Safety
Before anything about the job.
This page is never counted against any allowance and is never behind anything. It names routes rather than numbers, because numbers differ by country and change.
When this stops being about work
This is a site about work, and work is where men bring things that are not really about work, because the job is the acceptable subject.
Everything on this page comes before anything about your career. None of it waits for your employment to be sorted out.
If you do not want to be here any more
If you are thinking about ending your life, or you have worked out how you would do it, or you have started thinking that your family would be better off with the insurance money, that is the thing that needs attention now — not the job.
Contact your local emergency services or a crisis line where you are. This site does not publish telephone numbers, including emergency numbers, because they differ by country and a wrong number costs time. The number is the one for where you are, and your own doctor and out-of-hours services are also routes.
If you can, tell one person who is physically near you tonight, even if the job is the last thing you want to discuss. It does not have to be the right person or a well-chosen sentence.
If your body has stopped coping
Chest pain, not being able to breathe, collapse: emergency services. Not tomorrow, and not after you have finished worrying about your role.
Several days without sleep, not eating, not being able to leave the house or do your job at all: your own doctor, this week. This is common in exactly this situation and it is treatable. It is not weakness and it is not something to outlast.
If you have started drinking to get through it
Drinking to get to sleep, drinking earlier, drinking alone, or drinking more since this started. It is said here without a lecture and without a label, because it is extremely common in men at this exact point and almost never mentioned to anybody.
One thing is a medical matter rather than a willpower matter: if you drink heavily every day and you are shaking, sweating, retching, feverish, confused or seeing things, stopping suddenly on your own can kill you. That needs a doctor rather than a decision.
There are separate guides in this network for men who have stopped drinking and for the people around them. They are linked from the network page rather than pushed at you here.
If somebody at home is not safe
If you have frightened, threatened or hurt anybody at home, or somebody is doing that to you, or a child is not safe, that is emergency services, the police or a local safeguarding route. It is not a work problem and it is not something to handle privately until the job is settled.
Stress does not make it acceptable, and asking for advice about it does not require proof or certainty.
What this site is not
This is not a crisis service. Nobody is monitoring the chat on this site, no human being reads it, and it will not contact anybody on your behalf, ever. If you need a person, the routes above are the routes.
This page is never counted against any allowance and is never behind anything.