Overcoming terrible work environments

[mary_poppins]

Hi all.

How did you all find great jobs that don't drain your energy and make you depressed? I am asking this because, due to PD abuse, I have always had low self-esteem and, as a result, I only accepted job offers that were hard, low paid and stressful.
I am currently working very long shifts in healthcare (a field I absolutely hate to be in) and feel like I'm losing my mind. I'm already experiencing burnout after only 3 months of this type of work.

I keep applying to work I'd love to do and have some experience in but don't get any interviews. I feel like something inside me pushes these great jobs away. As if, deep down I feel I need to self-sabotage my health and my life with healthcare work because that's my family's legacy.

Growing up, I've seen my PD family struggling with work and hating their jobs. They'd complain about their lives and workplaces a lot. They still complain. Majority of my family members are either unemployed or working stressful jobs that they hate. Many of them though depend financially on a spouse or on the government to earn a living.

So, I didn't have a role model when it comes to career and work. But still. I'm 40 and have not yet found a nice, pleasant and fulfilling work to do for myself. I did try, sent many CVs and was almost hired for this type of work in the past-but something came up then (the pandemic) and had to become jobless again.

I feel bad about myself, doing work I still struggle to like/enjoy at 40 years of age, while others, much younger than me have fulfilling positions or even businesses/creative work. 

Not sure how to undo this self-sabotage. How to accept the fact that I deserve work that makes me happy, gives me energy and doesn't leave me half-dead at the end of the program. That I am worthy of a great work environment and a great salary.

How did you manage to find meaningful work? What was the method, the process, the mindset you used to undo the self-sabotage that your PDs have brainwashed you with?

[Jolie40]

at one job, the boss reminded SO much of PD parent
even though I liked the work, ended up quitting because I couldn't handle the boss!

other jobs I mostly liked but I never had a career per se
I'd work a job & then when I got to the one year mark, I'd feel tired of that job & find another one/move on
I never really knew what I wanted to do for a job so I worked many different ones

surprisingly, I never had trouble getting a job
one person said I interviewed really well
that was because I had so many interviews!

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi mary_poppins,

My advice is to keep applying for jobs. Depending on what industry you are in, it could take a while but it is worth applying. And I know how hard it is emotionally. I spent a few years applying for jobs and riding the emotional rollercoaster of hoping to be short listed each time.

In some industries right now, they might get 40 to 400 applicants for 1 position. The fact that they gave it to someone else has nothing to do with you. When you are one of 40 or more applicants, there is no way for you to know what criteria they used to select the 1 person who is offered the position. Just think, 39 other people will be passed over and 1 person will get the offer. So it really isn't about you, it can be about how there were too many applicants and they only had the 1 position to offer at that time.

Having a history of low self-esteem is not tied to how you fare in the current job market. I say this as someone who had the requisite crappy childhood, and relatives like yours, who did not have meaningful work, and who struggled as you describe. I too had no role models for the career life I wanted, and I know that life was probably easier for those who had that.

I am going out on a limb here because I know a lot of people want to believe that there is some law of attraction at play when they apply for jobs. But as someone who has been on both sides - looking over resumes as well as applying for popular positions sought after by many - I can say that there is no way for you to know how they decided to short list the folks for interviews.

Even when I've had only 10 applicants it can be hard to rank them and determine who gets an interview, and I am sure I've passed over excellent folks because there is no way to hire every excellent person who applies - when there's only 1 position to fill.

You are very likely a strong candidate for some of the jobs you didn't get short listed for, and it could be that the person they chose had some random item on their resume that they liked. It has nothing to do with you. That is my 2 cents. It means we have to keep applying.

Finding meaningful work is definitely helpful to those of us who are recovering from PD abuse. For sure.

And workplaces are social environments, and they can present us with a lot of social situations that mirror what we dealt with in our FOO. But the workplace is not a family. By that I mean, when we hit burnout in our jobs, it is to do with how the job is structured, and whether the employer has put boundaries in place to prevent burnout of its employees. It is not as if you chose to become burned out. Long shifts would burn out most people. It was up to your employer to address this.

Keep applying for other jobs. Help yourself with the burnout as best you can right now.

You DO 100% definitely deserve a job that allows you to rest and recover in between shifts.

Trees

[xredshoesx]

20+ years in my field in a job that will never return what i put into it (on a surface level at least)

the one thing that i learned here to make it suck less for me was to use the word NO as my boundary whenever and as often as i needed to.

[blunk]

As someone who works for a fairly large agency that only accepts online applications, I can offer a bit of advice on (at least) getting your resume looked at.

For better or worse, the initial resume (CV) screening is done by a program that looks only for "keywords". I was hiring for a position that entailed providing technical training. One of the resumes I received was from someone who was a personal chef, but their resume included the word "presentation". Completely different context...but the program is not that smart.

The best advice I can give is to take the time to tailor your CV to the position for which you are applying. I'm not saying to lie or exaggerate, but if you have the applicable qualification/skill, spell it out in a way that is similar to the job posting.

You deserve to do a job that you are proud of, and one that leaves you energized and fulfilled, rather than drained. Good luck in you job search!