I need to do something about work, but I'm really at a loss as to what...
It's been about 4 months since my promotion, and I don't think I can keep it up. I probably feel way more pressure than I really should, but I don't think I can help it. I guess I underestimated just how much this position would conflict with who I am. But every time something goes wrong and demands are passed down to fix it, I just feel ill. I just glanced at e-mail after being out sick for two days, and immediately broke out in a sweat. I've never had that reaction to anything before.
Maybe it's not the position itself that's getting to me, but the constant contradictions I have to deal with. I'm told to delegate and utilize my people more, so that I can be free to take on higher level tasks, but I'm still working with 4 out 5 people being new employees. So naturally, there have been some mistakes, and the result of those mistakes is it's been mandated that I audit the majority of the work that the team does, which is even more time-consuming than doing it myself. I feel like Atlas right now.
And I know that situation is going to get better with time, but there's still a very long way to go... and in the meantime, this is tearing me apart. It's also pissing me off that I'm being told constantly to "hold people accountable" without being given any direction as to what that actually means. If it means tearing into people and making them feel awful, I simply can't do that. I don't have it in me. If it means handing out warnings like candy, I refuse to do that. And I don't know why I'm being told to do this so often, when things really aren't even that bad. Operationally, there is less frequency of crisis than there has been in a long time.
But the worst issue is there's no good way out. If I step down, I'm stuck in a horrible social situation in the office, having failed at an attempt at being my team's boss. If I quit and find work elsewhere, it will forever appear on my employment record that I got a promotion and immediately bailed - obvious failure and red flag. Plus, we really need the money and I'll be taking a major pay deduction no matter what I do.