Struggling in my new job, advice needed
July 12, 2023 4:52 AM Subscribe
Another new job post from me. I'm 3 weeks into the job and I'm finding it extremely difficult and deeply questioning my decision to move here and feeling unsure if I can handle it.
My new role is doing FP&A and Treasury at assistant level in an insurance company. It's an entirely new sector and an entirely new role and it feels like they are speaking another language.
I'll explain the situation below and I would hugely appreciate any thoughts or advice you might have.
These are the difficulties
- for the past 10 years I've worked in menial invoice processing roles in the charity sector. These are jobs you don't really need qualifications for and are quite mindless and routine and not very stressful. No doubt they will be automated in the near future.
So I haven't really had to think or work hard, I've just been coasting. Some of these jobs I only had to put in 1 hours worth of work a day. I'm kicking myself about how much time I wasted when I could have been studying or upskilling. I wasted so much time and wasn't grateful for what I had, it feels pretty devastating with hindsight especially considering the stress and anxiety I'm going through now.
This new job is in the insurance sector and Treasury isnt something I've ever done before. So I'm having to gear up my creaky brain to learn not only how a new sector works and how the organisation works within it but also how my new role works.
I'm feeling totally overwhelmed at this point and like I can't cope
- with previous roles, whilst I had daily tasks, we operated on a fortnightly or monthly cycle. With this role, on the Treasury side, it is a daily cycle of updating and keeping track of the cashflow. Emails are flying back and forth as we are currently low on cash and I'm struggling significantly to adapt and to organise myself. I find myself wishing to go back to the old cycles as I do not know how to manage my time or inbox. I have mentioned it to my new manager and she said she will send me on a time management course and some metaphor about sand and pebbles, which didn't help.
- following on from this, the stress of daily deadlines is not something I'm used to. I'm having to prepare a file for the CFO to review every day and it has to go through several approvals before that. It's a level of responsibility I am not used to. Again, I yearn to go back to the monthly cycle.
- my manager and the lady training me have been there 20+ years. I feel like they do not understand what it's like for someone to be new and even though they are being nice enough, they sometimes talk to me as if I'm going to immediately understand and I can sense surprise and or frustration. I do question, but there's only so much I can question otherwise every other sentence they say I will be interrupting and asking questions.
I can't even comprehend how much their jobs must be second nature at this point. To be in one job for over 20 years is unimaginable.
- accordingly the training is not exactly great. We are going through things at great speed and I'm being expected to pick things up very quickly.
- there are no comprehensive procedure notes or explanations about how the organisation functions. Presumably this is partially because of historically low turnover.
- the systems and processes are not smooth and unified. It's very bitty and case by case. This is making learning even harder.
You may ask why I moved to this job. Firstly, I wanted to move to corporate to earn a higher salary and to get out of the charity sector, which I felt stuck in.
I was also very demotivated by doing such low skilled work, the idea of turning 40 and still processing invoices scared me. So you may say to me, well, here's the challenge you wanted!
A big big reason is that in my last role, the work itself was super super easy but as I was a management accountant I had to deal with senior management on a monthly basis. My social anxiety and lack of confidence was making this extremely difficult so I thought a more technical and less people facing role might be better for me.
I am hugely grateful I don't have monthly budgetholder meetings anymore, that's one thing I'm glad of.
I've gone on too long now.
The long and short of it is that I'm finding the stress of this job unmanageable. I'm holding a lot of anxiety in my body.
I know it's early days and that of course things will be difficult initially. Perhaps I can't expect to feel even remotely comfortable until 3 months has passed. But the question is, how do I manage myself until that point?
These are the difficulties
- for the past 10 years I've worked in menial invoice processing roles in the charity sector. These are jobs you don't really need qualifications for and are quite mindless and routine and not very stressful. No doubt they will be automated in the near future.
So I haven't really had to think or work hard, I've just been coasting. Some of these jobs I only had to put in 1 hours worth of work a day. I'm kicking myself about how much time I wasted when I could have been studying or upskilling. I wasted so much time and wasn't grateful for what I had, it feels pretty devastating with hindsight especially considering the stress and anxiety I'm going through now.
