Please help me avoid making any more mistakes.

October 24, 2006 10:16 AM

I feel like I've made a bad move career-wise. Please help me avoid making any more mistakes.

Recently I quit a stable, yet stressful and drastically overworked job to try something new. I had been at my previous employer for over 5 years and was promoted regularly but I wasn't happy because the whole department was going in a direction I didn't agree with, I got stuck supervising a guy who spent more time working around me than working with me, my work load was unrelenting and I got tired of seeing amazing opportunities pass me by; so, I decided to take the plunge and take the next thing that came by, eventually changing positions.

I've been at the new job just over a month but I haven't clicked with my coworkers or my environment and am growing increasingly uncomfortable every day. I get stuck with these ridiculous tasks and deadlines that I try my best to meet but I don't get my usual "this is a cool challenge" buzz b/c it's all work I don't give a shit about doing since it's totally unrelated to my field (and wasn’t mentioned as a possible duty I would be responsible for when I interviewed). Plus, I'm not even sure my employer thinks I'm a good employee, either, and it might just be a case of a really bad fit on all sides where everyone was wrong about who and what the other person was all about.

I don't regret leaving my old job, but I do regret ending up where I'm at now and I wonder how bad it would be to quit the new job barely a month into it?

But wait, there's more: I can quit the new job and be OK money-wise for a long time because I've saved like a crazy person for four years and stand to get a vacation payout from my former employer (from the old stable job) that will total almost 3 months pay. Hell, I could take a few months off to try figure out my next move or I could even try and start my own business (something I've always dreamed of doing) while I looked for a new job and still be OK for many months after that.

HOWEVER, the whole thing seems so stupidly irresponsible. I'm worried that I'll never be happy at any job, that future employers will look at me funny when my resume shows a job that lasted a month, that this will signal the downfall of my career, that all my former employers will be hoping I fail, that my family will think I'm foolish and selfish, that... that... that my whole world will collapse, basically. I've been working regular 9 to 5 jobs since I was 15 so anything that's not on those terms seems scary and crazy to me. Plus, I don't want to find out that I unintentionally committed career-suicide by being impatient and/or foolhardy at this new job.

So, what can you tell me? Tough it out? Quit and start that business? Quit and look for a new job? Look for a new job then quit? Do you have any anecdotes about your career you can share? Did you ever bounce around for a bit before settling into that perfect job? Or should it always be a straight shot: A to B to C?

I'm sorry this is so spastic, I just haven't been myself lately and these worries have been weighing heavily on me.

posted by anonymous to work & money (20 comments total)

I certainly don't have the wealth of world experience to give a comprehensive answer, but in terms of what your resume shows to subsequent employers, keep in mind it only needs to show what you want it to show. You don't need to include a job you only worked for a month on it.
posted by jrb223 at 10:29 AM on October 24, 2006

1) There is no such thing as career suicide.

2) Jobs you've only been at a month do not go on your resume.

3) You will not sit around in your old age thinking "Gosh, I sure do regret all those risks I took when I was young and had the energy and resources."
posted by tkolar at 10:32 AM on October 24, 2006

You have a good work history. 5 years at one job is almost universally respected. I say you quit this crappy job, take a month off and recenter yourself. Don't put the one-month job on your resume.

While looking for a job when you don't have one can be harder, your work experience is pretty solid. You can say to prospective employers that you felt it was time to move on, and wanted a little free time to help you find a new job that you can see yourself working for the next 5 years.

(IANA human resources guy.)
posted by milarepa at 10:34 AM on October 24, 2006

I'm sorry this is so spastic, I just haven't been myself lately and these worries have been weighing heavily on me.

Anonymous, if you've got some mental health insurance (or can just dip into your vast savings), go see a counselor. My guess is that with all the feelings of out-of-place-ness, the feelings of "I'll never be happy at X", the feelings of everyone not working well with you...this last line is probably more telling than you're willing to admit to yourself.
posted by symphonik at 10:35 AM on October 24, 2006

Quit. If you've got money saved, take advantage of it - it's hard to make a good "next career" decision if you're miserable, because you'll jump at the first thing that sounds better than what you currently have, when in reality it may be no different.

Take a couple weeks to decompress, then focus on what it is you'd like to do. In this day and age, there's not a huge stigma attached to leaving a job after so short a time - or indeed, leaving it off your resume entirely if the job only lasts a month or so. Gaps in a resume are pretty easy to talk through in an interview if mentioned ("I traveled", "I took some time to assess what I wanted to do", etc).

