Help me be brave
August 16, 2023 8:06 AM Subscribe
I need to leave my job and I think I need to take time before I start another one. Please share writings or your own stories about doing this that had a positive outcome.
So, per my previous question, my workplace continues to be chaos. There have been more rounds of firings, including respected long-term folks as recently as last week. My boss has changed three times in the last six months. They've hired new people who have process expertise but none of the field knowledge and no path or interest in learning it. There's a condescending tone to a lot of the meetings, now with that certain underlying note of sexism. Supposedly, I'm up for a promotion in the next few weeks, but frankly, I don't want it. The title doesn't open doors I want, and staying just means waiting for my time to come while destroying my physical and mental health.
My family, including my spouse, have all been encouraging me at every turn to just quit and take time off before I move to doing something else. We could afford it, for years if needed. In my dream world, I'd be a self-employed writer and I have done the logistical preparation for this, but everything I hear about publishing indicates, that like so many fields, things are falling apart. Most of all, I just need some time to recover and I can figure out where to go from there.
Of course emotionally it's not as simple as that. I have been running full tilt for the last nearly ten years, working more than full time, finishing a masters and a PhD, and I cowrote a novel. I've let my sense of self-identity be intertwined with working hard in a difficult and underpaid field for my entire adult career and I have significant emotional investment in what that field does. Leaving feels like letting my coworkers and people in the greater field down. I've also gotten in the bad habit of barely taking time off, making me fear that I'd just replace a tyrant boss with a tyrant me (now with unstable pay!). I have fear, not exactly about a resume gap, but about struggling to find something I want to do in the future and looking back on taking time off as a point where I failed. I have fear about not bringing in an income, and what that means for me as a person in a relationship. In short, I'm thoroughly brain poisoned by capitalism, and afraid of not being beholden to a company financially and as a key pillar of my sense of self.
I think I need inspiration to make the decision I know I want to make. So, please share stories of your own or others of making a difficult choice and it working out. It doesn't have to be about trying something new and being wildly successful; it might be even better if the story had the moral of I tried something and it didn't work out, but things were okay in the end. It could be as simple as here is how I quit (and it felt great), as insightful as here is thinking about why people shouldn't hitch their self worth to the wheel of late stage capitalism, or a longer story about finding a different way of living you didn't know you wanted.
Thank you!
So, per my previous question, my workplace continues to be chaos. There have been more rounds of firings, including respected long-term folks as recently as last week. My boss has changed three times in the last six months. They've hired new people who have process expertise but none of the field knowledge and no path or interest in learning it. There's a condescending tone to a lot of the meetings, now with that certain underlying note of sexism. Supposedly, I'm up for a promotion in the next few weeks, but frankly, I don't want it. The title doesn't open doors I want, and staying just means waiting for my time to come while destroying my physical and mental health.
My family, including my spouse, have all been encouraging me at every turn to just quit and take time off before I move to doing something else. We could afford it, for years if needed. In my dream world, I'd be a self-employed writer and I have done the logistical preparation for this, but everything I hear about publishing indicates, that like so many fields, things are falling apart. Most of all, I just need some time to recover and I can figure out where to go from there.
Of course emotionally it's not as simple as that. I have been running full tilt for the last nearly ten years, working more than full time, finishing a masters and a PhD, and I cowrote a novel. I've let my sense of self-identity be intertwined with working hard in a difficult and underpaid field for my entire adult career and I have significant emotional investment in what that field does. Leaving feels like letting my coworkers and people in the greater field down. I've also gotten in the bad habit of barely taking time off, making me fear that I'd just replace a tyrant boss with a tyrant me (now with unstable pay!). I have fear, not exactly about a resume gap, but about struggling to find something I want to do in the future and looking back on taking time off as a point where I failed. I have fear about not bringing in an income, and what that means for me as a person in a relationship. In short, I'm thoroughly brain poisoned by capitalism, and afraid of not being beholden to a company financially and as a key pillar of my sense of self.
I think I need inspiration to make the decision I know I want to make. So, please share stories of your own or others of making a difficult choice and it working out. It doesn't have to be about trying something new and being wildly successful; it might be even better if the story had the moral of I tried something and it didn't work out, but things were okay in the end. It could be as simple as here is how I quit (and it felt great), as insightful as here is thinking about why people shouldn't hitch their self worth to the wheel of late stage capitalism, or a longer story about finding a different way of living you didn't know you wanted.
Thank you!
Best answer: I was at a startup when a coworker who was widely reviled came to me and asked on a personal level what he was doing wrong. I gave him a corporate bullshit answer and realized afterwards that the corporate snake had swallowed me whole and I had lost my humanity. So I quit to take time and recover myself.
