Recently, a Reddit user took to the social media platform to share that she quit her job after just two months due to stress.
She had to contend with a strenuous schedule as an employee in a local small and medium-sized enterprise (SME).
After her supervisor quit, she was left doing almost everything by herself.
To make matters worse, her bosses brushed off what she was doing as “mundane” tasks, with one even telling her that she wasn’t doing “much”.
On Monday (8 April), Reddit user u/sofclouds, who identified herself as a 25-year-old woman, took to the r/askSingapore subreddit to ask if she was “weak for quitting” her full-time marketing job at a local SME.
Source: r/askSingapore on Reddit
She said that she handed in her resignation just two months after joining the company as a full-time employee.
U/sofclouds stated that she initially took the job as she felt she was lagging behind others as someone in her mid-20s without “huge savings”.
A month into her employment, her manager quit after a few years of working there.
As the marketing team primarily consisted of u/sofclouds and her supervisor, she had to handle the latter’s tasks following her departure.
Having previously been an intern at the firm, she was familiar with some of the tasks.
However, the marketing team had many different duties to carry out, resulting in a congested work schedule.
This included taking and editing pictures of products, brainstorming for ideas, as well as directing, shooting, and editing content.
She also had to come up with designs and content for a newsletter twice a week and create advertisements on Facebook and Instagram.
Source: Paul Tamas’s Images on Canva, for illustration purposes only
These were all in addition to other “ad-hoc tasks”.
Referring to the brainstorming and production of content ideas, u/sofclouds described this as “fairly new” since she was doing it by herself.
During her internship, she had a colleague to help her out.
A former marketing member who had moved to another department could assist with some of her duties, but u/sofclouds said it was a time-consuming process.
She added that, according to her bosses, she was taking on “mundane” or “handover” tasks since it would be “impossible to do everything alone”.
Furthermore, since she hadn’t been assigned a bigger project, they “haven’t given [her] any stress yet”.
This did little to console her as she was still adjusting to the “team”. Having to do “ALMOST EVERYTHING” by herself was also very overwhelming.
In addition, she pointed out that she would prefer an environment where she could engage in active discussions with others, even if she knew how to work independently.
She also clarified that she has a personal schedule in place so she can work efficiently.
Her breaking point came when she was working on three or four content creation tasks on the same day.
A manager asked her to finish it by the end of the day as she “didn’t do much”.
This was due to her boss wanting her to work and conduct research on another project the day after.
Even though u/sofclouds understood this, she “almost cried” and had to hold back her tears after the conversation.
Source: kieferpix from Getty Images on Canva, for illustration purposes only
“Honestly I did my best,” she said, adding that she didn’t understand what the manager meant by “you didn’t do much” and that it wasn’t even time-sensitive work.
U/sofclouds concluded her post by stating that other factors contributed to the resignation.
However, the effect on her mental health was undeniable.
During those two months and a few weeks, she cried a lot and her mental health suffered.
Other Redditors were quick to side with the OP, sharing their own experiences and words of advice.
One user, who said that they’ve worked in digital marketing for seven years, said that this is an example of a “typical SME” and its “poor, poor understanding of marketing”.
They also said that if the job had such a negative effect on u/sofcloud’s mental health, she had to do what was good for her.
Never set yourself on fire to [keep] someone else warm. It’s not weakness, it’s [self-preservation].
Source: Reddit
Another pointed out that her company didn’t seem to have “a proper structure or pipeline for knowledge transfer” and that u/sofclouds was “doing a lot of work” for her position.
“While it’s nice to have these skills for your resume, it’s not healthy or conducive to overload yourself like this in the long run.”
Source: Reddit
MS News has reached out to u/sofclouds for more information.
Also read: ‘No way this is sustainable’: S’pore employee laments 44-hour work week
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Featured image adapted from kieferpix from Getty Images on Canva, for illustration purposes only.
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