Mental health in shambles – should I quit?
Lately, I've been battling a huge uptick in anxiety, both in and outside of work. I feel like I can't interact with any of my colleagues without masking an internal panic. I feel like my company sees me not as a human but as a set of metrics to be judged and compared against. I feel my humanity is sucked away under the guise of corporate kool-aid principals such as "Customer Obsession". I feel precarious knowing any health related issues may be used against me. I shutter at the concept of on-call.
It's not so much the mental rumination that puts me over the edge, but the fact that the stress has spilled over into physical pains. I have a history of psychosomatic pain, and I have recently begun to experience this again.
How bad does it look to quit this job after just 4 months? As a new grad, I have no work history outside of this, and I fear it will be a major blow to my job prospects.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 94.3 ms ] threadI'm doing most of those things.
My only use of healthcare has been at the ER for chest pains - turned out to be anxiety. Scheduled months ago for a new PCP after moving cross-country and my appointment is still 2 months out.
This may lead to a win win situation for everyone, but if your employer is at fault for whatever reason then you will be in a much stronger position (legal and otherwise) if you don't quit, at least for the time being.
If your financial situation permits it, it probably makes sense to walk away before your health and/or relationships deteriorate further.
If your financial situation does not permit exiting, I'd advise you to spend all of your non work energy in changing your situation. You can do it. You really can. Getting into Amazon is not easy, there plenty of places that would be ecstatic to hire you, but the hard part is finding them. That part is kind of like dating. Its definitely about fit - we are all human after all and trying to decide if we can work together.
Easiest way to explain this situation to future employers in my opinion would be "I had a health issue that I needed to resolve, but it is now completely resolved" would probably be enough to get me as an interviewer to be satisified on any gap in employment etc. People can tell when you lie, so this would be a good strategy IMO as it is truthful.
Best of luck and remember this will pass. You will figure this out.
Rooting for you friend.
> plenty of places that would be ecstatic to hire you, but the hard part is finding them
This was my experience prior to getting my RO after graduating. I think part of why the stakes feel high is just the market in general seems mostly uninterested in new grads.
I suppose I will need to find my niche in the industry. I don't care if I halve my salary. I don't care about company brand name. Amazon was more less incidental.
Before you quit, try really hard to enter a different headspace then you're in now and answer this question for yourself.
When I was doing my undergrad, I called my dad extremely distraught as I really believed I was going to get an F in a class for my major. He gave me what I thought at the time was irritating advice, but looking back on it he was right. He told me "Just fail the class if you have too, if you work in X or as a cashier at a grocery store I promise you'll have stress. You've put in a lot of time already, might as well see what happens here".
All this said, if you're literally having physical health issues, you might want to calibrate the above and put your health above everything...
Recognize you're in a position so many people and even you a year ago would kill to be in.
If you were say 30 the calculus is different, but at 20? Hell yeah crush it and grind dude! 3 years and you're SET.
True. But barring financial hardship, I think many folks would quickly become disillusioned.
> crush it and grind dude
I wish I could do this.
I can suppress to a point but that is what I've been doing all this time.
Once it spills over into physical pain that is where I draw a line.
I also wonder what you have done to address anxiety before getting to the point of quitting? You don’t have to tell me, because I don’t need to know. I only ask, because there’s a lot a person can do to manage anxiety before quitting. Especially as you’re 4 months into a new job, and it can take between 6-12 months before a person feels settled into a new job. It is sometimes normal to feel overwhelmed at the beginning of a new job, especially after the novelty has worn off.
I’m not saying that your job is more important than your mental health (it definitely is not), I’m just offering another perspective which you may or may not have already considered.
Have you tried other things like; detoxing from social media, meditation, massage therapy, CBT, etc…
It sounds like you’ve worked pretty hard to get to where you are today, and quitting might be a knee-jerk reaction to an anxiety issue. The problem with anxiety is that it can be pervasive and creep into every facet of your life, whether you’re working or not. Sometimes the challenge is learning to manage anxiety while managing other life responsibilities.
Good luck. I hope you feel better soon.
How did you manage to graduate from college?
College "metrics" are much less obscured and therefore much more game-able. There is no complex multi-layer management looking over you. Your "manager" is your professor, who is indifferent to your performance because it doesn't affect their bottom line. There is no need to smooth talk anyone, and if you wish you can work completely independent, you can skip class and complete assignments alone.
I can "work" from home in college, on my own time, whenever I see fit. I can take time off if I ever need it without much consequence.
Metrics are an important part of life--but they are in service of humans. Humans are not in service of metrics. Feeling dehumanized by being reductively evaluated on metrics is a legitimate complaint.
It is impossible for education--or indeed, intellectual work of any kind--to happen in an environment where you feel continually threatened.
My biggest mistakes in life were always hanging on for too long. I worked harder than anything I've ever worked on to keep my first marriage together. I did more work on my first marriage in 1 week than I've done in 20 years on my second marriage. Marriage is NOT supposed to be a continual drain. It us supposed to be an oasis of stability and strength.
At work, I've worked far harder on my failures than I ever did on my successes. Work is NOT supposed to be a continual drain either. It's supposed to have far more successful, energizing projects than death marches. It's supposed to give you a sense of accomplishment and pride, not continual shame and feelings of inadequacy.
I suggest working really hard at finding a new job. Spend every available hour for a few months while hanging on at work. There are many more human places to work out there, and truly not everyone is cut out for working at high pressure places. You deserve a chance to learn to work and be successful in a supportive environment. Be prepared to answer the questions about why you want to leave Amazon.
If things are truly unbearable you could see a doctor, get a diagnosis and then apply for fmla. During that time find a new job.
You have health insurance - use it while you are employed.
If this is more than job pressure, it might be harder if you don't have insurance and can't speak to a therapist.
Check your benefits to see if there is anyone that can help you.
Also if you have a bad/abusive manager that is causing this, start documenting everything.
There are plenty of smaller companies in Seattle that are more chill than Amazon just go work for one of those after working at Amazon for 6 months.
Right now I'm just taking PTO, which is very limited, after an ER visit for stress related chest pain
In terms of what I envision as sustainable for myself, I would require no on-call, more independent work, less bullshit meetings, less managerial oversight, and ideally fully remote.
I also have a strong preference for open-source tooling rather than being forced to used shitty internal tools with poor documentation.
My advice is to keep the job but stop doing it well. Stop taking it seriously. Stop feeling like they are taking your humanity because you’re actually just taking money from them. With the extra mental space and time this affords you, work on yourself. Join activities, see a therapist, spend time outside.
You won’t get fired for a long time, if ever. In 6 months or a year you might find that you can handle taking the job seriously again or you may be ready to find a better one.