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My girlfriend has a terrible work life balance. Is this normal?
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They’ll abuse her only as much as she permits. If she permits, they’ll abuse her and expect more.
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I do social media on the customer experience side – at my last job, my boss would constantly encourage me to aspire to join the main social team and aim for the director role, but stuff like this is why it was never even on my radar. Unfortunately, very common, and honestly I still sometimes work very long days, often getting messages at midnight to handle fires, but at least I’m not having to make media content on top of it.
Setting boundaries is a bit easier in tech, less so in other areas I find. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who hire for these roles having no idea how demanding the responsibilities they are setting are – I would not expect it to get much better, but it could be worth her having a conversation with her boss to just understand expectations of the role and for events like these and see if there are any compromises or improvements that could be made to streamline her tasks. The worst that could happen is they say no or don’t keep her past her probation, which seems like it may be a win for her anyway. Hopefully they’ll be willing to listen – I managed people for years in my last role and having burnt out employees does no one any good.
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I’m my personal opinion I think she should reconsider because if she’s unhappy she’s not going to be able to produce the art to the best of her ability. If she’s tired and feeling mental exhaustion she needs to step back for her health.
Now it her boss is not a dick and is will ing to wait then that’s great but it their not understanding then duck them! If she’s stressed and tired they won’t get the work and way n if they do it won’t be good so.
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If she can’t wait 6 months then she should leave. She can collect unemployment after this time period I believe so at least it won’t be a complete loss.
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I work in social media and some days are like this, but other days are pretty relaxed – it shouldn’t be like this every single day but long days for an event are quite normal. The deliverables should have been set out from the start though, that’s definitely something to define next time round.
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This is not normal.
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How often does it happen? Lots of jobs require the occasional late-nighter and it’s NBD, but the frequency is what will tell your partner if this is a job she wants to continue.
I will add that leaving for work at 8am isn’t *early*, by any stretch. It sounds like she worked a normal work day, plus an evening event. She was right to push back on the edit after she got home though. For one thing, late at night is a terrible time to post to social media…!
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She has to attend the shoot and do the editing? And underpaid? She might as well start her own agency at that point. There’s no reason for an editor to be on set for 14 hours. Find up and coming YouTubers and pitch them to do SMM. She’ll get paid way more and work way less.
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Agency life is famously awful.
The idea is you do a few years, get valuable skills – then consult or build something.
Is she learning useful skills?
* Yes – consider tolerating it.
* No – get the hell out. Pointless. -
I work in a social media team for a pretty big company and while yes sometimes there are days like this they shouldn’t be the norm and there should be an agreed time in lieu agreement set up. Otherwise it’ll just end in burnout. She definitely needs to speak up! No job is worth your health.
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I lived like this for so many years, and fortunately recently was able to take some time to slow down and find work that was less intrusive to my life. Honestly, if I could give my past self advice, I’d say get out of there even faster, bc even though it’s been about a year since I made a change, I still don’t have ANY energy, and am emotionally fucked up. very difficult to recover from burn out.
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I had to work like that getting into Bostons biggest best spa/salons. I worked LONG HOURS WITH NO PAY. To get to certain places you have to put in time to get opportunities that may lead to more opportunities or connections. If she wants to be in a cutthroat or new industry you need to put in time and you don’t get to the top unless you are present and fight for it. If not there will be someone to fill it fast! That’s my experience take from it what you can. Also doing things when not getting paid sometimes pays off more. Good luck!
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