Work stress over the holidays

bitofabind

Hi folks. I post a lot around here and see a lot of sensible advice being doled out, this time I could do with some for myself as I'm on a different planet with stress right now.

I work in sales. I'm currently navigating a corporate deal with a giant company that's supposed to be signed, sealed and delivered by the end of the month. However it's proceeding at a snail's pace and a few things have gone wrong along the way, wrong processes started by the customer etc. Which means I'm in the position of needing to chase the legal and paperwork over the festive period.

The deal is big, important and critical to our sales quarter, which means I'm now in the position of being directly messaged by my company's president about it and getting regularly asked by each of my bosses, "where are we with X? Have we tried doing A, B, C...." (yes, in all cases)

Anyway I won't bore with the details. I cried with stress today. I'm obsessing and panicking about this constantly. I'm taking work home and freaking out over the deal not closing and being held accountable by the folks at the top of the chain. I've not felt an inkling of festive vibes at all so far this month as I've been so locked into the stress and worry of this, I've half-done about 50% of my Christmas shopping and I've not even started packing for my flight home, which is early tomorrow morning.

The next week will be crucial, and given the holidays things quite simply might not move in the right direction and instead of looking forward to spending quality time with my family and friends and switching off and enjoying Christmas, I'm thinking about this. I don't know how not to.

So, aside from the obvious suggestions of getting a new job etc, which isn't a practical solution to the problem at hand, I'm looking for suggestions on ways to handle the stress of all of this. Has anyone else been in this position or have a similarly stressful job that they have a better handle on? How can I put this into a box and stop fretting long enough to actually enjoy Christmas and not ruin it for everyone that comes near me??

Rooster86

bitofabind wrote: »

Hi folks. I post a lot around here and see a lot of sensible advice being doled out, this time I could do with some for myself as I'm on a different planet with stress right now.

I work in sales. I'm currently navigating a corporate deal with a giant company that's supposed to be signed, sealed and delivered by the end of the month. However it's proceeding at a snail's pace and a few things have gone wrong along the way, wrong processes started by the customer etc. Which means I'm in the position of needing to chase the legal and paperwork over the festive period.

The deal is big, important and critical to our sales quarter, which means I'm now in the position of being directly messaged by my company's president about it and getting regularly asked by each of my bosses, "where are we with X? Have we tried doing A, B, C...." (yes, in all cases)

Anyway I won't bore with the details. I cried with stress today. I'm obsessing and panicking about this constantly. I'm taking work home and freaking out over the deal not closing and being held accountable by the folks at the top of the chain. I've not felt an inkling of festive vibes at all so far this month as I've been so locked into the stress and worry of this, I've half-done about 50% of my Christmas shopping and I've not even started packing for my flight home, which is early tomorrow morning.

The next week will be crucial, and given the holidays things quite simply might not move in the right direction and instead of looking forward to spending quality time with my family and friends and switching off and enjoying Christmas, I'm thinking about this. I don't know how not to.

So, aside from the obvious suggestions of getting a new job etc, which isn't a practical solution to the problem at hand, I'm looking for suggestions on ways to handle the stress of all of this. Has anyone else been in this position or have a similarly stressful job that they have a better handle on? How can I put this into a box and stop fretting long enough to actually enjoy Christmas and not ruin it for everyone that comes near me??

That's tough. It sounds like a mega stressful scenario and the truth is nobody is going to have a magic wand to make this feel better.
What I would say is this sounds like business development - and so one way or another it will have a beginning and an end. I often cope with stress like this by considering worst case scenarios , but that's often not helpful. Set yourself limits, exercise to clear your head, and then give it your best shot . At least this way you can take satisfaction in the fact that you did your best. Good luck with it and hope it works out.

zapper55

Could you preempt the emails and send a group one to all the bosses with an update on what's gone wrong and right and how you are mitigaging the risks?

Perhaps at the end of the email you could say I will be checking my emails regularly for any issues I have to follow up on for the negotiation but for the purpose of efficiency and to minimise the number of emails sent to you during the holiday period I will send an update once a day/every 2 days etc?

Try and take back some control if you can. The stress doesn't seem to be coming as much from the deal itself as from the demands from your bosses.

bitofabind

bitofabind wrote: »

Hi folks. I post a lot around here and see a lot of sensible advice being doled out, this time I could do with some for myself as I'm on a different planet with stress right now.

I work in sales. I'm currently navigating a corporate deal with a giant company that's supposed to be signed, sealed and delivered by the end of the month. However it's proceeding at a snail's pace and a few things have gone wrong along the way, wrong processes started by the customer etc. Which means I'm in the position of needing to chase the legal and paperwork over the festive period.

