Something's gotta give.

 

On Wednesday, around 1:30pm, I felt it: I'm getting sick. Since then, it's only gotten worse. It's a run-of-the-mill head cold, but I feel terrible. I saw the Dr. yesterday - no meds, just keep taking Day/Nyquil, drink lots of water, blah blah. While I was there I figured it was time to ask about restarting Zoloft. I weaned myself off back in July when I thought I was getting better. Since then, every time I get anxious (over little things), I kept telling myself, this is normal, because this is how normal people handle things when they're not on SSRIs. But I'm going through too much stress right now and I seriously cannot handle it. He gave me a depression quiz-like checklist and, as it turns out, it appears I am "moderately" depressed. He gave me the Zoloft prescription and wants me to see a psychotherapist (like I can afford that on top of everything else - even with insurance). But I agree.

As we talked, I realized I'm under a lot of stress. All I do is work. I stopped my dance classes on Tuesday, because of everything going on and not having time for it. I hate people. I hate going out. I have no support system (except for you all, for which I'm very grateful). I haven't spoken to my sister in several months (that's another long story), I have been going through some stuff with my ex-fiancé who lives down the street (again, another long story - nothing to do with relationship stuff). I've been here for 3 years and I no longer dance, do yoga, hang out with friends, etc. I'm not interested in dating. I just work. I did go to school for a year for massage therapy, and that counts for something. But only if I do something with it. But again, that's work. There is no pleasure, no fun, no relaxation in my life. For the first time, I'm not sleeping well. I wake up in the middle of the night, and cannot go back to sleep because I'm worried about all of the stuff I have to do.

The moment my cold kicked in on Wednesday, was the moment I discovered that yet another home seller did not accept my offer. Except I didn't find out from my realtor, I found out on realtor.com where the house showed as "contingent". Was my realtor going to tell me?  I texted him and he called immediately, his excuse being that he didn't want to "ruin my night or my morning". Are you kidding me? This, coming after a multitude of excuses as to why we couldn't look at homes on Sunday (the reality being that he wanted to watch football).  I told my realtor to make a full price offer on one of the first homes we looked at with 3k in closing costs. He said ok, but offered 3k less. Last night, my realtor called. I received a counter offer at full price with 3k closing costs. At this point I'm on the fence because something happened at work that has me rethinking everything. (What a difference a day makes.) Now I'm second-guessing everything. What am I doing? Do I even want to stay in NC? How is it that I wanted to look at inexpensive homes to now being willing to spend at the very top of my budget? I told my realtor to hold off. The home will most likely only appraise for 5k less but the owner won't go lower. This means if it doesn't appraise, and the seller won't come down, I'm out of $800 in due diligence money, appraisal and inspection fees. I don't have that kind of money to throw around.

Beyond the whole house hunting thing, more stressful is what is happening at work. I have a new boss. My entire marketing department is changing. People all around me are switching roles. My new boss - the director of marketing - works remotely from FL (seriously?). The other person on my team also works remotely in CA. I'm the only one on site, which means more work. Easier access to answers. My boss called me last week and said based on my discussion with her in wanting "something to own", she thinks I'd be great at handling an entirely new market. That's corporate speak for: We're getting rid of your role and are trying to push you into a new one. Long story short, after a couple of conversations, I felt I had no choice and verbally accepted the new role. Not having a clue what was in store...

I'm a product marketing manager for our product itself - it is an online learning management system. We built our own platform and we build courses for professionals in 4 markets: Senior Care, Health and Human Services, Corrections and IDD/ABA which is Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Applied Behavioral Analysis. There is normally a product marketing manager per market. The market my manager wants me to take is "IDD/ABA". Why she feels I'd be good at that, have any interest in it (not that it's not interesting), or any experience in it is beyond me. Putting on my HR hat, my thought is that Senior Care is our biggest market and they want someone more qualified, Corrections we're eventually getting rid of, we already have someone covering HHS (the lady in CA), so that leaves me to handle IDD/ABA because they're getting rid of my role. But they're not really getting rid of my current role, because we still need someone to market our product features, they're expecting me to still do that plus the new market.

 

There was no face to face discussion about it. There is no paperwork, no offer letter, no raise yet (I asked). I was told not to worry, that there would be help along the way, resources within the company who are IDD/ABA experts. They said they realize I have no experience, blah blah. The day after I said yes, I was thrown into a huge campaign, then another, and now I'm getting emails left and right asking me for email nurture streams, and looking into some major mistake we made with a donation to some company last year. This all happened Thursday. While I was getting emails about all of this, I was on a 2 hour long meeting with my remote manager/coworker because they are brand new and have no idea what they're doing, during which, I discover that I also have to attend all of these conferences and trade shows, be the face of my market, and own everything related to IDD/ABA - on our web site, all of the content, etc. WTF? Seriously? None of this was discussed with me. In the meantime, I felt myself getting sicker and sicker.

Although I have a blog post due; although I have to build out my email and blog strategy for the next quarter; although I had important meetings, I called out sick yesterday. I give up. I feel like I'm on the verge of a mental breakdown. I want to tell them I can't do this. Can they fire me for saying "I can't handle the job"? Was that their plan all along?

Then.... I have massage therapy. I finally received my license. I have a part time job lined up that I haven't started yet. The owner is in touch with me "when can you start"? And I'm so stressed out with looking for homes (and now being sick) that I keep pushing it out. I'd like to do massage full time (which is possible), but it is hard on your body and full time is 30 hours. It means less pay than what I'm making now. My whole goal was to buy a very inexpensive home so I could afford to stay in it if anything happened with my job, and now I'm looking at homes that are at my highest price point, matching the salary I'm at now.

I have until February 14 to find a home in order to be out when my lease ends on March 24. I already gave notice to my apartment company. If I don't find anything (at this rate, I really don't think I will), I am considering finding a super cheap place to rent for a while to buy time to figure out my job situation. If I decide to this, I cannot purchase a home for another couple of years (because you have to show stability at your job, regular paychecks, etc).

Best case scenario: I find a super cheap home with low monthly payments within the next 2 weeks. I leave my job and work full time as a massage therapist. I won't have health benefits, and won't have much to save, but I'll be happy....right? ....right?

Goodness.