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.