Should I send this email to my boss?

In My Humble Opinion
1

First, a quick bit of background. I am the office administrator/IT Guy/bookkeeper for a mid-sized oilfield service company, with around 20 employees and a dozen or so subcontractors. I’ve been here for almost five years, starting when the company was quite a bit smaller. The company has three managing owners. One is the shop foreman, who I generally don’t deal with. Another is the operations manager, who is not happy with me. The third is the company president, who has been my biggest supporter, and who is as of yesterday, also not happy with me. The third one is who I was going to send this email to.

As another side note, I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, with a mild anxiety disorder. As the stress and workload of my job have increased, especially with the company’s recent expansion last year, my symptoms have gotten a lot worse. This has taken its toll on me, and my work. To be honest, my work has been poor. I have been trying to white knuckle it, but I’m getting further behind every day. That also has been contributing to my depression and anxiety, and its making me suicidal. I’ve even starting using MJ again, after being clean for almost a year, since it seems to be the only thing that brings me any relief these days. I am also aware that it is contributing to the problem, but I am still unable to muster the strength to quit again. I have at least mustered up the strength to go back to my doc and get on anti-depressants, and it has helped a bit … but I’m still in a bad place, and can’t see a way out. Well, that’s not true, I can see one way out … but I have promised myself that I won’t kill myself. I have three younger children (youngest just started school) and I don’t want them to have to live with a parent commiting suicide.

So, when I received an email from my third boss earlier today, calling me out on my bad work habits and letting me know that unofficially I was on thin ice and that I would be fired if things don’t improve. I wrote a long email in reply, but I’m hesitating to send it. Maybe in part because I’m terrified of change. Maybe in part because part of me feels that I might be giving my boss ammo if things get uglier up ahead. I don’t know who else to turn to, so I’m asking the teeming millions for their advice. Should I send my boss this email?

2

No, no, no!

Any written communication with your boss should be professional and nonpersonal. Send something like this without the reference to suicide and you look horrible. Send it with the reference to suicide, and you very well could find yourself locked up in the loony bin over Christmas. Keep your personal feelings to yourself and be a professional!!

3

No. Don’t send that. In fact delete it now.

If it were me, and I know it’s not, I would get a meeting with the boss and tell him everything. I’ve been shot down here before for taking this approach, i.e. being up-front with employers regarding personal conditions, but surely most people are compassionate and can understand when medical or psychological problems are bothering their employees.

You are already seeing a doctor for antidepressants. Go see him again and ask for additional help, of the psychiatric type.

4

You need to take the reference to suicide out for sure. It needs to be professional and only about the facts (your increase in work load, increase in hours, need for two people to do the job, etc.).

Are you in Canada? Can you go to your doctor and get a note for stress leave? I did this a few years ago when I had to check myself in to rehab, and it was easy to do. I was put on short term disability at work, no questions asked. No one knew why I was gone, just that I was on stress leave. Can you do this instead?

ETA: I see you ARE in Canada. Go to the doc, get the note, hand it to your boss, leave. They also can’t ask why you’re leaving.

5

Absolutely agree with Alice The Goon. Do NOT send this.

6

NO NO NO.
If I received that letter, as an employer, you would be fired, period, end of story. Take me to court, do what you want, I will not be threatened with suicide which is what you are doing (go easy on me or I’ll kill myself).
Also, I would call the police and have you put on a 24 hour suicide watch (we’ve done it before here) just to cover my ass. And to reiterate, you wouldn’t have a job when you came back.
Also, maybe you can’t fire someone for mental illness, but you said, right in your letter that you can’t handle the work load. I, again as an employer, will dismiss you and hire someone who can handle the workload.

If you need help, tell your boss you’ve been under a lot of stress lately at home and work and could use an assistant to help you out (if you think it’s possible, maybe just ask for a part timer or someone just for a few months to help you get caught up).
If you want to quit, write a letter of resignation, offer to train your replacement and quit.

But don’t send this letter, it’s only going to make things worse.

7

Why don’t you just talk to your boss instead? Acknowledge that your work has been subpar of late, and explain that you feel this is in part due to the increased workload that has stretched you too thin. Inquire as to whether your boss feels that there is sufficient work to justify hiring a second person and distributing the workload. Were your superiors satisfied with the quality of your work in the past? If so, that would lend support to your case.

