Is it normal to feel completely drained after a full day of remote meetings?

I'm 26 and I've been fully remote for about two years now. My job is primarily project management. Lately my calendar has just been absolutely slammed with back to back video calls. Like 7 or 8 hours of calls some days. I barely have time to grab water or use the restroom between them. My screen time report is terrifying.

By 5 PM I feel completely fried. My eyes hurt my head aches and I just want to lie down in a dark room. I usually try to get some personal work done after hours or early in the morning but even that feels impossible sometimes. I used to be able to jump on a call at 9 AM and feel energized but now it's just dread.

Is this a normal remote work burnout thing? I try to push for more asynchronous communication but it rarely happens. Are there strategies to deal with this constant meeting fatigue? I feel like I'm losing my mind a little bit.

Jobadvisor

Yes, what you are experiencing is completely normal, and you are not losing your mind. In fact, what you are describing is a well-documented psychological and physiological phenomenon often called "Zoom Fatigue" or "Virtual Meeting Exhaustion."

When you spend 7 to 8 hours a day on back-to-back video calls, your brain is working drastically harder than it would during in-person interactions or solo deep work.

Why Virtual Meetings Are So Uniquely Exhausting

1. Continuous Mutual Gaze & Micro-Expressions:
   In real life, people look at whiteboards, out windows, or at notes. On video calls, everyone is staring directly at a grid of faces from inches away. Your brain subconsciously interprets continuous, close-up eye contact as high-intensity interaction or threat, keeping your nervous system on edge.
   
   
2. Cognitive Overload from Non-Verbal Cues:
   In person, reading body language happens automatically. On video, your brain has to work overtime to decode subtle facial cues, delayed audio signals, and missing body language.
   
   
3. The "Mirror Effect":
   Seeing a reflection of yourself for 8 hours straight creates hyper-self-awareness and subconscious stress as you continually monitor your own appearance and posture.
   
   
4. Zero Transition Time:
   In an office, walking between conference rooms gives your brain a 3- to 5-minute cognitive "reset." Back-to-back video meetings eliminate these micro-breaks entirely.
   
   
5. Context-Switching Fatigue:
   As a project manager, switching from a high-stakes status update to a technical sync to a team retrospective every hour drains your mental energy reserves rapidly.
   
   

Practical Strategies to Reclaim Your Sanity

Because asking for asynchronous communication hasn't fully worked, try shifting focus to structural, calendar, and boundary changes you can implement immediately:

1. Change Video Call Dynamics

• Turn off "Self View": Hide your own video preview so you aren't staring at yourself all day (other people can still see you).
  
  
• Shrink the Window: Don't keep video calls in full screen. Reducing the window size reduces the perceived closeness of faces, taking your brain out of high-alert mode.
  
  
• Normalize Audio-Only or Camera-Off: Pitch it as a focus booster: "I'm going camera-off for this one to review documents while we talk" or propose "walking 1-on-1s" where both participants take the call on their phones while walking outside.
  
  

2. Implement Shortened Default Meetings

• Change your calendar defaults (in Google Calendar or Outlook) from 30 minutes to 25 minutes, and 60 minutes to 45 or 50 minutes.
  
  
• Use the saved 5–10 minutes strictly to stand up, look out a window, hydrate, or stretch—no checking emails or Slack during this buffer.
  
  

3. Establish "No-Meeting" Focus Blocks

• Block 2 to 3-hour chunks on your calendar labeled "Focus Work / Project Execution" at least 2–3 days a week. Treat these as non-negotiable appointments.
  
  
• As a project manager, frame this to stakeholders as essential time needed to prepare deliverables, unblock team bottlenecks, and keep projects moving.
  
  

4. Optimize Asynchronous Communication (In Steps)

Instead of asking for async work generally, build small async habits:

• Send Video/Audio Demos: Use tools like Loom to record a 3-minute project update instead of scheduling a 30-minute sync.
  
  
• Agenda-Gated Meetings: Require a written agenda before accepting non-urgent invites. If the objective can be resolved in a shared document, suggest addressing it there first.
  
  

Physical Relief Checklist

• 20-20-20 Rule: Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds to relieve eye strain.
  
  
• Physical Disconnect at 5 PM: When your workday ends, immediately leave your desk, close the laptop, and change your environment (e.g., take a 10-minute walk outside or sit in a different room) to signal to your brain that work is over.

