Let me preface this by saying that I am truly grateful to be working. I am. But my working days are filled with a constant onslaught of demands, rendering me unable to get my work done. It is incredibly frustrating and horribly unfulfilling.
Yesterday afternoon, I got an e-mail which read:
I have a customer who needs our federal tax ID number. She needs it pretty quick
Seemingly innocuous, in and of itself. Just grab the tax number and respond.
But...I get e-mails and chats like this all.....day.....long.....
Yesterday I got 10 e-mails from a coworker about inventory adjustments that needed to be done "right away". "We have a shipment we need to send immediately and we can't until you do these."
Credits for 25 cases (customer issues with product). "I know you're busy, but I really need for you to do at least ABC Inc. and XYZ Company. They're very upset and really pressuring me to get these done."
One of our vendors shut us off yesterday after I had been begging the approver for weeks to release the invoices.
Then there are the warehouse charges invoices that take a half hour each using a template that doesn't work most of the time, forcing me to process them manually. Two invoices without the template take about two hours to do.
Thursday I had to drop everything I was doing to make a payment to a freight vendor. These invoices need to be paid immediately. Just one payment.....but 39 invoices had to be entered into the system, one invoice per purchase order. Took me all afternoon. As I was trying to get this done, a coworker chatted me about 10 times to do a credit memo. "I know you're busy, but I really need this done now. It's holding up an order."
As I was trying to get the 39 invoices in so I could make the payment and getting the chat, a customer called my cell phone every 5 minutes to take his credit card info. I had to stop doing the 39 invoices, call the customer back, and do the credit memo for my coworker. Fortunately I made the payment before the bank cutoff for ACHs.
If I didn't have a job to do, all of the above wouldn't be a big deal. But I DO have a job to do and it never gets done. I get up early in the morning so I can do my actual job without the constant barrage of "you need to do this NOW". I work weekends for the same reason; I can just sit and do my job without being accosted.
At the end of every day, I am completely wiped out. I have dinner, fall asleep on the couch, go officially to bed, only to wake up and enter the madness all over again.
Earlier this week, a childhood friend of mine passed away. Last weekend, my friend had to put her dog to sleep. The week before that, I got a tearful voice mail from an acquaintance of mine saying his mother is ill; not sure of the outcome yet. And the week before that, my friend suddenly lost his cousin to cancer.
I haven't even mentioned COVID yet. That's still going on and it appears to be much worse than it was in March. Good times.
I fervently hope to survive my job, stay healthy and enter retirement. I am holding on to that hope.