I have had an absolutely overwhelming 2026 in terms of work. I explained a few weeks ago that I was suffering with burnout. Emphasis on the “suffering”.
I didn’t have a Bank Holiday Monday as I was on call. I’m still on call, until 9am on Friday. And now I have to get up at 1:45am to travel hundreds of miles and back tomorrow — I just found out, so no time to sort a hotel or anything tonight. I will be on call until everyone else starts work at 9am, then on call again when I’m travelling back from 5pm. If there are incidents tonight AND tomorrow night, that means no sleep from now until sometime in the early hours of Friday.
I really don’t think I can keep doing this. The same thing happened in November, and then I got trapped because of flooding on my way home (which I repeatedly flagged as a possibility before they forced me to go).
I don’t have anything left to give this job, it’s sucked everything out of me. I feel dead inside.
I’m genuinely thinking about just not going to work on Friday, for mental health reasons. Is that unreasonable? I think what they’re asking of me is unreasonable, so I don’t even care if I get into trouble.
Apparently my workplace cares about mental health and fatigue. Except, quite clearly, they don’t.
Sorry, I had to get it out of my system somehow. I’m just so tired.