I'm ashamed of the work I do

I work in a mall, making pizzas. It's not a chain store, just a small business, but one that pretty much behaves like fast food. Standardized food, upselling, a lot of turnover, and so on.

The food we make isn't absolute garbage (usually) but it's not good either. We have to follow rules made by owners who have never physically done this job, and are expected to keep a level of expertise over the kitchen without any training.

No one is HACCP certified. They nitpick and find faults with everything we do when we're just floundering to get through our shift. I don't pretend to be a chef, but I know they're not chefs either with the constant requests to work faster, as if it's even fucking possible.

I take some pride in what I do, but I'm keenly aware my quality of work wouldn't be tolerable anywhere else other than fast food. So I'm also really ashamed of the food I put out, even if it looks fine, because what do I even know, y'know? My bosses certainly always seem to find faults in my work (but the only training I got was during the course of a week).

Honestly I hate working fast food service, but I also know I wouldn't have the skills to work in a proper restaurant. And to be honest, not sure I'd want to. It's loud, often very macho-esque, you're encouraged to be stoic about injuries and sickness (despite food regulations I fucking guess), the hours are grueling and the pay, from what I hear, is pretty bad.

If I could choose, I'd probably want to be an artist, but that also seems to be an industry where you're either insanely talented or you need money to afford to survive until you can make a living off of it. Especially these days with social media, which I am simply not built for.

Anyway I'm just really ashamed about my work.

Jobadvisor

It makes complete sense why you’re feeling this way, but let’s be very clear about where the fault actually lies here: the shame you’re carrying doesn't belong to you.

You are working in a system designed by people who cut corners, neglect proper training, ignore basic food safety standards like HACCP, and then demand impossible speeds while micro-managing from the sidelines. You aren't "floundering" because you lack ability; you are struggling because you’ve been handed a broken process with zero support and told to make miracles happen.

The fact that you care about quality—that you even want to put out good food and feel uneasy when you can't—shows a level of integrity and pride that your employers clearly don't match.

Unpacking the Fatigue and Shame

• The Skill Illusion: Working in fast food or high-volume mall dining isn't "low skill"—it is high-stress, endurance-based labor. Navigating chaotic shifts without proper training while keeping up with speed demands takes resilience. Don't mistake a poorly run kitchen for a reflection of your worth or capacity.
  
  
• Misplaced Guilt: You don't own the recipe, the ingredients, or the management style. You are an employee exchanging time for a paycheck under someone else's rules. If the pizza isn't artisanal, that's a business decision made above your pay grade, not a personal failing.
  
  
• Toxic Kitchen Culture vs. Reality: You're completely right about traditional line-cook culture. The "macho," high-burnout, endure-the-burns mentality of fine dining kitchens is notoriously toxic, low-paying, and grueling. Recognizing that you don't want that lifestyle isn't a lack of ambition—it's basic self-preservation.
  
  

Reframing Your Next Steps

You don't have to choose between burning out in a chaotic mall kitchen and becoming a starving artist overnight. There is a middle ground where your skills and creative interests can actually align without requiring social media fame or fine-dining hazing.

                  CURRENT REALITY
          [ Mall Pizza / High Stress ]
                       │
                       ▼
       ┌───────────────┴───────────────┐
       ▼                               ▼
 [ Service Transition ]        [ Creative Exploration ]
  • Bakery / Prep Work          • Low-stress art routines
  • Trade / Craft Roles         • Local markets & commissions
  • Structured Environments     • Digital / Print-on-demand

1. Shift Away from High-Volume "Fast Food"

If you want to stay near food or hands-on work without the chaotic, high-speed fast-food vibe:

• Production Bakeries / Prep Kitchens: Often operate on early morning shifts, focus on consistency over high-speed customer interaction, and tend to have far less chaotic kitchen drama.
  
  
• Institutional Dining (Hospitals, Universities, Corporate Cafeterias): These jobs actually adhere to strict HACCP standards, offer real training, set fixed hours, and generally provide better pay and benefits than small fast-food joints.
  
  

2. Lower the Stakes on Art

You don't need to build a massive social media brand or quit your day job to be an artist.

• Decouple Art from Survival: When art has to pay your rent immediately, it creates immense pressure. Treat art as your domain—a place where you have total quality control, no bosses nitpicking your speed, and complete creative freedom.
  