It took about a year. Fortunately I came into the funds to pursue what I thought I wanted to do alone for another few years, after which I realized that I really did like working with groups of people, brushed up my skills a bit, and re-entered the corporate world. That time I was able to keep my humanity intact despite it causing me at least one serious run-in with HR. Worth it.
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I had lived in Silicon Valley suburbia for 40 years when it came time to retire. A place in Mexico rose to the top of the list. I had no connections to Mexico and very little Spanish but I turned up with a suitcase and a backpack and made a life for myself here. My ongoing struggles to learn Spanish have been very humbling but I have learned to compensate. It was a big jump based on a Wikipedia entry and a one week visit but it was absolutely the correct thing to do.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:28 AM on August 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
It took about a year. Fortunately I came into the funds to pursue what I thought I wanted to do alone for another few years, after which I realized that I really did like working with groups of people, brushed up my skills a bit, and re-entered the corporate world. That time I was able to keep my humanity intact despite it causing me at least one serious run-in with HR. Worth it.
--------------
I had lived in Silicon Valley suburbia for 40 years when it came time to retire. A place in Mexico rose to the top of the list. I had no connections to Mexico and very little Spanish but I turned up with a suitcase and a backpack and made a life for myself here. My ongoing struggles to learn Spanish have been very humbling but I have learned to compensate. It was a big jump based on a Wikipedia entry and a one week visit but it was absolutely the correct thing to do.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:28 AM on August 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I was in a situation much like yours. I realized after having to mute myself and turn my video off so that I could sob through a humiliating meeting, that I had to take the leap.
Like you, I had artistic projects in flight and in my ideal world I'd make a career of it (or so I thought).
I'm not going to lie: it was very difficult to reset my sense of self worth. I promised my husband I would not take a job for 6 months. I think making that commitment to someone else was helpful, because I (sadly) did not feel I was entitled to do it just for me. How others feel about how hard I work mattered too much to me. I decided to surrender to my difficulty valuing my own health and happiness, instead of berating myself for it. That was clutch. Accepting that it was hard and doing it anyway.
Then, I found I wanted to do too much. All the hobbies! All the projects!!! Figure out dream job! Manifest!!!
No, i needed to rest. But I could not rest. Eventually, i settled on taking a trip. I set a reasonable budget (thus felt insane with no job, but it was doable). I planned that trip like it was my job.
Eventually, I started to ease into taking time for myself. I still kept looking for work and fighting feelings of worthlessness. But a dream opportunity crossed my path. One I wouldn't have considered if I hadn't been free. It didn't actually look like the dream job I'd been imagining for myself. So I'm so glad I slowed down and had time and mental space to take a different route when it presented itself. I'd not have thought to seek it out myself and I'd not have had the peace of mind to recognize it if I hadn't taken that time.
posted by pazazygeek at 8:30 AM on August 16, 2023 [6 favorites]
Like you, I had artistic projects in flight and in my ideal world I'd make a career of it (or so I thought).
I'm not going to lie: it was very difficult to reset my sense of self worth. I promised my husband I would not take a job for 6 months. I think making that commitment to someone else was helpful, because I (sadly) did not feel I was entitled to do it just for me. How others feel about how hard I work mattered too much to me. I decided to surrender to my difficulty valuing my own health and happiness, instead of berating myself for it. That was clutch. Accepting that it was hard and doing it anyway.
Then, I found I wanted to do too much. All the hobbies! All the projects!!! Figure out dream job! Manifest!!!
No, i needed to rest. But I could not rest. Eventually, i settled on taking a trip. I set a reasonable budget (thus felt insane with no job, but it was doable). I planned that trip like it was my job.
Eventually, I started to ease into taking time for myself. I still kept looking for work and fighting feelings of worthlessness. But a dream opportunity crossed my path. One I wouldn't have considered if I hadn't been free. It didn't actually look like the dream job I'd been imagining for myself. So I'm so glad I slowed down and had time and mental space to take a different route when it presented itself. I'd not have thought to seek it out myself and I'd not have had the peace of mind to recognize it if I hadn't taken that time.
posted by pazazygeek at 8:30 AM on August 16, 2023 [6 favorites]
Best answer: Addendum on failure: When I returned to the workforce I had gained some different skills and had the opportunity to do them professionally. For most of my career I had written software for routers and other networking gear; I got a job implementing the user interface for an application on the Macintosh.
