" when requested to do work -not a "no" without qualification - sandwich it like "I would love to help and [indicate time conflict if that is what it is] or "that sounds like an interesting project/task. I haven't yet learned how to do X so it might make more sense to have someone else do it and I am happy to shadow that person". I would avoid the "I don't do windows, sorry" response -when I was a manager and high level, very well educated I was happy also to do menial tasks or things not in my job description if I possibly could or if it wasn't in my job description at all and I had no time I would offer alternatives -like who else could do it or when I could do it.

I am reluctant even to give this input because what you described in your first and subsequent posts were so far apart I fear another misinterpretation.

[jimthzz]

So if you see the current job as toxic, then there is no point to staying there. Just get another job first.

I did see some interesting points that you made.

On the one hand, you say you are successfully coordinating 100+ projects. On the other hand, you feel as though 90% of the time yo do not know what you are doing.

(valid to feel the stress)

But you also do express a distinct dislike of older people, particularly when they are messing with you about Taylor Swift. The lady in question likes to mess with you, that's why she zings you in both directions about the singer. You take it seriously and she is just having fun at your expense.

(not a great game to be having, but not really all that terrible).

I've been in offices where literally nobody spoke to me in three months, and others where I was socializing and making lifelong friends.

Some situations are better than others. You will encounter this your entire life. It can happen in school, and later in a dental career.

One of the better skills you'll need to acquire is dealing with people and learning how to push back when you are maxed out.

(I do not mean lashing out, just setting boundaries)

Good luck

[catfeeder]

I have talked to my husband about quitting and getting another job (preferably in a dental office) but...

Nobody else is trapping you there except you. You've decided to make the stuff after the 'but' more of a priority than finding another job, AND you've decided to assume than none of that stuff can be addressed with a paycheck from one or more other jobs.

You say you can't quit, but you're the one building your own barriers to doing so. I would replace the word "can't" to "won't" for accuracy. Then make a better decision.

Head high, and adopt a problem-solving lens instead of a complaining one.