  
• Explore Parallel Trades: Skills like graphic design, print shop production, screen printing, custom framing, or set building combine hands-on crafting with visual art without requiring you to be an "influencer."
  
  

Immediate Coping Strategies

• Clock In, Clock Out Mental Boundary: Repeat to yourself during a shift: "This is their business, not my legacy." Do your job safely and decently, but stop internalizing their management failures as personal flaws.
  
  
• Quietly Build an Exit Strategy: Update your resume framing your experience around reliability, high-volume multitasking, and composure under pressure. Even spending 15 minutes a week looking at alternative jobs will remind you that this mall job is temporary.

Don’t let people waste your time

Today I walked out of an interview after I had been sitting for almost 20 minutes. I live a little over an hour away and even had the curtesy to let them know ahead of time that I would possibly be late due to traffic. They said that was ok. I got there with maybe two minutes to spare, the receptionist invited me to have a seat and someone would be right with me. Cool.

So I waited, checked with the receptionist at the ten minute mark, and they said that they would be out in a minute. By fifteen minutes, I got a little annoyed. By twenty, I had went to my car to take a phone call from my partner. Very brief.

As I was going back, I got a call from the interviewer asking if I “just walked out”, and I let her know it was to answer a quick call. She then asked if I was still interested in the interview (by this mark, it was almost 25 minutes) and it’s not what she said but the way she said it that really bothered me. So after a moment of silence on my end, I said “No. Thank you for your time.” Hung up and left.

Could I have handled that better? Possibly, but my time is very important to me. These same people rescheduled the interview twice before due to “something coming up”. Had I made them wait 20+ minutes, it would’ve been completely unacceptable.

This isn’t a first time thing. I have had hiring managers “forget” about the interview, ghost me before or half way through and recently got sent an offer letter just to have it rescinded after I already signed it.

Moral of the story, do not let these people waste your time. If they don’t value your time, they certainly won’t value you as an employee or an individual.

Jobadvisor

You made the right call, and you don't need to apologize for holding a boundary.

Walking out after a 25-minute delay—especially when they had already rescheduled on you twice and spoke to you with an attitude when they fell behind—was not impulsive; it was a clear demonstration of self-respect.

Why Your Instinct Was 100% Right

• The Double Standard: As you pointed out, if an applicant shows up 20 minutes late without a life-or-death excuse, the interview is over before it begins. Employers expect professional punctuality, and they owe candidates that exact same courtesy.
  
  
• Repeated Red Flags: Rescheduling twice already showed a systemic lack of respect for candidates' schedules. Waiting 20+ minutes in the lobby was just the final confirmation of how that company operates.
  
  
• The Tone Shift: Her tone on the phone ("Did you just walk out?") shifted the blame onto you instead of offering an apology for making an applicant wait nearly half an hour. That gives you a preview of how management handles accountability internally.
  
  

How to Handle It Next Time (To Keep the High Ground)

While walking out and hanging up felt satisfying (and justified), executing it with calm, formal professionalism leaves zero room for them to spin the narrative:

1. Set a Hard Internal Limit: Give a grace period of 10 to 15 minutes max for an interview.
   
   
2. Execute a Graceful Exit at the 15-Minute Mark: Walk back to the receptionist and say calmly:
   
   

   "I have another commitment and am unable to wait any longer today. Please let [Interviewer's Name] know I had to head out. Thank you for your time."

   
   

3. Control the Follow-Up: Send a brief, professional email on your own terms before they even call you:
   
   

   "Thank you for the opportunity today. Unfortunately, after waiting 20 minutes past our scheduled start time following two prior reschedules, I've decided to withdraw my application. I wish your team the best in finding the right fit."

   
   

Doing this firmly closes the door, protects your dignity, and prevents them from accusing you of "unprofessionalism" when they were the ones who dropped the ball.

The Bigger Picture: Hiring Fatigue is Real

Your frustration makes total sense, especially after dealing with ghosting and a rescinded offer. The current hiring market is full of disorganized, low-empathy processes.

Recognizing that an interview is a two-way evaluation—where you are judging their culture just as much as they are judging your skills—is a massive mindset shift. When a company shows you who they are before you even sign a contract, believe them.

Casting a bad light on the team with above average performance

Today I got a warning from my supervisor. It was a spontaneous meeting via teams with the title "Performance".