This new job is in the insurance sector and Treasury isnt something I've ever done before. So I'm having to gear up my creaky brain to learn not only how a new sector works and how the organisation works within it but also how my new role works.
I'm feeling totally overwhelmed at this point and like I can't cope
- with previous roles, whilst I had daily tasks, we operated on a fortnightly or monthly cycle. With this role, on the Treasury side, it is a daily cycle of updating and keeping track of the cashflow. Emails are flying back and forth as we are currently low on cash and I'm struggling significantly to adapt and to organise myself. I find myself wishing to go back to the old cycles as I do not know how to manage my time or inbox. I have mentioned it to my new manager and she said she will send me on a time management course and some metaphor about sand and pebbles, which didn't help.
- following on from this, the stress of daily deadlines is not something I'm used to. I'm having to prepare a file for the CFO to review every day and it has to go through several approvals before that. It's a level of responsibility I am not used to. Again, I yearn to go back to the monthly cycle.
- my manager and the lady training me have been there 20+ years. I feel like they do not understand what it's like for someone to be new and even though they are being nice enough, they sometimes talk to me as if I'm going to immediately understand and I can sense surprise and or frustration. I do question, but there's only so much I can question otherwise every other sentence they say I will be interrupting and asking questions.
I can't even comprehend how much their jobs must be second nature at this point. To be in one job for over 20 years is unimaginable.
- accordingly the training is not exactly great. We are going through things at great speed and I'm being expected to pick things up very quickly.
- there are no comprehensive procedure notes or explanations about how the organisation functions. Presumably this is partially because of historically low turnover.
- the systems and processes are not smooth and unified. It's very bitty and case by case. This is making learning even harder.
You may ask why I moved to this job. Firstly, I wanted to move to corporate to earn a higher salary and to get out of the charity sector, which I felt stuck in.
I was also very demotivated by doing such low skilled work, the idea of turning 40 and still processing invoices scared me. So you may say to me, well, here's the challenge you wanted!
A big big reason is that in my last role, the work itself was super super easy but as I was a management accountant I had to deal with senior management on a monthly basis. My social anxiety and lack of confidence was making this extremely difficult so I thought a more technical and less people facing role might be better for me.
I am hugely grateful I don't have monthly budgetholder meetings anymore, that's one thing I'm glad of.
I've gone on too long now.
The long and short of it is that I'm finding the stress of this job unmanageable. I'm holding a lot of anxiety in my body.
I know it's early days and that of course things will be difficult initially. Perhaps I can't expect to feel even remotely comfortable until 3 months has passed. But the question is, how do I manage myself until that point?
I’m not trying to minimize the higher tempo and responsibility of your new role, but it seems to me like you are putting too much pressure on yourself. A daily process has to go through multiple layers of review? That’s multiple opportunities to catch any mistakes, learn, move on, and do better tomorrow.
As far as your anxiety and time management, I would map out a daily/weekly schedule by hourly or half hourly increments. What are all of the processes you are involved in and when does your part need to happen? In effect, use your training and learning to build some of the onboarding materials that this org didn’t have the wherewithal to provide. It might help build your confidence.
posted by AndrewInDC at 5:33 AM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
As far as your anxiety and time management, I would map out a daily/weekly schedule by hourly or half hourly increments. What are all of the processes you are involved in and when does your part need to happen? In effect, use your training and learning to build some of the onboarding materials that this org didn’t have the wherewithal to provide. It might help build your confidence.
posted by AndrewInDC at 5:33 AM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Some things that helped me when I made a similar career move:
1. Reminding myself that anyone they hired to replace me would be starting over at zero just like I was, and that every day was getting me further from that “new hire starting at zero” baseline.
2. I had to start treating email as the base of operations for my work, which was weird after years of jobs where email was an afterthought.
3. I wrote down every process I learned so that I wouldn’t have to ask again.
4. If I did have to ask again, I tried to ask a different person. Oftentimes, I discovered they actually had a different process than the first person I talked to, and this new perspective usually deepened my own understanding of the thing.