Wow, did I suck at that. I grinded (ground?) my gears for a year before I contacted some of my old coworkers and bailed and went back to doing what I loved.
The moral of the story for me was that after taking time off and trying something new it turned out I had done pretty well choosing my career in the first place. Who knew?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:41 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Wow, did I suck at that. I grinded (ground?) my gears for a year before I contacted some of my old coworkers and bailed and went back to doing what I loved.
The moral of the story for me was that after taking time off and trying something new it turned out I had done pretty well choosing my career in the first place. Who knew?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:41 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Best answer: My wife encouraged me to take a redundancy package from a job that was destroying me. I didn't want to because we lived in an area where I didn't think there was much comparable employment and the redundancy package would only last us for 6 months before we'd be homeless without me getting another job.
I was scared and lacked self-belief, which is the standard and cruellest twist of working in a toxic environment: it's their fault, but they make you feel like you're the one who's not capable.
Fortunately my wife DID believe in me. It's not "only" 6 months, she said, it's 6 months. We'll be fine. This is your golden opportunity to get out and build a happier life.
And she was absolutely right. Once I was out from the toxicity, and I'd spent a couple of months decompressing and getting some distance and perspective, I realised that leaving was the best career decision I ever made. I ended up getting a job in an adjacent field which opened up a whole new career which I love. But if it hadn't, and I'd stayed in the same field, she was still right. That place was hell, and getting out was the right thing to do.
It sounds like you hate your job and everything about working for that company. If your husband and family are encouraging you to do it, and you can financially afford it, quit. Leave. GTFO. No matter what happens, you won't regret it.
We're all rooting for you.
posted by underclocked at 8:56 AM on August 16, 2023 [6 favorites]
I was scared and lacked self-belief, which is the standard and cruellest twist of working in a toxic environment: it's their fault, but they make you feel like you're the one who's not capable.
Fortunately my wife DID believe in me. It's not "only" 6 months, she said, it's 6 months. We'll be fine. This is your golden opportunity to get out and build a happier life.
And she was absolutely right. Once I was out from the toxicity, and I'd spent a couple of months decompressing and getting some distance and perspective, I realised that leaving was the best career decision I ever made. I ended up getting a job in an adjacent field which opened up a whole new career which I love. But if it hadn't, and I'd stayed in the same field, she was still right. That place was hell, and getting out was the right thing to do.
It sounds like you hate your job and everything about working for that company. If your husband and family are encouraging you to do it, and you can financially afford it, quit. Leave. GTFO. No matter what happens, you won't regret it.
We're all rooting for you.
posted by underclocked at 8:56 AM on August 16, 2023 [6 favorites]
Best answer: Having lived by the rule of "never quit a job until you have a new one signed for" so have, in my forties, turned my back on that ethos and how! I have quit my last three jobs with nothing planned but being true to myself and my values. In each case it has lead to something amazingly much better, but for various reasons I ended up making the same choice again. I am now one year into what I believe could be my forever job. Not having the sword hanging over me to accept any position thatwooudl remove me from my bad job has been key to finding jobs that were right for me. Take time off, enjoy it, leave your deets along with some very specific requests with a recruiter and tell them to only contact if it fits all your points and pays X. Or make a search term on a Jobsite that would be so niche you get very few alerts, I had the search term "nerd". Quit, enjoy it, live your life!
posted by Iteki at 8:56 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Iteki at 8:56 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Three times I have left a job (either by quitting or being laid off) and taken multiple months off to recover from burnout and/or figure out what I wanted to do next.
It was worth it every single time.
I had an amount of time in mind each time I took one of these breaks and I've found the next thing I wanted to do pretty much right on schedule each time. Best of all, I was well rested and excited to work again when I started instead of feeling crispy and burnt out.
I highly recommend starting your time off by having a "potato week" during which you do not do anything important or strenuous. Binge watch that series your spouse isn't interested in, play video games, order in take out, sleep in! Take slow, meandering walks through your neighbourhood and look at birds/flowers/cats. Sit in a park and people watch. Do not catch up on chores, work on home improvement projects, start a new workout plan, look at job postings or start writing a novel. Potato week is not the time for that. It is the time to just *be*, to rest, to recover. Repeat potato week as needed.
posted by burntflowers at 9:16 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
It was worth it every single time.
I had an amount of time in mind each time I took one of these breaks and I've found the next thing I wanted to do pretty much right on schedule each time. Best of all, I was well rested and excited to work again when I started instead of feeling crispy and burnt out.