Are you paid to work 40 hours/full-time? If so, you can’t really object that the job is now a full-time job. You are getting paid for your time, after all. If a full-time job is not a good fit for your lifestyle right now, tell your boss. Ask him if a part-time position is feasible (with appropriate compensation adjustments, if necessary). If not, you need to look for a new part time job, and your boss needs to hire someone willing to work full-time. Again, if you feel the current position is significantly more than a full time job (60? 70? 80? Hours/week), then inquire about the possibility of hiring a second person.

Leave the emotional drama and health issues out of the discussion. Certainly, avoid being confrontational. Try to work out something that both you and your boss can live with. If you can’t, hey, situations change for both employers and employees and maybe there just isn’t a good mutual fit anymore. It happens.

8

Me too. Sending that email strikes me as a horrible idea, likely to make a bad situation worse. Afraid I don’t have any suggestions to improve the situation. Hang in there.

9

Some good advice here. I hope you feel better soon.

10

Missed the edit window.

I missed part about checking into a psych facility for treatment. If you are serious about this, then simply thank your boss for the opportunities you’ve received to date, that you’ve appreciated him as a boss, and notify him that you will be seeking other employment options.

11

I haven’t read the OP. Just the thread title.

No. No you should not.

12

Sorry, but in the history of the Dope, there’s not a single time a person has asked a question of this nature where the answer isn’t a resounding no. So I was playing the odds.

I’ve now read the thread.

No. A resounding no. You should not send that letter.

13

Where are you located? I’m a bit dubious about the assertion over who bears the burden of proof in a wrongful discharge case, in the US, at least.

As far as the email as a whole is concerned, I wouldn’t be comfortable sending something like that to my employer. Thematically, it’s all over the map, with elements of apology, defensiveness, agressiveness, conciliatory gesture, and resignation (notwithstanding your insistence that it’s not a letter of notice). If I were to receive something like that myself I’d be hard-pressed to know what to make of it.

I have the sense that your company is too small to have an Employee Assistance Program. If I’m mistaken, I suggest that you take steps to avail yourself of it pronto. Otherwise, if you feel that some communication is desirable – wait; does your boss have any knowledge of the mental health issues you’re currently going through? If not, then it’s time you told him, and I would endorse the idea of apologizing for “springing it” on him, so to speak, only after matters have deteriorated to a point where he’s not such a staunch advocate of you.

Come to think of it, before I suggest anything other than “don’t send the email,” I’d like to learn a bit more about you and the situation. I trust that the thread will provide as it progresses.

14

You send that email and you are done quickly for sure. Your bosses must already be having private meetings on how unload you without a major conflict that makes the 6PM news hour.

It appears that your job responsibilities have grown beyond what you are capable and comfortable with. Small companies don’t always have a way of adapting to such change. Your best option is to present a workable solution such as the hiring of an added person to take over X part of your current assignment, hopefully the part you least enjoy. That cuts your stress and helps overall efficiency. Your next best option is to access your skills and get that resume out there. The drilling industry is not doing all that well this year, but there are jobs out there.

You start mentioning suicide and mental illness and you really become a drag on the company. You might be approached by company leaders soon to take that disability.

15

You should have already gone to him several times and told him your workload was too heavy and that you need help prioritizing it. You can still do it. But no angsty, emo, self-flagellation. I agree with everyone else here.

16

I’ll add my no to the others. I recommend that you talk to him in person but before doing so check into the possibility of getting medical leave for stress and also talk to your doctor about your anti-depressant. Pehaps he can change it or add something like Abilify to it.

When you’re ready to speak to him, I would leave any talk of suicide out of it. It’s inappropriate. You can address your depression and anxiety but talk of suicide is just not professional. I would also broach the subject of hiring assistance for you. If the work has truly increased that much, you’re not out of line in raising the subject.

Good luck and I hope you feel better soon.

17

I should note that my workplace is fairly laid back and unprofessional. The boss in question gets quite a kick sending out emails from my computer when I’m out for lunch saying I’m gay and hitting on various clients. Fortunately, his inability to capitalize words, use punctuation, or even spell well means that for the most part people know that it’s not me doing it. However, it goes to show how informal my office is.