Its our most busy seaaon at the moment. I work from home and have been doing more than the rest of our team for almost a year now. I never questioned it. I just do my job and work as good as I can.

Recently I have beaten the overall team record for solved tickets three times in a row in the last 2 weeks. Its our most busy time as I said. I am exhausted. I could see the numbers in my dashboard so I really thought, dumb as I was, the meeting is a clap on my shoulder for good work. Boy was I wrong. People higher than my supervisor started noticing that there is an individual doing 2-3x the work of other team members per shift. So now my supervisor has to find excuses for this. I was told this casts a bad light on the whole team and I got an official warning.

Now I dont know how to proceed. Sure some will tell me just do less no one will thank you anyway but I am unsure if I can continue. This workplace has been a mess with broken promises and this is just the cherry on top.

People who drink coffee and joke with the supervisor while doing nothing productive getting raises meanwhile I get a warning because I do too much, like what the hell is this work environment ?!

Jobadvisor

What you are experiencing is an absurd, upside-down corporate dynamic, but unfortunately, it is extremely common in poorly managed organizations.

You were punished for revealing a management failure. By outperforming the team by 200–300%, you unintentionally exposed the fact that your supervisor has been managing a team where most people are severely underperforming or slacking off. Instead of fixing the team's productivity or praising you, your supervisor is protecting their own skin by trying to force you back down to the baseline.

Why This Happens (The Corporate Reality)

• Threat to Management: Higher-ups looking at the metrics asked your supervisor: "If candidate A can do 300 tickets, why is the average for everyone else only 100? Are people wasting time?" Your supervisor got called out, panicked, and passed the blame to you.
  
  
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: In lazy or politically driven teams, anyone who exceeds the norm makes everyone else look bad. The team culture values coasting, socializing, and keeping heads down over actual output.
  
  
• Invalid "Official Warning": An official warning for doing too much work is absurd and almost certainly violates basic HR standards unless they try to fabricate a nonsensical reason like "violating quality over quantity guidelines."
  
  

How to Handle This Immediately

1. Document Everything (Paper Trail)

Do not let this stay as a verbal conversation. Send an email to your supervisor today to lock down what was actually said:

"Hi [Supervisor Name], summarize our call today regarding my ticket volume: You mentioned that my high ticket output is casting a bad light on the team dynamic and requested that I adjust my performance. Could you please clarify in writing what the target metric/cap per shift should be, and confirm if this formal warning will be documented in my file?"

If they back down in writing, you have proof. If they refuse to put it in writing, it proves the "warning" was an empty threat meant to scare you into slowing down.

2. Protect Your Physical and Mental Health

You mentioned you are exhausted. You were already burning yourself out to hit those numbers, and this workplace has rewarded your dedication with hostility.

• Drop to the Team Average: Immediately slow down to match the standard pace of the team (or just slightly above it).
  
  
• Stop Giving Unearned Loyalty: Put in your exact required hours, take your full breaks, and stop pushing yourself during peak season.
  
  

3. Plan Your Exit Quietly

A workplace that gives warnings for high performance, rewards brown-nosed slacking, and operates on broken promises is unfixable from the bottom.

• Update your resume today.
  
  
• Frame this high performance on your resume: "Consistently exceeded team resolution benchmarks by up to 200% during peak volume seasons."
  
  
• Start applying elsewhere quietly while coasting at the bare-minimum required level at this current job.
  
  

The Core Takeaway

You didn't do anything wrong; you worked hard in a broken system. Take your work ethic, your impressive metrics, and your drive to a company that measures performance with bonuses and promotions rather than warnings and excuses.

My manager is trying to gaslight me by misquoting my contract.

I started a new role a few months ago after being made redundant from my last one.

I'm a robotics developer within the public sector and it is an absolute shit show. Since joining, I haven't been assigned a single project and SO many people have left since I started (red flag).

There's basically no work to do and I genuinely don't know why I was hired. Everyone twiddles their thumbs and comes and goes as they please.

Apparently, word of this got to our sr head of department and he's gone to our manager and asked what we're actually doing.

We're now being swarmed with busy work that does nothing and have pipeline managers chasing us for things we know nothing about.

One such pipeline manager emailed me, my team and all our seniors to get an update on projects. She tagged me and asked me specifically where we were with one particular project, which I've already explained to her three times.