5. I tried to work on accepting that these feelings of being lost, confused, exhausted, etc. were the price of the higher salary and greater job security than the role I had before.
Good luck.
posted by paris moon at 5:49 AM on July 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
1. Reminding myself that anyone they hired to replace me would be starting over at zero just like I was, and that every day was getting me further from that “new hire starting at zero” baseline.
2. I had to start treating email as the base of operations for my work, which was weird after years of jobs where email was an afterthought.
3. I wrote down every process I learned so that I wouldn’t have to ask again.
4. If I did have to ask again, I tried to ask a different person. Oftentimes, I discovered they actually had a different process than the first person I talked to, and this new perspective usually deepened my own understanding of the thing.
5. I tried to work on accepting that these feelings of being lost, confused, exhausted, etc. were the price of the higher salary and greater job security than the role I had before.
Good luck.
posted by paris moon at 5:49 AM on July 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
Since others are already responding to your questions about how to manage the job responsibilities and associated anxiety, I'm choosing to just address the matter of working for an insurance company:
I spent a little over a decade working in auto insurance claims. My initial "training" class lasted about four months and during that time, they told us that we were only scratching the surface and that a lot of the information wouldn't click until we were out of training and had been on a desk for at least a year.
They weren't kidding, either. When I was finally out of training and on a desk, I felt like I understood 20% of what I needed to be doing. Insurance is all laws (including contract laws) and regulations, and those laws and regulations have so many caveats, exceptions, and state-specific differences that it's nothing short of overwhelming to learn.
Many of us in my training class felt lost, including myself. And, because I had undiagnosed ADHD at the time, I felt even more lost. That was a very, very, very rough period in my life. I have deep empathy for what you're going through.
The other thing I will say is that since you're not used to this type of work, your brain may be having a tough time right now, but it will get easier. In many ways, our brains are like a muscle. The more we use it to do a particular type of then-unfamiliar task, the stronger it grows over time. Again, this is another reason why it will take some time to "click," but it will click. It just won't be overnight.
Please know that the work you're doing is not easy to learn or understand, and only really makes sense after spending a lot of time in the job. It did eventually click, but that took time. You are not alone in that regard, and "you" are not the problem in this case. I hope you can be kind to yourself and give yourself space to learn, make mistakes, and grow.
posted by nightrecordings at 6:22 AM on July 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
I spent a little over a decade working in auto insurance claims. My initial "training" class lasted about four months and during that time, they told us that we were only scratching the surface and that a lot of the information wouldn't click until we were out of training and had been on a desk for at least a year.
They weren't kidding, either. When I was finally out of training and on a desk, I felt like I understood 20% of what I needed to be doing. Insurance is all laws (including contract laws) and regulations, and those laws and regulations have so many caveats, exceptions, and state-specific differences that it's nothing short of overwhelming to learn.
Many of us in my training class felt lost, including myself. And, because I had undiagnosed ADHD at the time, I felt even more lost. That was a very, very, very rough period in my life. I have deep empathy for what you're going through.
The other thing I will say is that since you're not used to this type of work, your brain may be having a tough time right now, but it will get easier. In many ways, our brains are like a muscle. The more we use it to do a particular type of then-unfamiliar task, the stronger it grows over time. Again, this is another reason why it will take some time to "click," but it will click. It just won't be overnight.
Please know that the work you're doing is not easy to learn or understand, and only really makes sense after spending a lot of time in the job. It did eventually click, but that took time. You are not alone in that regard, and "you" are not the problem in this case. I hope you can be kind to yourself and give yourself space to learn, make mistakes, and grow.
posted by nightrecordings at 6:22 AM on July 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
I work in accounting and whenever I feel over my head with new tasks I've never done before, I turn to the relevant Steven Bragg book.