I highly recommend starting your time off by having a "potato week" during which you do not do anything important or strenuous. Binge watch that series your spouse isn't interested in, play video games, order in take out, sleep in! Take slow, meandering walks through your neighbourhood and look at birds/flowers/cats. Sit in a park and people watch. Do not catch up on chores, work on home improvement projects, start a new workout plan, look at job postings or start writing a novel. Potato week is not the time for that. It is the time to just *be*, to rest, to recover. Repeat potato week as needed.
posted by burntflowers at 9:16 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I was pushed out of a job in mid 2021 after my health took a dramatic turn for the worse and my workplace refused to accommodate. It was terrifying in lots of ways - our rent was too high for us to live off one income, I had no idea whether my health would get better and although I had savings, I had really hoped that was going to be a downpayment on a house.
It was also, hands down, the best thing that could have happened for my career. I took a month to do absolutely nothing, which turned out to be exactly what my body needed to start recovering and then started job hunting. Going from a workplace where it was clear nobody wanted me around to being quite sought after as a hire was a welcome ego boost and I was able to take a job I knew I could do without stretching myself and which was well paid enough to start building up my savings again. It was a contract, which meant I also felt like I could walk away into a better position for my long term career when I was ready. I've since done that, and I am so truly happy with where I've ended up.
(also, spending a summer pottering around the garden and snoozing on the sofa was lovely, even with money stress!)
posted by In Your Shell Like at 10:30 AM on August 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
It was also, hands down, the best thing that could have happened for my career. I took a month to do absolutely nothing, which turned out to be exactly what my body needed to start recovering and then started job hunting. Going from a workplace where it was clear nobody wanted me around to being quite sought after as a hire was a welcome ego boost and I was able to take a job I knew I could do without stretching myself and which was well paid enough to start building up my savings again. It was a contract, which meant I also felt like I could walk away into a better position for my long term career when I was ready. I've since done that, and I am so truly happy with where I've ended up.
(also, spending a summer pottering around the garden and snoozing on the sofa was lovely, even with money stress!)
posted by In Your Shell Like at 10:30 AM on August 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
Best answer: If you can afford to quit and take time off, do so. I wish I could.
I've quit with nothing but freelance writing to fall back on twice in my career. Once in 2000, another time in 2010. Both times it was healthier short-term and better for my career long-term. (I love writing. I don't love invoicing, landing clients, etc.)
If you feel like you need to keep a foot in the game, start your own business "consulting" or as a writing agency. Yes, the publishing world is iffy right now - there's still work out there, though, and if nothing else you could start your own "publication" with a WordPress site and a pro theme. (Or whatever CMS and such appeals to you.)
+1 to quit and do something else if you can do so. (Including doing nothing for a while if you have the chance to do that and need to breathe.)
posted by jzb at 10:44 AM on August 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
I've quit with nothing but freelance writing to fall back on twice in my career. Once in 2000, another time in 2010. Both times it was healthier short-term and better for my career long-term. (I love writing. I don't love invoicing, landing clients, etc.)
If you feel like you need to keep a foot in the game, start your own business "consulting" or as a writing agency. Yes, the publishing world is iffy right now - there's still work out there, though, and if nothing else you could start your own "publication" with a WordPress site and a pro theme. (Or whatever CMS and such appeals to you.)
+1 to quit and do something else if you can do so. (Including doing nothing for a while if you have the chance to do that and need to breathe.)
posted by jzb at 10:44 AM on August 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I had worked as a computer programmer, mainly in embedded systems, for many years. Eventually I got burnt out and became so oppressed by understanding exactly how ecologically unsustainable the upgrade treadmill is, and how much of the IT industry as a whole is propped up by total bullshit, that I just gave up on it and walked away from my job with no plan beyond living off my accumulated savings until I figured out what to do next.
I moved into a low-rent share house with my then girlfriend and a friend of hers from university, and spent a year living in blissful idleness and tormenting the neighbours with the cheap drum kit I'd started playing for fun. The year after that, we embarked on a low-budget trip around Australia - we left Melbourne hitchhiking with backpacks, and it took us a month to figure out that we'd actually save money and hugely improve our freedom of movement if we had a vehicle we could stay in, at which point we bought Rufus the Wonky Bus from a dodgy Adelaide car yard for $1000.
We broke up near the end of that trip and I returned to Melbourne with very little money left, no home, and no plan. Ended up subletting a cheap room in a ten-bedroom share house where two out of the three leaseholders were smack addicts. Did some taxi driver training and got a taxi driver's license, then spent the next two years paring back my lifestyle until I could fund it on $100 per week, which I got by driving four or five night shifts per month. Grew veggies in the back yard. Grew a little hydroponic weed as well, smoked and ate as much as I wanted to, gave away the rest. Cycled everywhere. Played more drums. Life was good.
