I went to my office, closed my door, sat at my desk and thought:
Screw it. I’m done with this.
After a meeting with my Sales Manager (for privacy purposes we will refer to him as “M”), I finally felt like I had had enough. The company I was working for at the time decided (without announcing or explaining why) to allow Sales a “veto power” on decisions made by the Credit Department on new account credit terms and approvals.
Meaning, if sales decided that a credit app signed with an “X” was sufficient (this actually happened to me), or it was ok to extend credit terms to new accounts that I knew were clearly not creditworthy, then that’s what would happen.
One of our last conversations went something like this:
“Rola, I don’t need you to worry about this. This is not your job.”
“M, this is my ONLY job. I am the Credit Manager”
A big part of the reason my team missed their bonus that year was a result of M’s decision.
It was at that point in my career that I thought maybe credit and collections was no longer for me. Though at the time, I wouldn’t have identified it as “burnout,” that’s exactly what was happening.
Burnout and stress are not the same
Oh?! I thought burnout was just a super stressed person?
More than stress, burnout causes overwhelming exhaustion, feelings of cynicism and detachment from your job, and a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.
You heard that right- cynicism and detachment. Yikes.
Or, as Dr. Sharmila Dissanaike, puts it:
“Stress is the person who looks a little crazy when they turn up for an after-work get together at the end of the week, strung out and frazzled; the burned-out person is the one who didn’t even bother to show up.”