I think my job is making me sick.

I started working at a new place a month ago. It's a call center, and it's my first call center. Well, about three weeks ago I lost all appetite, practically stopped eating all together, and when I even think about eating, I feel sick to my stomach. If I don't eat, my stomach cramps up and I feel sick, so I'll force myself to eat and I'm full way sooner than normal, and afterwards am sick feeling for hours. All of these days like this add up and leave me with a few days a week where I am shaky, sick to my stomach, feverish and weak. I feel like my body is failing me, basically. Today is one of those days.

I'm finally going to the doctor about it. Taking a day off work, because at this point I feel like passing out. It's all I can do to sit upright to post this.

What I'm worried is going to happen is that she's going to tell me it's something work related. I have never had this issue before, but have always been a kind of anxious person. Used to feel sick to my stomach going to school, but could always talk myself out of the sick feeling with some mental "you're okay, this is all normal." things. I've worked before and not had this much of an issue. At the other places I'd have a few days where I'd wake up feeling sick, but was always able to talk myself down and eventually enjoy working.

But going into my fifth week at this place and I feel worse and worse. I've had maybe 3 full meals in the past three weeks where I didn't feel sick after for hours and instead felt sick for only an hour or so after.

So I'm off to see the doctor. I don't know what she'll say or do... and I don't know where I'm supposed to go from here. Part of me knows it's from work, that's the issue. But I've been looking else where with no luck and if I leave this place I know I'll be without work for a little while, which stresses me out even more.

It sounds like anxiety/stress to me...

Call center work isn't for everyone and there is no failure in that. I could only take about 15 months on the phones before I felt like I was losing my mind.

The repetition - the damage to your short term memory - and the constant stress of meeting the stats is really hard. So you either need to find a reason to justify being there to survive that kind of gauntlet or you need to use it as a stepping stone to somewhere else.

Call center jobs are not for everyone.

They are hard, people are difficult, it's just an all around stressful job.

I've worked in them for seven years and you really see the'bad side of people every day. I'm not even a tech support job any more I'm where people call to just place an order and I have multiple people every day tell me they are going to kill themselves.

Call centers are right up there with . . . collections for being horribly stressful and anxiety producing, between the phone calls and the quotas

Yesterday was my first day on the phone, honestly, so I don't know if it's the phone itself causing issues or just knowing that's what I'll have to do. I hate it there, I really do. It's supposed to be just a "until I find something better" type thing, but I'm having a hard time finding anywhere else. I don't have a whole lot of job experience so not a lot of call backs... none, in fact.

If I go to the dr today and she agrees that it's related to work, I'll likely take that as a sign to quit, even if I have to go back to McDonalds.

Oh I didn't know you were doing outbound.

I have a ton of call center experience and I wouldn't ever do out bound. That's a rough unforgiving job.

It's inbound. If I said outbound, my mistake.

Back from the doctor. She votes anxiety and gave me a pill to try to make sure, otherwise I'm back in for blood work. She put me off work until Friday and wants me to find something else ASAP.