Bouncing around is not a bad thing, really, but you've got a good opportunity here to take a step back and think about what you want your next move to be, rather than what your next move needs to be, if that makes sense. Take advantage of the control you have and use that control to determine what you do next.

Good luck!
posted by pdb at 10:35 AM on October 24, 2006

(By the way, and my advice to see a counselor is not just "you're broken, go get fixed", not at all. Your problem is not uncommon, and sometimes it helps to focus your wants, needs, and feelings before solving the work problems, and guidance can help greatly with that.)
posted by symphonik at 10:38 AM on October 24, 2006

I don't think it's that uncommon to work at a job for a short while and discover that it's not a good fit; that's why many employers have probationary or trial periods for new employees. If you do choose to put the job on your resume, then that's the explanation you can give: "I worked there for a few weeks, but we decided that I wasn't a good fit for the position."

I think your previous 5-year tenure (and, it sounds like, various earlier steady jobs) will assuage any fears that you are the job-hopping type.
posted by fermion at 10:41 AM on October 24, 2006

Let's slice this down to manageable pieces:

The past: you left your old job for sound reasons. That hasn't changed. It has no bearing on what's going on now or what may happen in the future.

The future: I could write paragraphs but to condense: "Don't Worry." What's going on now is by no means a predictor for what will happen in your future. You and your career are far more resilient than you might imagine and it will take far more than what's going on now to commit career suicide. Your family needs to understand you are an adult making your own decisions.

The now: The first few months of a new job are often stressful and full of missteps (by everyone: your employer, your coworkers, yourself) and in your case, it's especially hard to adjust after working somewhere else for five years. It's OK. Change isn't easy. I think you might feel better if you took some concrete steps with your new employer which will help you going forward:

Schedule a review with your manager. It's been a little over 30 days, right? Time for a employer/employee reality check. Ask him/her to rate your performance thus far. You'll also be using this opportunity to ask about when you'll be tasked with work appropriate to your field vs the work you've been given thus far. Ask how much of a percentage of the later will comprise your total workload going forward. Get some timelines from your manager, i.e. "You'll be assigned to X field-appropriate project by Y date."

After the meeting, consider the answers you received as data to your question about stay or go. Perhaps you'll decide that you can give your employer a few more months to allow you to do the job for which you were hired. Perhaps the meeting will make it immediately clear it's time to move on. This is the data you will need for your next interview, should the question come up, "Why did you leave your previous job after only a few months?" You'll have a concrete and justifiable reasons vs one based upon feelings and assumptions.

Best of luck.

PS Good job on saving up a financial buffer. Save it for when you really need it. This isn't it, yet, I don't think.
posted by jamaro at 10:42 AM on October 24, 2006

I can't disagree with any of the posts so far, but if you'd like to give this new job one last chance, not that you owe it to them but for your own psychic benefit, you could go talk to your boss about your concerns. Say basically what you've said here, but in peppy, helpful-employee language: "Since I've started here, I've been really trying to excel at ABC, but of course you realize that my background is in XYZ, and I'm just wondering at what point I might be put on some projects like that."

He/she will probably come back with some boilerplate about how they definitely see your position evolving in that direction within a few months, but it's hard to say exactly when. But it's worth a try. Whatever he/she says, sleep on it for a couple days, maybe even a week, to figure out if you could really stand the best-case-scenario where everything your boss said came true exactly on schedule. If so, consider sticking it out; otherwise, bail and don't look back! And do it soon, before this turns into some awkward 6 to 9 month thing that you pretty much have to put on your resume but doesn't really get you anywhere.
posted by rkent at 10:45 AM on October 24, 2006

Aaand, failure to preview bites me in the ass again. Well put, jamaro.
posted by rkent at 10:47 AM on October 24, 2006

I agree, quit the new job. Like others said, don't bother putting the new job on your resume.

Here's what I would do if I were in your position: Quit the new job (just tell your boss "its not working out for me, but thanks for the opportunity"), travel on the cheap for a week or two to clear your head (rent a car, crash on friends couches in other cities), enjoy the holidays, then start looking for a new job in January. You have THREE MONTHS of vacation pay coming to you? You can get through the rest of the year without even touching your savings!

Honestly, I know you're stressing about what family/friends will think, but really...who cares? Do what you need to do to make yourself happy, really. If they give you crap about it, it might be becuase they're jealous of this opportunity you have! (I certainly would be jealous :)

Your previous 5-years at that other job and references from that 5-year job will be fine. If any future employers ask you about your time off, just say you took it off to travel (even if you end up going nowhere)...if they're a decent boss, they'll realize that it's a good thing rather than a bad thing.