It sounds like Corporate Cash Management or one of his other finance books might be helpful to you.
https://www.accountingtools.com/finance-books
posted by Jacqueline at 7:37 AM on July 12, 2023
It sounds like Corporate Cash Management or one of his other finance books might be helpful to you.
https://www.accountingtools.com/finance-books
posted by Jacqueline at 7:37 AM on July 12, 2023
You've moved into an entirely new role, that requires a lot of new knowledge and organisational skills, that works on a completely different schedule, with people who have been doing it for 20 years or whatever. No wonder it still feels like A Lot after only three weeks!
Well done for making the move. It's a big step, and worth doing. But any step like that – a new role at a new company – is going to be difficult for a while because there will always be so much to learn, all while trying to actually do the job.
First, try to stop looking back wistfully at your old, boring, unchallenging, poorly-paid, going-nowhere job. You're moving on to bigger and better things. That requires challenge and effort. You can do this.
Second, it will get easier. Everything you're doing for the first few times, at some point you'll be doing them for the 100th time. There will be fewer new things to learn every time.
Third, learn how to manage your emails and tasks or whatever. There will be different ways to do that depending on what works for your mind, your role, your workplace, etc. The time management course might help. But ask other people how they manage specific aspects - eg how they deal with incoming emails, and work out which ones to deal with when. And read or watch stuff in your own time about being organised. There's a lot of that, and much of it won't work for you, but it's a matter of finding a few little techniques that make work slightly easier.
Good luck. You can do this!
posted by fabius at 7:43 AM on July 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Well done for making the move. It's a big step, and worth doing. But any step like that – a new role at a new company – is going to be difficult for a while because there will always be so much to learn, all while trying to actually do the job.
First, try to stop looking back wistfully at your old, boring, unchallenging, poorly-paid, going-nowhere job. You're moving on to bigger and better things. That requires challenge and effort. You can do this.
Second, it will get easier. Everything you're doing for the first few times, at some point you'll be doing them for the 100th time. There will be fewer new things to learn every time.
Third, learn how to manage your emails and tasks or whatever. There will be different ways to do that depending on what works for your mind, your role, your workplace, etc. The time management course might help. But ask other people how they manage specific aspects - eg how they deal with incoming emails, and work out which ones to deal with when. And read or watch stuff in your own time about being organised. There's a lot of that, and much of it won't work for you, but it's a matter of finding a few little techniques that make work slightly easier.
Good luck. You can do this!
posted by fabius at 7:43 AM on July 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Three weeks is really, really, short in the grand scheme of things. You are supposed to be learning and making mistakes right now, that is very normal! Of course telling yourself that does not remove your anxiety necessarily, but again, it is normal. For example, in some locations there is a probationary period of 3 months before someone is considered to be a permanent employee, which shows that both the employee and company have 3 months to decide if the job is right and it is working out well.
You were given a lot of advice in the other Ask from before you started the new job. Could you share which of the suggestions you have implemented, and did they help or not?
When asking for help from your trainers, break down your question. Time management is a big topic. Try reframing your questions as:
- When I am working on X and I get an email about Y and that Y is "urgent," I am not sure what I should prioritize.
- X to Y PM is my most productive time frame for focused / heads-down work. However, that's also when people drop ad-hoc meetings in my calendar. How do I manage that?
- Which of the tasks have hard deadlines (dire consequences if missed) vs soft deadlines? If I/we miss a deadline, what happens?
How do you manage yourself until you start to feel some level of confidence and competence? I used to say, "What are they gonna do, fire me?" And that may not be the best thing to ask an anxious brain, because the anxious brain will say "OH MY GOD OF COURSE THEY CAN FIRE ME ANYTIME AAAAGGHHHH ANOTHER THING TO WORRY ABOUT!" but what I mean is - hiring is a long and onerous process. Unless someone is really fucking up or there's fraud or other illegal stuff involved, a lot of organizations will really avoid having to fire then hire all over again. So every single day, your trainers are doing some comparison in their head:
- With Sunflower88's current skill level, plus all the other stuff they still need to learn, how much effort do I need to expend here?
- Would that effort level be less, same, or more than another hiring round AND also training the new hire, whomever they end up being?
