Job Stress

statto25

Hi Folks

I need some advice. I recently started a graduate job working as a customer support agent for a small software company. The job also involves managing internal network and desktop support which I am trained and performed very well in my previous employment. However I have absolutely no experience/training/education in my primary role.
I am struggling with my job to the point where I am so stressed i cannot sleep at night and my evenings and weekends are spent worrying about the following day/monday.
I am receiving training from my manager who is the only other person in my "department" but he is extremely busy and most question and answer sessions are brief and leave me more confused.
He has also been absent for the past two weeks so I have been left in charge of the support of a small but fairly successful company.

I am fully aware of the job situation in this country especially in my sector but I am very close to quitting.
I want to bring the issue up with my manager but am afraid to highlight that I am struggling.

What is the best way to approach him and tell him how badly I am struggling.

Any ideas are welcome. Except the opinion that I am lucky to have a job and stop whining. I am aware of how lucky I am but cannot help how stressed I am feeling.

Mods feel free to move if necessary

MissFitz

Hi statto25,

I worked in a very similar situation a couple of years ago. I understand the stress but try to remember that you would not have been taken on for this role if your manager didn't think you were able for it

Is this the type of company that also has a number of field engineers? If so, I would try to get contact numbers for those people and become friendly with them as normally they will have started where you are and will be a good source of knowledge for anything you are stuck on. They will regularly visit the customer sites and will be familiar with their common issues.

If that's not the case, I would request a face to face meeting with your manager and ask whether there is any documentation / knowledgebase that you can have access to. Surely your predecessor(s) would have built up something like this?

statto25

MissFitz wrote: »

Hi statto25,

I worked in a very similar situation a couple of years ago. I understand the stress but try to remember that you would not have been taken on for this role if your manager didn't think you were able for it

Is this the type of company that also has a number of field engineers? If so, I would try to get contact numbers for those people and become friendly with them as normally they will have started where you are and will be a good source of knowledge for anything you are stuck on. They will regularly visit the customer sites and will be familiar with their common issues.

If that's not the case, I would request a face to face meeting with your manager and ask whether there is any documentation / knowledgebase that you can have access to. Surely your predecessor(s) would have built up something like this?

Unfortunately its just me and the manager that are in this support role. There is an online help, tutorial etc but its all geared towards users who are admins or managers in this particular area. My education is more orientated towards desktop support and server management. My predecessor from what I have gathered was not very good at his job and spent a lot of time looking like he was working with customer but was just talking about his private life!

me_right_one

Be brutally honest with whoever you have to, as high as you need to go. Its not your fault you find it difficult if you're not getting the training. Say to whoever, "Tell me what you want me to do, what answer do I give to xxx, where can I find this information? I know x, y, and z. You are supposed to supply me with knowledge on a, b, and c. I am not solving problems for our costumers and its affecting business. Help me out!" Your honesty will pay off way more than a mediocre performance.

Also, dont let it affect your outside life. I know how that feels, but you wont be in that job forever. In 5 years, you'll be looking back laughing. Get this off your chest with your bosses, as suggested above, and even if you dont get the answers you're looking for, you'll feel much better.

Mrs OBumble

As it's a small company, it's likely that your "manager" is as busy/stressed as you are.

Can you name what you want him (or anyone else) to do differently? Are there employees in other "departments" at a similar level as you, who you can commiserate with?

Is your company developing software, or re-selling software from other companies? If the latter, can you look for training, tools, resources, support etc from the other companies?

Actually, I'm not surprised that you're stressed: hardware to software is a bigger jump than many people realise, you're going from talking about physical things that you can point to (PC, cable, LAN, router, etc), to concepts that you can see part of (data about orders, transactions) but which take on a life of their own inside the computer in ways that you know about but cannot see. And you've got a different relationship with external customers than internal ones.

Does your company have a procedures manual for the work that you do. If not, can you start one by writing down notes about things as you find them. Don't worry about pretty (yet), just functional. In one previous job, I actually found PowerPoint was better than Word for developing something like this, as it forced me to just bullet-point the real essentials, and didn't have room for fluff.

TBH, if it's so bad that you're stressed EVERY weekend, then you should consider talking to your doctor about it too.

MissFitz

Hmmm that's a pity. Is the software you support developed in-house, or is it a third party software?

statto25

JustMary wrote: »

As it's a small company, it's likely that your "manager" is as busy/stressed as you are.

Can you name what you want him (or anyone else) to do differently? Are there employees in other "departments" at a similar level as you, who you can commiserate with?

Is your company developing software, or re-selling software from other companies? If the latter, can you look for training, tools, resources, support etc from the other companies?

Actually, I'm not surprised that you're stressed: hardware to software is a bigger jump than many people realise, you're going from talking about physical things that you can point to (PC, cable, LAN, router, etc), to concepts that you can see part of (data about orders, transactions) but which take on a life of their own inside the computer in ways that you know about but cannot see. And you've got a different relationship with external customers than internal ones.

Does your company have a procedures manual for the work that you do. If not, can you start one by writing down notes about things as you find them. Don't worry about pretty (yet), just functional. In one previous job, I actually found PowerPoint was better than Word for developing something like this, as it forced me to just bullet-point the real essentials, and didn't have room for fluff.

TBH, if it's so bad that you're stressed EVERY weekend, then you should consider talking to your doctor about it too.