Life continued to be good after that house became too chaotic for me and and my new girlfriend to feel comfortable in and we found a cheap little flat for just the two of us. Funding my half of that meant I had to up my taxi game by a couple of shifts per month but the work was fun and I was happy to do it. Still no sign of anything resembling a career plan, though.
Early in 1999, an old friend who had by then become a well paid and justifiably respected IT manager was putting together a team to go to Berlin and implement a new ticketing system for its public transport network. He made me an offer that I would have needed to be a complete fool to refuse, so I didn't. The company paid for travel to West Australia for me, to Berlin for both me and ms flabdablet, a flat for the two of us in Berlin, a generous per diem and an absolutely absurd salary, part of which I used to keep on paying the rent for our Melbourne flat because neither of us could be arsed to think about where else to keep our stuff while we were overseas.
Getting back in the programming saddle was lucrative as hell but working in a country whose language I didn't speak and where the sun went the wrong way across the sky was stressful in ways I hadn't experienced before and bad for both my physical fitness and my mental health. Ended up experiencing a psychotic break, part of which involved involuntary admission to a Singapore psych hospital for at least a week (time got a bit blurry for a while there) after being arrested for getting naked at Changi airport. I was pretty shaken by that and it took me six months to even think about going back to work again once safely home.
Eventually landed another embedded systems gig in Melbourne and stayed there for a few years. The work was challenging and the money was good, but I could feel the stress of having millions of other people's dollars riding on my unfailing competence building up again. After a few episodes of finding myself driving straight past the freeway exit for work and spending the whole day just staring out at the ocean, each followed by an absolutely crushing sense of guilt at letting down the team, I gave that job away as well.
Meanwhile, ms flabdablet and I had got married and on our honeymoon we found the house in the rural village where we now live. I had enough left over from the Berlin job to buy it outright, so we moved here from Melbourne and I started looking to train up for something local and non-IT-related. I put a couple of years into studying Natural Resources Management, but gave that away before completing the diploma once it became obvious to me that the folks who landed the cool outdoors careers in NRM were all keen young sports team types, while everybody else ended up stuck behind a desk and waiting for their project's funding to be cut.
At some point one of the local shop owners had found out that I "knew something about computers" and asked me if I could help her with the shop PC, which had got horribly infected by viruses and slowed down to a crawl. I knew almost nothing about cleaning up Windows boxes but agreed to give it a crack, and it was easier than I'd expected and she paid me to do it. So I printed up a few business cards and started freelancing as a home computer fixit guy and that was just pure fun. Got to meet heaps of local people and feel like I was actually doing something useful with all those debugging skills.
Ms flabdablet, meanwhile, had found work as an in-classroom aide at a local State primary school. They were looking for somebody to play second fiddle to their Education Department roving IT technician, whose roster included too many schools with too much driving between them and didn't give him enough time at any one of them to stop things sliding backwards into the mire. So I started working there two days per week, employed by the school itself as a casual. Built enough skills doing that to land me a second job doing similar work at a local Catholic primary school, who put me on as a proper part-time employee. Worked both of those jobs until I got fed up with the State school being unable to tell me whether or not I'd even have a job at the start of the next school year.
I stayed at the Catholic school, working happily in a part time IT technician cum network administrator role for a lower hourly than a McDonalds management trainee, for thirteen years before eventually retiring at 56. The iPad invasion was solidly underway by then, and the prospect of working on nothing but nasty proprietary vendor-locked-in glued-together disposable bullshit equipment made it clear to me that it was time, once again, to walk away from IT as a profession.
I still don't have a plan. I have my superannuation, and I have some investments that I hope are going to not tank, and I own my house outright, and I live in a country with largely sane public health funding policy, so whatever happens I'll be better off than most.
That last point, I think, is key. I feel absolutely blessed to have been given the gift of living most of my life in post-Whitlam Australia. If instead I'd found myself unemployed and uninsured in a society wholly devoted to nickel-and-diming the unemployed and/or unhoused and/or working poor out of what little they have left, I'm not at all convinced I'd have had the freedom to make the choices I have.
But if you do have a genuine opportunity to walk away from working for shitheads that would not leave you in a self-sustainingly precarious position, I say: go for it, with head held high and not a backward glance.
posted by flabdablet at 11:26 AM on August 16, 2023 [7 favorites]
I moved into a low-rent share house with my then girlfriend and a friend of hers from university, and spent a year living in blissful idleness and tormenting the neighbours with the cheap drum kit I'd started playing for fun. The year after that, we embarked on a low-budget trip around Australia - we left Melbourne hitchhiking with backpacks, and it took us a month to figure out that we'd actually save money and hugely improve our freedom of movement if we had a vehicle we could stay in, at which point we bought Rufus the Wonky Bus from a dodgy Adelaide car yard for $1000.