No matter what you do, I think some time off would be really good for you - I have a friend who was laid off back in August (from a stressful job where he was overworked for about 10 years). He's been a workaholic the entire time I've known him (since we were 16), and he's so much happier now, even though things are still up in the air.
posted by AlisonM at 10:59 AM on October 24, 2006

Random notes:

I'm not a tax attorney, but the vacation time money may be taxed at a different rate than your other earnings from your company. I left one place with something like six months in accrued vacation time and it was taxed as a lump sum distribution. Painful. Do what I didn't do and find out in advance what you might be taxed on that three months of time so you are not caught unawares.

The best job I've ever had, with the most incredible coworkers, the most soul-satisfying work, with the most nurturing boss who I learned so much from? I hated the job first month. I wanted to quit. I almost quit. I got talked down, gave it another few weeks and stayed for eight years, until they were merged into non-existence. Almost every solid friend I have now was once a coworker there, I remain thrilled to this day, nearly a decade later, that I gave it one last chance. The thing to keep in mind that everything is an opportunity both lost and gained, a door both opened and closed. This job you have now, it might be a waste of time or it might be the job of your lifetime. How would you know if you don't give it just a little more time, if you don't try to fix what's bothering you about it?

You sound like you are still reeling from the affects of your previous job, and maybe change doesn't come easy to you (it certainly doesn't come easy to me, I freely admit). What I've learned is when I'm feeling this panic, this horrible feeling that I've maybe jumped into something worse escaping something bad is that jumping blind without data doesn't make things better.
posted by jamaro at 11:22 AM on October 24, 2006

You can quit and nobody important is going to think poorly of you. You put yourself in a position that allows you to choose to get out of a situation that doesn't thrill you, which is very cool.

You also have the freedom to go to your boss and talk to him, on the level, about what's going on. That, too, is really awesome. I think you should exercise that opportunity, because you really have nothing to lose. Very few people get a chance like that.

Career suicide is embezzling funds, violating a professional oath such as in medicine or law, taking a big dump on a client's conference table (this only applies in some fields), maybe trying to kill a coworker. It'd be a stretch to even characterize it as irresponsible. You thought you were applying for one job, they hired you to do something different. That's a really dumb business decision, but one that gets made all the time thanks to office politics and budget juggling, and it's not your fault that you got caught up in it.

Change is scary, but it's not automatically bad. Things have a way of working out and people have a way of landing on their feet. You will be totally okay, and nobody's going to respect you any less for dealing with the situation instead of just sitting back and being unhappy.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:37 AM on October 24, 2006

Definitely quit the new job. If you decide to go work for someone else leave it off of your resume. If you decide to work for yourself then it doesn't matter does it? BTW, if I were you I'd work for myself if I ccould swing it.
posted by dgeiser13 at 11:44 AM on October 24, 2006

I think you should talk to your new boss.

Talk about what you WANTED this job to be, WHY you aren't happy, present some solutions and as for suggestions.

Do they want to go through the hiring process again? Most likely, no.

It may just be that they haven't gotten around to integrating you yet. The first three months are all learning curve and no fun.
posted by ewkpates at 12:09 PM on October 24, 2006

I know people who jumped out of a position that didn't suit them, a month or two after jumping out of another position that didn't suit them. One got a new job within two weeks; the other it was more like three. But still! Leaving if you hate it isn't the big decision here; that's deciding whether or not you really hate this job or have even given it a fair chance.
posted by shownomercy at 12:32 PM on October 24, 2006

I think perhaps you're being a bit impatient. You're only one month in, after being at the same company for five years? Give yourself time to learn the new situation, and your employer time to adjust to a new person. You're brand new.

It's probably a salvagable situation. Have you talked to your employer? Are they recognizing your frustration? Are you working up to potential, or just grumping about?
posted by desuetude at 12:40 PM on October 24, 2006

I was going to post essentially jamaro's answer, but then I looked and saw that jamaro had already done that for me. I agree with that answer.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:40 PM on October 24, 2006

I sit next to a person at work who could have written this post, excepting the one-month part. (She's been with the company for 3 months). I'll tell you what I told her - go find something that makes you happy. Everybody gets to make a bad decision now and again. Chalk this experience up to that.
posted by ersatzkat at 4:07 PM on October 24, 2006

Quit.
posted by sophist at 1:48 AM on October 25, 2006