When Amy first came to see me, she told me how much she hated her job and asked if she should quit. I suggested that before she made a rash decision she might regret, we should look at the feedback she was getting from her colleagues and boss and how she was feeling personally about her job.
Did she feel isolated or unappreciated at work? You may think you’re being very discreet about how much you dislike your job, but when you have outgrown a job or are poorly suited to it, the universe often knows. You may find that you are excluded from important decisions, plans or projects. You may be given the least interesting work and/or be passed over for raises or promotions. Co-workers or supervisors may avoid you or cut you out of office gossip or chit chat. You may feel irrelevant or lonely.
How was Amy feeling towards her work? Was she feeling frustrated or discouraged about her work? When you are unhappy at work, you may forget assignments or appointments, be short tempered with clients or customers and wait eagerly for 5 o’clock or the weekend. You may feel less creative and more frustrated or discouraged about your work.
Amy told me that she was being given projects way below her level and she was no longer included in important decisions. She went shopping alone at lunch and couldn’t remember the last time she had lunch with anyone on her team. They didn’t even come to ask her for help with their projects anymore.
How was Amy feeling personally? Amy shared that she was grazing on chocolate and sweets every evening and had stopped exercising. She didn’t see her friends much anymore and rarely made weekend plans. Perhaps, she volunteered, she was mildly depressed.
When you’re in a work situation that is no longer a good fit, you may feel more tired but experience insomnia, feel depressed or suffer from unexplained headaches, colds, pains etc. You may feel overly eager for life to begin after 5:00 or you may feel too drained after a long, boring day at work to do anything but escape via TV, books, alcohol or recreational drugs. Quitting may seem to be the right answer.
Given the negative feedback she was getting at work and how miserable she was feeling personally, I suggested that it was definitely time to begin a job search. Given that a job search might take a number of months, I suggested that she continue in her cur;rent job while gearing up her search. Her search could become her major focus and she could, as one of my clients said, “Put her job on a maintenance dose.”
If you’ve experienced situations like this, where you’re thinking of quitting your job, please get in touch by sending an email to Judi Lansky at jlansky@lanskycareerconsultants.com.
