Tell HN: I'm nervous and don't know where else to go

thanks for the advice.

to add some context, i have been voicing concerns and i just feel that i may be in a position where i have to take the silence and work it out for myself - i must remember all the resources i have available to me (including you kind folk here at HN) and work with what i have been given.

i have gotten myself this far, and only i can make it better for myself. time to nut up or shut up i suppose and stand up for myself.

Hello db. Let me try to help :)

You haven't provided a lot of info, but based on what you say, it seems that:

1) you are an intern, not a full-time employee (FTE)

2) Your boss seems to be the one supposedly in charge of the Epicor update, but it also seems that he felt you could be put in charge while he's away. Wait, though: in charge in case the automation he put in place doesn't work.

3) You feel the task it daunting, and you are panicking.

4) It seems you are mostly worrying about the case where the automated update process fails, and people would revert to you to ask for help.

If the above is correct, I'd suggest the following:

1) Use a written form of communication to tell your boss what makes you anxious. Written would help you in case of any legal issue, any wrongful termination, or simply in case your boss will try to blame you for any issue as a result of a failed update.

e.g. "Dear boss, I hope you will have a wonderful holiday next week. I am concerned about the Epicor update scheduled for Monday, Oct 17th, as I have no useful information to be able to support the company in case the update doesn't go as you planned. I just wanted to make sure that you were ok with this, and don't expect me to be able to intervene in case of issues. Of course, I will do my best if something happens, and I would appreciate if you could let me know what's expected of me during the update, or even in preparation for the update (e.g. would you need me to study anything during the weekend?) Thanks."

2) Do not assume that your goal now is to prep for the update, spend the weekend studying Epicor or whatever else. You might still want to do it, but again, it is not required. It seems your boss didn't tell you anything like that.

3) You might want to review your "contract", even if you are an intern and not a FTE. What did you sign when you started working with this company? Try to see if there's anything weird in the liabilities you incur for any wrongdoing. Probably nothing, though. Relax.

4) You're an intern, you're probably young, and this is a great learning opportunity for you. Your anxiety is a consequence of your inability to communicate with your boss properly, even if he might have made a mistake of leaving you alone in all of this. Analyze how the conversation went, and see if you could have done better.

5) Finally, do not listen to the others suggesting that you should polish your resume and run for the hill. It's too rushed. You gave us sparse information, and there's very little to suggest that this would be the best course of action.

Try, instead, to make the best of this situation. And don't panic. Panic is often anxiety, self-inflicted anxiety. You probably didn't do anything wrong; you might have a boss that is not fully aware of what's going on inside your brain, and that happens.

Good luck! Hope that this was helpful in some way.

Honesty and transparency can be incredibly powerful. At a good workplace they will be valued. If your workplace is not a good one, better to find that out as soon as possible.

Talk to your boss if he is still around, or talk to your boss' boss if not.

Try to be open about your emotions. "I am feeling nervous about the Epicor upgrade". Paradoxically, you should confidently express what your anxieties are. Explain as much as you can about why: "I think I need more information to understand if this is something I can do, and what to do if something goes wrong".

If you are in a junior role and you're feeling like this, it's almost certainly not your fault. Your only responsibility is to speak up about how you're feeling. Realising this can be liberating.

Monday might suck, but literally everyone in the company will blame your boss, not you. Who in the world goes on vacation the day a major upgrade is happening and leaves the intern in charge? I mean, no offense, but interns know nothing by design, they're there to learn how to be employees, that's the whole point. So you won't get fired if things go badly, but he might.

If you haven't received a login for Epicor, then if it doesn't work, I don't know that you're going to be able to do anything. So, you probably want to just think through what you're going to say, and to whom, if it blows up.

What you DON'T want to try to do, if it blows up (or seems to be), is some Hail Mary hack-in-somehow-and-try-to-save-the-day. If the update doesn't work and you weren't given the login, you have an eminently reasonable excuse for why you could not save the day.

On the other hand, if you somehow mess with things in a desperate attempt to fix it, and somehow make matters worse, you could be considered to have made a mistake.

Either way, if things blow up, you will have to go to your boss's boss and explain that you don't know how to fix it and don't have a login to attempt to do it even if you did. You will want to do this calmly and professionally, not going out of your way to make anyone else look worse (not that this would be necessary anyway, from the sound of it), but being clear about the actual situation.

Your boss apparently thinks this update is trivial, and will require nothing of you. Perhaps he is right. If he is not, then if you have not been prepared to troubleshoot you could easily make things worse, so be plain and clear about your inability to fix something you haven't been briefed on. They will have to either get hold of your boss, or else call the company who makes the software, and perhaps in that case they may be able to walk you through what to do. If not, don't pretend to knowledge you don't have.

Have a good weekend, you have done what you can do by voicing concern.