We broke up near the end of that trip and I returned to Melbourne with very little money left, no home, and no plan. Ended up subletting a cheap room in a ten-bedroom share house where two out of the three leaseholders were smack addicts. Did some taxi driver training and got a taxi driver's license, then spent the next two years paring back my lifestyle until I could fund it on $100 per week, which I got by driving four or five night shifts per month. Grew veggies in the back yard. Grew a little hydroponic weed as well, smoked and ate as much as I wanted to, gave away the rest. Cycled everywhere. Played more drums. Life was good.
Life continued to be good after that house became too chaotic for me and and my new girlfriend to feel comfortable in and we found a cheap little flat for just the two of us. Funding my half of that meant I had to up my taxi game by a couple of shifts per month but the work was fun and I was happy to do it. Still no sign of anything resembling a career plan, though.
Early in 1999, an old friend who had by then become a well paid and justifiably respected IT manager was putting together a team to go to Berlin and implement a new ticketing system for its public transport network. He made me an offer that I would have needed to be a complete fool to refuse, so I didn't. The company paid for travel to West Australia for me, to Berlin for both me and ms flabdablet, a flat for the two of us in Berlin, a generous per diem and an absolutely absurd salary, part of which I used to keep on paying the rent for our Melbourne flat because neither of us could be arsed to think about where else to keep our stuff while we were overseas.
Getting back in the programming saddle was lucrative as hell but working in a country whose language I didn't speak and where the sun went the wrong way across the sky was stressful in ways I hadn't experienced before and bad for both my physical fitness and my mental health. Ended up experiencing a psychotic break, part of which involved involuntary admission to a Singapore psych hospital for at least a week (time got a bit blurry for a while there) after being arrested for getting naked at Changi airport. I was pretty shaken by that and it took me six months to even think about going back to work again once safely home.
Eventually landed another embedded systems gig in Melbourne and stayed there for a few years. The work was challenging and the money was good, but I could feel the stress of having millions of other people's dollars riding on my unfailing competence building up again. After a few episodes of finding myself driving straight past the freeway exit for work and spending the whole day just staring out at the ocean, each followed by an absolutely crushing sense of guilt at letting down the team, I gave that job away as well.
Meanwhile, ms flabdablet and I had got married and on our honeymoon we found the house in the rural village where we now live. I had enough left over from the Berlin job to buy it outright, so we moved here from Melbourne and I started looking to train up for something local and non-IT-related. I put a couple of years into studying Natural Resources Management, but gave that away before completing the diploma once it became obvious to me that the folks who landed the cool outdoors careers in NRM were all keen young sports team types, while everybody else ended up stuck behind a desk and waiting for their project's funding to be cut.
At some point one of the local shop owners had found out that I "knew something about computers" and asked me if I could help her with the shop PC, which had got horribly infected by viruses and slowed down to a crawl. I knew almost nothing about cleaning up Windows boxes but agreed to give it a crack, and it was easier than I'd expected and she paid me to do it. So I printed up a few business cards and started freelancing as a home computer fixit guy and that was just pure fun. Got to meet heaps of local people and feel like I was actually doing something useful with all those debugging skills.
Ms flabdablet, meanwhile, had found work as an in-classroom aide at a local State primary school. They were looking for somebody to play second fiddle to their Education Department roving IT technician, whose roster included too many schools with too much driving between them and didn't give him enough time at any one of them to stop things sliding backwards into the mire. So I started working there two days per week, employed by the school itself as a casual. Built enough skills doing that to land me a second job doing similar work at a local Catholic primary school, who put me on as a proper part-time employee. Worked both of those jobs until I got fed up with the State school being unable to tell me whether or not I'd even have a job at the start of the next school year.
I stayed at the Catholic school, working happily in a part time IT technician cum network administrator role for a lower hourly than a McDonalds management trainee, for thirteen years before eventually retiring at 56. The iPad invasion was solidly underway by then, and the prospect of working on nothing but nasty proprietary vendor-locked-in glued-together disposable bullshit equipment made it clear to me that it was time, once again, to walk away from IT as a profession.
I still don't have a plan. I have my superannuation, and I have some investments that I hope are going to not tank, and I own my house outright, and I live in a country with largely sane public health funding policy, so whatever happens I'll be better off than most.