Unfortunately no. Most of them are experienced designers and testers. They develop software for use with a current Microsoft product and have a fairly big client database. There is an online help/tutorial section but like I said above none of it is familiar to me and I end up being twice as confused in the end. I would love to document everything but if i did that I would never leave the office and to be honest six o clock doesnt come quick enough. I am also supposed to check i with international customers when I go home so it doesnt end once I leave the office.

MissFitz - The software is developed in house

MissFitz

When you are logging incidents / issues that you cannot resolve, are they assigned to some sort of 3rd level support person that you could speak with?

Could you have a word with one of the testers and ask them to go through some high level test cases or bug fixes with you? It might give you a better overall undestanding of the package. I understand they might look very busy but generally, most people will be only too glad to help out a new colleague when they have a few minutes to spare. The developers may even have some kind of high-level functionality diagrams or flowcharts that they could pass on?

statto25

MissFitz wrote: »

When you are logging incidents / issues that you cannot resolve, are they assigned to some sort of 3rd level support person that you could speak with?

Could you have a word with one of the testers and ask them to go through some high level test cases or bug fixes with you? It might give you a better overall undestanding of the package. I understand they might look very busy but generally, most people will be only too glad to help out a new colleague when they have a few minutes to spare. The developers may even have some kind of high-level functionality diagrams or flowcharts that they could pass on?

The buck stops with me unfortunately. I can ask the manager for help but the idea is that if its my case then I figure it out but I cannot pass it onto a more experienced person, beacause there is no one bar my manager.

I could try asking the designers but they speak to me like I am as experienced as they are and all I hear is Jargon and they are gone again. They are nice people dont get me wrong but they seem to eat sleep and breathe this stuff and it flows from them nautrally so I think they expect the same from me.

MissFitz

statto25 wrote: »

The buck stops with me unfortunately. I can ask the manager for help but the idea is that if its my case then I figure it out but I cannot pass it onto a more experienced person, beacause there is no one bar my manager.

I could try asking the designers but they speak to me like I am as experienced as they are and all I hear is Jargon and they are gone again. They are nice people dont get me wrong but they seem to eat sleep and breathe this stuff and it flows from them nautrally so I think they expect the same from me.

Don't be afraid to ask the designers/testers, I'm sure they come out with all the lingo but they all started somewhere Maybe even email them if you find it hard to get a chance to bring up the subject in the office.

Do you have a copy of the software for yourself to practice using? There may also be some kind of test environment that the testers have, that you could use to play around with the software, input dummy data etc. and generally just get the hang of it.

If all else fails, ask for a meeting with your manager. It is no surprise you are struggling with the lack of information. Although I would not use the term "struggling" with your manager, I would explain that you are finding the lack of available information to be frustrating and ask him to come up with some sort of solution if you have exhausted all other avenues.

Teasey

I really feel your pain as I was in a very similar situation just over a year ago. I was landed in a role that was more responsibility than I had expected due to the unexpected departure of a more senior colleague. I was given the role as my predecessor said I was "well able for it!!" and I was just left to it with no training or support. I was actually sick with stress. But I stuck with it and somehow managed to get through it but it was really tough.

At the end of the yer I had my review with my boss and I aired my views on how I felt it was a bit too much for one person etc. Her reply was - as I had never told her I was stressed and felt overworked she didn't realise that I felt that way :eek: (apart from the fact that she SAW me in the office at all hours of the morning and evening doing on average 12 hour days for 4 months!!! And the whole office were talking about how stressed I was)

Anyway - moral of the story is that if you say nothing then nothing will be done. I am sure you are not the first person to find it difficult. It is better to appraoch your boss and speak about it now rather than leaving it unsaid and ending up getting really sick or making a mistake that has serious consequences

In the meantime, if you're finding it difficult to sleep when there is a lot on your mind you could try writing a list of what you need to do the next day. Rather than lying there trying to force yourself to sleep then getting more stressed cos you're not sleeping and worried that you're going to be tired the next day (I've been there!) I always found that writing a To Do list helped me relax. You can't do anything from your bed in the middle of the night - but if you're confident that you won't forget anything cos you wrote it down you'll find that your mind is more at ease

Good luck!

3DataModem

me_right_one wrote: »

Be brutally honest with whoever you have to, as high as you need to go. Your honesty will pay off way more than a mediocre performance.

This is excellent advice.

You really need to be frank honest - there is no way around this (other than quitting or miraculously waking up better at your job). Saying "I can't do my job properly because of XXX" is a lot better than just not doing your job properly.

I would also suggest how the problem can be solved, rather than leaving it up to the manager. E.g. "I need a couple of hours twice a week in the diary to go over XXX". Don't be vague.

And good luck. This is normal stuff for new jobs!

statto25

3DataModem wrote: »

This is excellent advice.

You really need to be frank honest - there is no way around this (other than quitting or miraculously waking up better at your job). Saying "I can't do my job properly because of XXX" is a lot better than just not doing your job properly.

I would also suggest how the problem can be solved, rather than leaving it up to the manager. E.g. "I need a couple of hours twice a week in the diary to go over XXX". Don't be vague.

And good luck. This is normal stuff for new jobs!

Thanks everyone for the advice. I am going to meet with my manager when they return on Monday and outline the situation to them. If I dont do something I will go mental to be honest.
I will let you all know how i get on afterwards.

Thanks Again