The deal is big, important and critical to our sales quarter, which means I'm now in the position of being directly messaged by my company's president about it and getting regularly asked by each of my bosses, "where are we with X? Have we tried doing A, B, C...." (yes, in all cases)

Anyway I won't bore with the details. I cried with stress today. I'm obsessing and panicking about this constantly. I'm taking work home and freaking out over the deal not closing and being held accountable by the folks at the top of the chain. I've not felt an inkling of festive vibes at all so far this month as I've been so locked into the stress and worry of this, I've half-done about 50% of my Christmas shopping and I've not even started packing for my flight home, which is early tomorrow morning.

The next week will be crucial, and given the holidays things quite simply might not move in the right direction and instead of looking forward to spending quality time with my family and friends and switching off and enjoying Christmas, I'm thinking about this. I don't know how not to.

So, aside from the obvious suggestions of getting a new job etc, which isn't a practical solution to the problem at hand, I'm looking for suggestions on ways to handle the stress of all of this. Has anyone else been in this position or have a similarly stressful job that they have a better handle on? How can I put this into a box and stop fretting long enough to actually enjoy Christmas and not ruin it for everyone that comes near me??

Im in an almost exact situation. All i can suggest is document everything, follow up on everything. Document everything you do. Come January 6th no deal made, you have a litany of evidence of what you have done. Its the client who didn't follow through, not you.

bitofabind

Thanks for the advice guys.

The documenting is a great idea. There's a pretty solid paper trail with this one as getting a semblance of timeline has been really difficult (which is a nightmare for any sales person), getting access has been difficult and I've been fed conflicting information from my main poc, who is flaky at best and on the other side of the world. It makes the daily updates to my management challenging, when the updates are most often, "no updates".

That, combined with what I'd consider to be pretty poor management which consists of being told how crucial the deal is and given no support or suggestions on ways to actually progress beyond what I'm doing...and it's left me in a total blind panic. It feels at this stage like I'm waiting for a miracle.

HildaOgdenx

Not a lot of advice to offer but I remember reading somewhere, something that helped me to gain perspective - the higher up you are in a company / organisation - the better you sleep at night.

So, your managers/ CEO/ whoever are probably all relaxing and unwinding while you are sweating bullets.

For sure, document everything, but also, let it go even for tonight.
Pack your bag, think about spending time with your family and friends, doing nice things.

I know this deal feels like the be all and end all, but, try to compartmentalise it.

All the best.

kirving

bitofabind wrote: »

The deal is big, important and critical to our sales quarter,

........

The next week will be crucial, and given the holidays things quite simply might not move in the right direction

I don't mean to belittle what you're doing, but it's just numbers on a sheet. Whether the deal happens in December or in January, your company will still make money on the sale.your boss has to be seen to do his job too and push you to make the sales figures, but on a personal level he probably doesn't actually care all that much - it's certainly not affecting his Christmas.

It took a few very stressful projects, but I eventually realised that when I've done my very best, and something still isn't working, it's the company's problem, not my personal problem.

Things will invariably be slow over Christmas, and there's almost nothing you can personally do to hasten the deal if it's in your customer's hands. Try not to worry about it.

pinkyeye

Can I ask OP is it a multi-national and if so are some of the parties to this deal based in the US?

If so they don't take much time off over Christmas at all so things may move along/get done quicker than you think?

bitofabind

Hey Pinkeye, yes it's a multi-national so hope is not lost just yet...entirely. However, my gut says this won't happen before 1st Jan so all I can do at this point is demonstrate to management that I'm doing bloody everything possible to pull this in this Q.

I spent the day in a spa today and had the many, many stress knots massaged out of my back and shoulders (therapist was like wtf! :pac:), so while I'm still stressed, I'm no longer on a cliff edge. They're one of the biggest companies in the world so there's only so much I can control when it comes to their legal process. I've annoyed my contact in there so much with the emails and phone calls that that's as much of a concern to me as getting the sale done on time. If I get fired for a substantial sale slipping out of the quarter despite doing everything humanly possible to prevent it from happening well then so be it.

pinkyeye

Sorry to say OP if it's a multi-national, you're fcuked and you need to get this deal done.

bitofabind

pinkyeye wrote: »

Sorry to say OP if it's a multi-national, you're fcuked and you need to get this deal done.

Curious as to why you’d say that?

smelly sock

bitofabind wrote: »

Hi folks. I post a lot around here and see a lot of sensible advice being doled out, this time I could do with some for myself as I'm on a different planet with stress right now.