That last point, I think, is key. I feel absolutely blessed to have been given the gift of living most of my life in post-Whitlam Australia. If instead I'd found myself unemployed and uninsured in a society wholly devoted to nickel-and-diming the unemployed and/or unhoused and/or working poor out of what little they have left, I'm not at all convinced I'd have had the freedom to make the choices I have.
But if you do have a genuine opportunity to walk away from working for shitheads that would not leave you in a self-sustainingly precarious position, I say: go for it, with head held high and not a backward glance.
posted by flabdablet at 11:26 AM on August 16, 2023 [7 favorites]
Best answer: Hello, I could possibly be you but older!
I am in my sixth year of a position that became permanent after I arrived here for a postdoc in 2017. The workplace has had a lot of turnover, rampant toxicity, and very bad management practices. I have consulted an employment attorney, filed a complaint with the NLRB over some retaliation issues, and hired a second therapist in the past three months. Crap-tastic on every level.
But I can't quit -- single parent, mortgage, yadda yadda -- until I find a new gig. Which made me miserable for awhile, but I found my way through (mostly) by reconnecting with some old friends from work and grad school and remembering WHO TF I AM. I am capable, smart, and passionate about work I do and YOU ARE TOO. I'm probably a good bit older than you (I'm 52) but one of the nice things about this stage is that I have a long path of people who know me better than my current super dysfunctional workplace bosses. You have those people too. Let them gas you up a bit.
I am leaning into things I enjoy for now, working just as much as I need to, and feel fairly confident I will have something better lined up by this time next year.
It's just a job and capitalism is stupid. You got this.
posted by pantarei70 at 11:45 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
I am in my sixth year of a position that became permanent after I arrived here for a postdoc in 2017. The workplace has had a lot of turnover, rampant toxicity, and very bad management practices. I have consulted an employment attorney, filed a complaint with the NLRB over some retaliation issues, and hired a second therapist in the past three months. Crap-tastic on every level.
But I can't quit -- single parent, mortgage, yadda yadda -- until I find a new gig. Which made me miserable for awhile, but I found my way through (mostly) by reconnecting with some old friends from work and grad school and remembering WHO TF I AM. I am capable, smart, and passionate about work I do and YOU ARE TOO. I'm probably a good bit older than you (I'm 52) but one of the nice things about this stage is that I have a long path of people who know me better than my current super dysfunctional workplace bosses. You have those people too. Let them gas you up a bit.
I am leaning into things I enjoy for now, working just as much as I need to, and feel fairly confident I will have something better lined up by this time next year.
It's just a job and capitalism is stupid. You got this.
posted by pantarei70 at 11:45 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Retire early and retire often! I took gap years at ages 18, 35, 50, 58. The last one was because the money ran out at work but they all involved a dulling sense of unfulfilling and unchallenging work which needed a Koyaanisqatsi [a state of life that calls for another way of living] change in my/our circumstances. In those off years, I had two jobs delivering parcels; two long walks - up the Portuguese Atlantic coast then from Santiago to France; wrote a radio play; got wet every day in the fish department of a zoo; thought a lot. Recommend a long walk: 30 days minimum.
On your writing aspirations, Mark Twain wrote "Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for." but I want to say that this is BOLLIX. You/we write because, like Luther, we can do no other: because you/we have stuff to say and a unique way of communicating it.
The Verger by Somerset Maugham is good parable about finding your fortune after being sacked.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:19 PM on August 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
On your writing aspirations, Mark Twain wrote "Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for." but I want to say that this is BOLLIX. You/we write because, like Luther, we can do no other: because you/we have stuff to say and a unique way of communicating it.
The Verger by Somerset Maugham is good parable about finding your fortune after being sacked.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:19 PM on August 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I worked in a county social work job that was killing me. I've posted about it on here. It wasn't as horrible as some jobs but it was horrible enough. It was a long-ass process getting out of there; years, all told. But in the end, I got a kick in the pants from some unrelated life upheaval and said: I'm gonna do this. I was moving across the country and said to myself "this is my new life. I'm not starting it out with another job I hate." I've been a therapist in full-time private practice for about six months. It's been financially hair-raising at times but I have no regrets. I'm doing what I want. I now have an ordinary relationship with my work life where sometimes I love it and sometimes it's just this thing I have to do and sometimes I'm not in the mood for it, but it isn't this monster on the hill. If I take the time to feel it, it gives me a real sense of accomplishment that I said: I'm going to do this. And did it.
