Finding this situation impossible

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I work at I guess what would have been a dream company for me... dream job, not so much, I don't particularly enjoy the work. It was somewhat manageable before and there were a lot of tasks that were semi-repetitive so it has been fairly easy up until now to just kinda coast along.

The last year or so though I've been working on a new project and I'm just finding it impossible to do my work. Weirdly, no one seems to notice or care that I'm not that good at my job (I even complained about myself, my manager disagreed with me and seems to think everything is fine??). I guess that's a good thing lol, but it is super frustrating for me.

Every time I do a task there is something that isn't working correctly that is out of my control. Information on this project is in so many different places and is inconsistent. I am finding it hard to make decisions on how to go about doing my work because I have no idea if what I'm doing is right or not. We are all still working from home and I have so many chats in Teams where information gets passed around in huge conversations and it's hard to find anything. There's 7 different group chats for this and I just get lost in it all.

I am just getting left behind, but no one notices and no one takes me seriously when I say that I'm not managing this very well.

I dunno if I want help or not, I guess this is just a rant.

There is always something not working and out of our control. We usually see all the imperfections, even in very good products of ourselves.
Probably everyone is struggling just as you are and you're doing your job just fine - not perfect but just fine.

I'm really not fine at all I'm supposed to be in a meeting in a minute but I can't stop crying and my Teams keeps dinging over and over with loads of notifications and people trying to contact me but I just can't even process anything.

Hugs!
I know the feeling. People were telling me my job was just fine but I was a mess
Hugs!

Don't ignore these signals. Take some days off if you can. Care for yourself It's not selfish, it's to everyone's benefit.

Thanks magz. Actually my company should be pretty good about this... which is one of the reasons I haven't just gone elsewhere. I guess I've been good at hiding how much of a mess I am, even more so working from home, so they don't realise how bad it is for me.

That's very possible, especially if you're a masking type.
Is there something that helps you regain sanity? A long walk in nature or something?

Dog V4 sends you many hugs with optional cold wet nose. We both hope your day gets better.

Yeah, a walk sounds good, or music usually helps.

At the meeting I wasn't able to speak at all But I can stlll type so explained everything to my manager. He agreed that things are unmanageable... he let me take the day off sick. Cried for over an hour so I will go rest for a bit.



Hugs

That's great! Take a walk, listen to music, do whatever makes you feel good and feel good about caring for yourself - it's to everyone's benefit!

It might help to know what sort of work it is you do.

I work with data across multiple video games so that game designers can balance them etc. The current project is an unreleased game and we are setting up all the backend and reports from scratch but the team we are working with hasn't set up metrics for games before so there is a lot of confusion.

I haven't much time to answer as my work day is about to begin, but I rather expect you are very very good at what you do and your employer recognizes that. Keep telling yourself that and also consider that your acknowledged expertise makes you an authority on certain aspects of the work you're doing, so don't hesitate to speak up if you have any ideas for how to improve the process.

Dog V4 is standing on the sofa looking at me wagging and making silly noises. We are happy you are feeling better.

Yeah I think it's just the current way of working is particularly bad for me. Unfortunately it's really hard for me to speak up on anything, so it's not until I have a meltdown like yesterday that people realise something is wrong. It's kinda embarrassing. But my other co-workers agree that the way things are working in Teams is also overwhelming for them and I don't think people would have started talking about it if I hadn't got so upset yesterday so I guess that's a good thing lol.



^^ *pets* Good dog!

Even if it feels like your mental, emotional state is a result of struggle at work, do not believe it. More often than not struggling at work and feeling depressed have common underlying cause.

Focus on addressing fundamental needs of your body/brain, make sure you get enough direct sunlight, fresh air, exercise (especially higher intensity) every day, that your food is healthy, doesn't induce chronic inflammation and glucose spikes.

It will improve your mental strength, your performance at work and your mood. If you wanna feel even better, add cold showers into the mix, it will make you feel like you have superpowers.

"feel good" stuff like music triggers release of neurotransmitters from synaptic vesicles, gives you a short fix, but have no effect on replenishing these storages, improving sensitivity or increasing amount of dopamine receptors. If you think of happiness as money, "feel good" stuff is spending, but you need to do stuff that earns more money to be able to spend more.

If you don't have already, you can get some large real plants and setup them around your home workplace. It would really help to reduce stress. Real plants are better, it not just about aesthetics, real plants would improve air quality and unlike plastic plants, real plants reflect light in invisible parts of spectrum that non-visual receptors in our eyes and even skin can register it and it triggers cascade of beneficial processes in our body and brain.


It must be very frustrating. I'm collaborating with several different teams and they all use different collaboration platforms, it is pretty chaotic too. I ended up using my personal trello account to aggregate relevant information from group chats and meetings and organize my stuff my own way. Maybe it would work for you too.

These are all good points. I do exercise and I go outside for walks frequently. While my diet isn't awful, it could definitely be better. I do have one plant (given to me by work actually ). Sadly I live in a very small house so it's a little tricky finding good places to put them, especially large ones, and many of them are toxic to cats and my cat loves to eat everything lol.



Ohh, I really like this idea! I will definitely try this for myself. Thanks.