I work in sales. I'm currently navigating a corporate deal with a giant company that's supposed to be signed, sealed and delivered by the end of the month. However it's proceeding at a snail's pace and a few things have gone wrong along the way, wrong processes started by the customer etc. Which means I'm in the position of needing to chase the legal and paperwork over the festive period.

The deal is big, important and critical to our sales quarter, which means I'm now in the position of being directly messaged by my company's president about it and getting regularly asked by each of my bosses, "where are we with X? Have we tried doing A, B, C...." (yes, in all cases)

Anyway I won't bore with the details. I cried with stress today. I'm obsessing and panicking about this constantly. I'm taking work home and freaking out over the deal not closing and being held accountable by the folks at the top of the chain. I've not felt an inkling of festive vibes at all so far this month as I've been so locked into the stress and worry of this, I've half-done about 50% of my Christmas shopping and I've not even started packing for my flight home, which is early tomorrow morning.

The next week will be crucial, and given the holidays things quite simply might not move in the right direction and instead of looking forward to spending quality time with my family and friends and switching off and enjoying Christmas, I'm thinking about this. I don't know how not to.

So, aside from the obvious suggestions of getting a new job etc, which isn't a practical solution to the problem at hand, I'm looking for suggestions on ways to handle the stress of all of this. Has anyone else been in this position or have a similarly stressful job that they have a better handle on? How can I put this into a box and stop fretting long enough to actually enjoy Christmas and not ruin it for everyone that comes near me??

Enjoy your Christmas and forget about it for a few days.

Life is too short and if you end up in an early grave the company wont give a **** and will replace you in hours.

pinkyeye

bitofabind wrote: »

Curious as to why you’d say that?

Because multi-nationals particularly US multi-nationals don't give two ****es about Christmas.

To them it's a day off at most. Not a week off like we think.

pwurple

While that is true about it being just a day (and a working day for our Asian colleagues), somewhere there is a legal admin person who has Christmas off too.

The bigger the company, the slower they move too. If it's who I think it is, if you expect November from a normal company, it will be march with their legal team.


Your leadership, while you are reading it as pressure, can you use them in any way? They are suggesting alternatives so trying to be helpful. Is there any escalation or contact they might have could be useful? I find a good way to disfuse higher-ups is to give them a job. For example, you could Ask them to make a phonecall to someone higher up in that organisation if they know them. If they don't have the contact, they generally back off and leave you to it.

The advice about feedback is good. Send a message before taking time off with when you will be back.

bitofabind

That was a really helpful post, thanks Pwurple.

I've thought about using them in the vein of an "exec to exec" push, but they don't know anyone involved here and I worry about the repercussions of going over my poc's head i.e potentially jeopardising the deal altogether. We're also a vendor that their exec won't know anything about, they'll just sign and get on with their life, so not sure what's possible by way of using my management team at all here. It's more a problem of an extremely busy and extremely slow external Legal team and the holiday season.

ArthurG

I went though something like this earlier in the year when I moved into a new role. Totally stressed, couldn’t sleep, lost my appetite, stopped exercising etc. It got to the point that I thought I was going to quit.

Finally I went to my occ health person (I’m assuming you have something similar given you work in a multinational). Their advice was to talk to my (new) manager about it which I immediately ruled out. I was new I’m role and didn’t want one of my first 121 chats to be about how I was struggling.

A few days later I bit the bullet and did it. The reaction I got was exactly the same as if one of my team came to me with it. They had no idea. They were mortified. What could we do to address it. How can we help.

Admittedly I work in a multi which has a strong culture if support driving success which isn’t always the case. But I will say having that convo, as the subsequent follow up, was the best thing I I did this year.

bitofabind

Hi folks. Well it's a happy ending, after a lot of silence from my contact I finally got a contract through from their attorney this afternoon. Within 2 hours it went through our own legal review and was signed by both parties and I now look like a rock star to my management team :D

And more importantly, I can relax and enjoy Christmas! Honestly, I'm back in the west of Ireland and after a spa day and a few long seaside walks this week, my head came to a much better place and I could see how stupid the reactive scattergun approach is, and how important it is to keep the head in these situations where everyone else is losing it. I've learned something really valuable in that and am going to try my best to not just FREAK OUT in these situations I can't control in the future and to instead take a step back, breathe, and make an evaluated decision.

Thanks all for your words of advice and Happy New Year to you all!

seenitall

Delighted to read this, bitofabind. I've been following your thread with interest and suspense, but honestly had absolutely nothing useful to contribute as I've no experience of work in the high-flying corporate environment (and never will!). Some other posters had some good input, I thought.

All's well that ends well, and all the best to all of us in the new year!