If you’ve been following along for a while, you know my life is a delicate juggling act. Between my husband’s hectic, late-night schedule, managing a household, raising our little ones, and clocking into my full-time corporate job every morning—chaos is practically a permanent guest at our dinner table. I usually pride myself on keeping all those plates spinning. But this week? This week, the corporate plate didn’t just wobble; it shattered into a million pieces.
To put it bluntly: I am completely, utterly overwhelmed.
Caught in the middle of a mess
We’ve all had tough weeks at the office, but lately, the pressure has reached a boiling point, largely stemming from what I can only describe as a messy management style. You know that sinking feeling when you see a train wreck happening in slow motion? That’s been my entire month.
This week, several major work incidents exploded. The frustrating part? Every single one of them could have been easily prevented if they hadn’t been taken for granted at the beginning.
When you carry multiple responsibilities on your shoulders—both at home and at a demanding 9-to-5—you don’t have the mental bandwidth for avoidable drama. Yet, there I was, stuck right in the middle of the chaos, trying to put out fires I didn’t start. It made me pause and ask myself a fundamental question that I think a lot of us in the corporate world face:
Is it the job itself that is difficult, or is it just the people equation?
The anatomy of corporate inertia
As the week dragged on, I found myself swinging between shock and pure exhaustion. I watched in disbelief as emails were forwarded, cc left, right, and all around like hot potatoes without any specific actions except FYI. So, what am I supposed to do with FYI? Tasks and entire projects were dumped into shared spaces without ownership and accountability.
As a project leader, you expect to guide a team. Instead, I found myself expected to miraculously find every answer alone, without any backing. I started asking basic operational questions, only to be met with blank stares:
- Who is actually reading these circulated emails?
- What preventative measures are we putting in place?
- Who is ultimately expected to deliver the outcome?
The silence was deafening. There were so many questions, yet so few solutions. I equally do not know what others do not know. Every time I attempted to facilitate a decision or bring structure to a meeting, it led to absolutely no closure. And the moment I tried to fix one leak, another three pipes burst. Before one problem could even be processed, the next crisis was dropped on my desk.
Is it pure innocence? Ignorance? Or just lazy professionalism? Honestly, I still don’t know.
The trickle-down effect
More than anything, my heart breaks for the local execution teams who caught in the crossfire. I felt so sorry for them this week; decisions made at the top spiralled down with little empathy for the people actually doing the heavy lifting on the ground.
We all know that work has to go on despite corporate uncertainties. And look, I get it—navigating ambiguity is a necessary skill set in today’s business world. We all have to pivot sometimes. But there is still a job that needs to be done at the leadership level. At the bare minimum, providing a clearer direction with some sense of how we are supposed to get there, rather than just throwing us into the deep end without a life jacket.
Why I step back to protect my peace
By noon, sitting at my desk with a cold cup of coffee, it hit me. I realised that pounding my head against a brick wall wasn’t going to break the wall; it was just giving me a massive headache. If leadership won’t drive decisions, cornering them is beyond my pay check. Maybe it was deliberate?
When a system gets completely overwhelmed, the whole operation suffers unless someone steps in to reset the rhythm. In my corporate life, I am the one who needs to call for that reset.
So, I decided to do the healthiest thing possible: I took a step back.
I realised the best move right now is to shut down the laptop, step away from the inbox, and take a much-needed break. The messy emails will still be there tomorrow. The unanswered questions won’t disappear. But my sanity? That will slip away if I don’t protect it.
Keeping it real
To all my fellow corporate servants, working moms, and anyone else managing a chaotic household while trying to survive a disorganised workplace: it is okay to hit pause. You cannot carry the accountability of an entire department on your own two shoulders.
This weekend, I’m trading my spreadsheets for family time. I’m going to spend quality time with my husband, hug my kids a little tighter, and completely disconnect from the corporate noise.
Have you ever hit a wall like this at work where the lack of accountability drove you crazy? How do you protect your peace when the office gets messy? Let me know in the comments below—I’d love to hear how you handle the corporate circus.
Until next time, take care of yourselves!
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