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Hello,

Wondering if anyone can give me some advice regarding stress management.
I am a sys admin of a continually amount of growing servers (now at over 130) and I do coding when I am not busy being screamed at by users. The stress is coming from the workload, but also the way that the workplace is running. The manager left, and now I am handling all his shit, and my own shit as well, and all his accounts have been handed over to me (accounts being clients here). The other IT guy who is supposed to help out with the server admin just finds other work to occupy himself, and I am losing my mind. There is literally an insurmountable amount of work that needs to be done, and it just cannot be done in the time that is allocated in the working hours. I am working overtime, unpaid overtime by the way, until 9/10PM at night to try and get through everything (*cannot apply updates and work on the app server while the users are live) and I am just starting to lose grip. I am taking my stress home with me (not taking it out on anyone), but I am not sleeping, not eating properly and even starting to dream about possible ideas to fault resolution when I sleep. I find that I am constantly tired, and it feels like a world is about to cave in on me. There is literally too much work to be done in too little time, and although I am more than capable of doing it (and will get it done, or the director will physically assualt me and accuse me of being useless, again) I feel that the struggle is just a bit too much.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to "wind down" or to "let go" just for a few minutes a day at least, so that I don't feel like I am on the job 24/7.

Thanks.

Comments
  • 2
    What helped me when I was in a similar situation was just flip a switch in my mind. When I close the door of the office I leave my work behind. That's difficult, but remember 'it is just work!'. You're personal life is so much more important! Nobody dies when a task is not finished, so it's not that important.
    Furthermore, you only have 2 hands and so many hours in a day. You do what you can, and more cannot be done.
    Don't make other people's problems your problems. If it's not your responsibility, don't make it yours.
    And it might be a good idea to start meditating. It will take some months, but it will ease your mind.
    But first: make sure you eat and sleep properly: take care of yourself!
    Good luck man and try to stay positive!
  • 3
    @Xunie acceptable solution. i do own a company and i can understand. the guy should inform in writing and as other guy suggest, go live your personal life after office and don't over stress by the responsibilities you are not supposed to be responsible. do only what you ate responsible. have a great life.
  • 0
    Questions:
    - are you on call out of hours?
    - is there a ticketing system (with some sort of time tracking hopefully)?
    - who prioritises tasks?

    For me.. when I was in support, I was on call 1-2 weeks a month and found that I really couldn't switch off my brain or relax fully when I went home. Also when I was on leave, I had to be away for at least a week before I'd stop thinking about work. One thing I had to deal with was accepting that my ticket queue would never be 0, so it was unreasonable to expect that everything is done ASAP and closed off. I started to accept that the work would always be there and that I should work normal hours on what I can, and continue where I left off the next day.
  • 0
    (ran out of chars)

    What I think should be done:
    - agree with boss to work regular hours. If you're on call or working overtime - should be reimbursed for it appropriately.
    - ensure ticketing system is in place. Ensure it is prioritised.
    - don't multitask. Work on one issue at a time and solve them entirely before moving onto the next ticket.
    - use the system data to back up your story. E.g today you solved the top three priority incidents on the queue, and that's where all your time went today. Customer x complaining about their item is much lower in the system. Note: if the system is FIFO or the boss does prioritisation.. they've made the call on priorities.
    - if you're asked to prioritise an item over something you're already working on - that needs to be a conscious decision including the manager, since it could lead to customer Y complaining about their issue that was paused.
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