My team isn’t bad by any means, and for the most part they’re genuinely nice to work with. However, the workload and deadlines are extremely demanding. Tasks that would normally take me two or three days are often expected to be completed within three hours. Even when the volume of work isn’t excessive, I end up spending significant extra time just trying to understand it because I’m still so new. As a result, this has been the least efficient and most stressed, I’ve felt in my life, and I’m still trying to find my footing here.

The work itself also isn’t monotonous; almost every day brings something new. While that’s great from a learning perspective, it also means there’s constant pressure to learn quickly, retain a lot of information, and perform immediately. On top of that, it feels like the quality of our work alone no longer speaks for itself, which makes the environment even more pressuring, because you are expected to know. I have covered whole semester worth of portions in one night trying to understand the work.

I also want to be clear that I’m not trying to complain, whine, or sound entitled. I genuinely want to do well here, and I’m trying to understand how to make this environment more manageable for myself without overburdening myself any more than I already am.

I guess what I’m really struggling with is whether this is just part of being early in my career, or if this is something I should expect long-term. Will I always feel this overwhelmed and behind, or does it get better with experience?