Sending this letter in writing isn’t my first choice. However, it is my primary means of communication with this boss, as he is on the office very sporadically. I probably won’t see him in person until the new year, and I do need to reply to his email today. Part of me knows that sending this letter is stupid (thus this thread), but the situation here is getting worse, and I feel I need to be proactive about leaving, instead of waiting to get fired. If management started digging, they could find cause to fire me without pay, and I do have a family to support. Disability isn’t much, but it would keep a roof over everyone’s head and food in the house.

Yes, I am in Canada, BC to be specific. The problem with stress leave is that I am a one person show. I haven’t had more than one weeks vacation at a time in the last three years. If I leave, they will need a replacement. I fear that even a lackluster replacement will make me look even worse, and even if legally they can’t fire me for taking stress leave, unofficially they probably will.

I guess part of me just wants to escape the situation. I never even though of this letter as a threat to commit suicide. I just wanted to show how much I was suffering over this. The boss in question is aware that I suffer from depression, and that has been the cause of my sub-par work as of late, and that I am back on meds. I just think he’s frustrated (as I am) that I am not improving fast enough. I also think he doesn’t really understand what depression is, thinking its just a blue mood that I can shake off with enough mental fortitude. (I so wish he was right) Right now I’m just losing hope that I’ll ever get caught up, and trying to plan it to minimize the fallout when the house of cards gets knocked down.

As for the psych facility thing, I am fairly serious about that. Right now, both my doc and the shrink I saw want me to stop smoking MJ, thinking that the drug addiction is aggravating my mental condition. I’ll even agree with them. But right now, it’s the only thing getting me through the days, and I don’t think I have the mental strength to quit on my own right now. I’m hoping that in a mental health facility, I could learn some better coping mechanisms, and it would be difficult for me to self-harm there. Also, it would be in a situation where I couldn’t score, allowing me to get through the first few weeks of hell before my brain gets over the fact that I can’t get high anymore without making my family live through it again.

I’d like to thank everyone for their replies. On preview, I see a lot of people saying the same thing, which means I should probably delete that email from my drafts folder. As for what else I should do, I’m still not sure yet. The logical thing would be to propose a full-time replacement, with me going to a part time supporting role. However, since I have lost trust from management, I don’t know if I could or should continue working here. The pay is way above the average, and the benefits are good, but I think I might need a bit of a clean start. There is no long term opportunities for advancement of any kind here. Also, my work requires me to work on a net-connected computer without supervision, and without anyone else in the company to able or willing to monitor it. This seems to be a bad combo for me, and has lead to much time-wasting when I should have been working.

One thing I did look up and was mistaken on was the burden of proof for a firing on the grounds of mental disability. That proof would be on me, not the employer, I was mistaken there. Since I’m not sending that email, it’s not relevant anymore, but I did want to do my part to fight ignorance by noting that.

Sorry for the big wall’o’text, and thank you again everyone for your replies.

18

I’ve been through this. I would say, #1, that you must not send that email. This is a conversation that must take place in person. #2, you need to plan that conversation. You need to make it clear that you have a diagnosis and that you have been receiving treatment – no further details about how you feel, what you might do, etc. You need to tell your boss that you have been trying not to let him down, to be a “good soldier” (or words to that effect) – an apology for waiting so long would fit in here – but that the situation is clearly not working out the way you had hoped. Finally, you need to propose a solution, one that leaves you the possibility of keeping your job open, if possible, and one that leaves your boss looking like a good guy without making him look like a sucker.

I would recommend a temporary leave of absence – on disability if you can get it. You don’t need to mention your specific plans, but “rest” and “intensive treatment” would go down well, as would “training a temporary replacement” and “on call.” Later, maybe while training that person, you might mention to your boss that even at your best, the job was growing beyond full time. If it’s been taking you, with five years of experience, more than 40 hours a week to do the job, it might take two new guys to do it – one person might never get caught up. This might hold your job for you, but it’s going to leave a big, stressful pile of work for when you get back, so you might want to plant a seed before then – “hire a part-time assistant.”

19

Why didn’t you say so? We can help you there.

GET BACK TO WORK! :mad:
:stuck_out_tongue:

20

You know what, your physical and mental health is way more important then worrying about how they’ll cope without you. Don’t worry about it, they’ll deal with it. They’ll hire a temp. Someone will know someone who can start on short notice. They’ll work it out, trust me.

From your post and letter, it really sounds like you are right on the edge and need help as soon as possible. Think about yourself (and the kids) before your job. You can always find another one.

Can I ask what facility you are considering?