Even if training you will take a year, if re-hiring and re-training someone else will be one year + 1 month, you come out ahead and will keep your job. And each day you stay in the job and learn a new thing will make the gap bigger and bigger between keeping you on vs finding someone else. So that is how "What are they gonna do, fire me?" is helpful.
posted by tinydancer at 8:10 AM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
You were given a lot of advice in the other Ask from before you started the new job. Could you share which of the suggestions you have implemented, and did they help or not?
When asking for help from your trainers, break down your question. Time management is a big topic. Try reframing your questions as:
- When I am working on X and I get an email about Y and that Y is "urgent," I am not sure what I should prioritize.
- X to Y PM is my most productive time frame for focused / heads-down work. However, that's also when people drop ad-hoc meetings in my calendar. How do I manage that?
- Which of the tasks have hard deadlines (dire consequences if missed) vs soft deadlines? If I/we miss a deadline, what happens?
How do you manage yourself until you start to feel some level of confidence and competence? I used to say, "What are they gonna do, fire me?" And that may not be the best thing to ask an anxious brain, because the anxious brain will say "OH MY GOD OF COURSE THEY CAN FIRE ME ANYTIME AAAAGGHHHH ANOTHER THING TO WORRY ABOUT!" but what I mean is - hiring is a long and onerous process. Unless someone is really fucking up or there's fraud or other illegal stuff involved, a lot of organizations will really avoid having to fire then hire all over again. So every single day, your trainers are doing some comparison in their head:
- With Sunflower88's current skill level, plus all the other stuff they still need to learn, how much effort do I need to expend here?
- Would that effort level be less, same, or more than another hiring round AND also training the new hire, whomever they end up being?
Even if training you will take a year, if re-hiring and re-training someone else will be one year + 1 month, you come out ahead and will keep your job. And each day you stay in the job and learn a new thing will make the gap bigger and bigger between keeping you on vs finding someone else. So that is how "What are they gonna do, fire me?" is helpful.
posted by tinydancer at 8:10 AM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
I believe that you're in the UK. If so, remember that our hiring and firing norms are different to North America. We hire and fire slower and that means that people are invested in you succeeding in this job. In addition, what you are experiencing is fairly normal for a new job and I think it's difficult to say whether you will enjoy it long term from only 3 weeks in post. Eventually you will probably find much of what you are doing is repetitive and requires less concentration to complete. If you're still struggling after 3 months, then maybe look at finding something else.
Definitely make your own process notes as you go. If you find that you are stuck on something that you think you may have been trained on, having a guess at the answer and checking it can go down better than just asking the question, particularly if you have asked a similar question before.
The best thing about a daily process is that each day is an opportunity to start again and get quicker and smoother.
Take a deep breath. Investing a bit of time and effort in learning this new job will pay off in the long run. Find a way to manage your day-to-day anxiety, whether that's a worry time or someone to vent to at the end of the day, or a soothing/refocusing action or anything else. Focus on the end goal. I bet you can do this, and when you can you will feel a real sense of accomplish.
posted by plonkee at 8:51 AM on July 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Definitely make your own process notes as you go. If you find that you are stuck on something that you think you may have been trained on, having a guess at the answer and checking it can go down better than just asking the question, particularly if you have asked a similar question before.
The best thing about a daily process is that each day is an opportunity to start again and get quicker and smoother.
Take a deep breath. Investing a bit of time and effort in learning this new job will pay off in the long run. Find a way to manage your day-to-day anxiety, whether that's a worry time or someone to vent to at the end of the day, or a soothing/refocusing action or anything else. Focus on the end goal. I bet you can do this, and when you can you will feel a real sense of accomplish.
posted by plonkee at 8:51 AM on July 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
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Learning about the organisation and about insurance will take time.
If this job requires a very different level of engagement and pace from the previous job, your brain and body will need time to adjust. You’ll be tired for a while.
If you’re tense physically, do what you have to do to release that tension - exercise, get a massage, sex or whatever works for you.
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:31 AM on July 12, 2023 [5 favorites]