posted by less-of-course at 2:54 PM on August 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by less-of-course at 2:54 PM on August 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: You say "I have significant emotional investment" in the job and this is exactly for me why taking time totally off has been so important. While I was in, I had no realistic sense of the way the job was affecting me, my sense of identity was tied up with it, and the realm of available possibilities appeared narrow and unappealing. While the effects of even a shorter period off were dramatic, in my case substantial time was and is still needed. I have a much better ability now to chart a better path. From both a wellbeing and a financial perspective, taking the time necessary to get out of emergency mode will likely benefit you in the long run if you can afford to do it. If it's so bad that your friends are urging you to quit, you are putting your longer term wellbeing at risk by staying. This does not serve either your interests or your longevity in your current vocation if you choose to continue,
I still have to try not to let feelings of anxiety over what I'm going to do get in the way of the needed time taking, but I think it's important. I will also say this was worst right after I stopped working and there was a period of "who the hell am I and what am I doing" kind of like you describe feeling that was initially more difficult and now improving. I'm trying to see it as hard but necessary work. You need to reconnect to your authentic self and identity it sounds like, as I do and did.
Listen to your family and people who know you when they say this. I was in the other position with a friend who ended up quitting her job at a similar time to me, where I recall urging her to do so for many months along with everyone else, and waiting until you have a major health crisis like the two of us is far from the best way.
posted by lookoutbelow at 12:14 AM on August 17, 2023
I still have to try not to let feelings of anxiety over what I'm going to do get in the way of the needed time taking, but I think it's important. I will also say this was worst right after I stopped working and there was a period of "who the hell am I and what am I doing" kind of like you describe feeling that was initially more difficult and now improving. I'm trying to see it as hard but necessary work. You need to reconnect to your authentic self and identity it sounds like, as I do and did.
Listen to your family and people who know you when they say this. I was in the other position with a friend who ended up quitting her job at a similar time to me, where I recall urging her to do so for many months along with everyone else, and waiting until you have a major health crisis like the two of us is far from the best way.
posted by lookoutbelow at 12:14 AM on August 17, 2023
Response by poster: Thank you all so much. Your responses were so kind and heartfelt. For various reasons, I want to wait a week but I am determined.
posted by past unusual at 5:47 PM on August 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by past unusual at 5:47 PM on August 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I've let my sense of self-identity be intertwined with working hard in a difficult and underpaid field for my entire adult career and I have significant emotional investment in what that field does. Leaving feels like letting my coworkers and people in the greater field down.
Just wanted to pop back in to say that pushing past that hump was the hardest thing for me when I finally decided to give the primary school IT job away. I was keenly aware that the school would be unlikely to get the same level and quality of service from anybody else that they'd been getting from me, even if they ended up paying way more for it as it seemed likely they would have to. I really was good at that job and I really had been doing it for peanuts and thinking about all those amazing teachers needing to deal with a typical off-site central help desk instead made me sad.
Took about six months before that regret was completely washed away by repeated episodes of waking up with a sense of total relief that all the stuff I used to need to worry about was somebody else's problem now.
You can only do what you can do, and when it's time to go, it's time to go. And it sounds like your present job isn't even fun.
posted by flabdablet at 11:52 PM on August 17, 2023
Just wanted to pop back in to say that pushing past that hump was the hardest thing for me when I finally decided to give the primary school IT job away. I was keenly aware that the school would be unlikely to get the same level and quality of service from anybody else that they'd been getting from me, even if they ended up paying way more for it as it seemed likely they would have to. I really was good at that job and I really had been doing it for peanuts and thinking about all those amazing teachers needing to deal with a typical off-site central help desk instead made me sad.
Took about six months before that regret was completely washed away by repeated episodes of waking up with a sense of total relief that all the stuff I used to need to worry about was somebody else's problem now.
You can only do what you can do, and when it's time to go, it's time to go. And it sounds like your present job isn't even fun.
posted by flabdablet at 11:52 PM on August 17, 2023
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That break allowed me to completely reset my own value set in how I relate to work, allowed me to set reasonable and firm boundaries for myself and expectations for how I'll let myself be treated at a job, and allowed me to truly start fresh.
When I interviewed for the job I have now I didn't tell them I had been fired, but I did share that my prior workplace was deeply problematic, and that taking a break allowed me to assess my own values. Which blah blah blah why I'm exited to work someplace like this that blah blah blah.
Anyway, it worked out very well for me and taking a break from working is one of the healthiest things I've ever done. If you are financially able to take a break I 10/10 recommend it.
posted by phunniemee at 8:19 AM on August 16, 2023 [6 favorites]