"It needs to be designed by the solution architect and then the process design documentation needs to be created by the project manager before it comes to me to develop; I'm happy to assist from a technical standpoint where needed if required" - this is how it's always been done, it doesn't even come to a developer until it's ready to be built.

MY manager responds to that email directly to me and the pipeline manager and says 'actually, this is well in your job description to do both of those stages and also build it too'.

She then quotes my job profile and deliberately cherry picks or avoids key details of my role requirements.

She conveniently avoids the part where I'm to COLLABORATE with these roles and assist where possible, not to do it myself.

She tells me I'm to look at where things can be improved in the business with automation, whereas my contract says I'm to look at existing automations in the business to see how they can be improved - two very different and role specific tasks, I'm not a business analyst.

I told my colleague about this and he started freaking out telling me not to push back, but he's a bit of a doormat.

I went back to my manager and clarified my role details and made out like I was pointing it out because I didn't want my last reply to look like I was avoiding work when it isn't even my responsibility.

They're obviously trying to get me to do more work since we've had several people leave our team and not rehire.

I'm so glad I saved the job spec for this role. I think I need to look for another as this is ridiculous. Can't wait to log on tomorrow and see what passive aggressive response I get.

TLDR: My manager is deliberately misquoting and cherry picking my contract to try and get me to do more work outside of my role.

Jobadvisor

You are completely right to be furious, and saving the original job description was a brilliant move.

What you are witnessing is a classic corporate "cover-your-ass" (CYA) maneuver. Because the senior head of department called out the lack of output, your manager is panicking. Rather than admitting management failed to allocate projects or hire key roles (like Solution Architects or Project Managers), she is attempting to dump end-to-end responsibilities onto you—and using bad-faith contract interpretations to force compliance.

The Reality of Your Situation

• Management Deflection: Your manager is under fire for team inactivity. Re-labeling missing structural roles as "developer tasks" allows management to shift blame onto you for "falling behind," rather than on them for failing to manage the pipeline.
  
  
• Scope Creep vs. Role Conversion: Expecting a Robotics Developer to act as a Business Analyst, Solution Architect, Project Manager, and Developer is not "extra duties"—it is four separate jobs.
  
  
• The Sinking Ship Indicator: Mass exits, unreplaced vacancies, and sudden surges of chaotic "busy work" mean this department is in survival mode. Looking for another job immediately is the absolute right decision.
  
  

How to Play This Professionally (Without Getting Trapped)

Since you already pushed back (good on you for not being a doormat), your goal now is de-escalation through calm, factual documentation.

1. Shift from Argumentative to "Clarification"

Avoid arguing over semantics like "gaslighting" in writing. Frame your stance around governance, quality, and risk:

"My goal is to ensure our automation implementations adhere to proper solution architecture standards and governance. While I am eager to collaborate with Solution Architects and PMs to accelerate these processes, taking on architectural design and business analysis independently creates significant risk to project quality and maintenance."

2. Demand Written Prioritization

When slammed with out-of-scope work, don't just refuse; force them to prioritize:

"To ensure I am aligning with department priorities, please confirm which of these architectural and PM deliverables take precedence over my core development tasks. Once confirmed, I will adjust my schedule accordingly."

3. Bcc Your Personal Email (Safely)

Keep copies of your original job description, your signed contract, and key email threads (specifically where your manager misquotes your contract and where you clarified your role). Do not forward sensitive public sector data, but protect your personal paper trail.

Your Action Plan Going Forward

                   IMMEDIATE STEPS
 ┌────────────────────────┴────────────────────────┐
 ▼                                                 ▼
[ Protect Yourself ]                             [ Quiet Exit ]
 • Save paper trail (Contract + Emails)           • Update CV with tech stack
 • Respond strictly in writing                    • Apply for private/public roles
 • Keep cool, don't take the bait                 • Coast gracefully until an offer

1. Do Not Engage in Passive-Aggressive Email Feuds: If your manager responds passively-aggressively tomorrow, do not take the bait. Acknowledge the email neutrally: "Thank you for the clarification. I'll focus on [X task] for now."
   
   
2. Dust Off Your Resume Today: Public sector robotics/automation experience is valuable. Frame your CV around the actual tech stack and development work you have done, rather than the internal chaos.
   
   
3. Let the Clock Run Out: Do what is reasonably requested within your shift, stop stressing over their broken pipeline, and direct that mental energy into interviewing elsewhere.