Should I stay or should I go?
April 12, 2011 8:34 AM Subscribe
I'm at a cross-roads career wise and am going round in circles trying to work out what to do. The situation is complicated by the fact that my current job involves working with deeply nutty people. Would be great to have some advice from impartial observers.
In a nutshell:
- I am ten years out of graduating, have worked in marketing/comms for different not-for-profit organisations for most of that time. I am pretty sick of working in an office.
- Last year I took a part-time art and design course which I loved. I'd like to go back to university and study this full-time but can't financially. While doing this course I got made redundant from my part-time office job, and took a low-paid temp job working in an arty, hands-on environment, in retail. I loved not working in an office, but couldn't live on the pay, and I also (shamefully?) missed having some status at work.
- I then got my 'dream job': working for an arts company, doing communications. It's turned out to be a nightmare. What they didn't tell me in the interview was that nearly everyone was being made redundant due to funding problems, so I now work with only 4 people, in a huge silent office. The company is crumbling and has no money to continue past this autumn. The two founders/directors are both, to put it mildly, extremely eccentric.
- Lately work has been really hard to deal with. It's not difficult at all, and it's well-paid, but I feel like the work is meaningless as the company has no future, and it's another job where I stare at a screen all day and don't interact with people. One of the directors can be very aggressive and recently started sending me a series of emails about a petty issue (the company's recycling policy) which culminated in me being shouted at for ten minutes for not putting a piece of paper in the right recycling bin.
- I have two issues - firstly I want to leave this job ASAP, and secondly I want to do something more enjoyable and meaningful, but I have no idea what. The second is conflicting with the first, as I am tempted to just apply for the first job I see, and probably leap straight from the frying pan into the fire.
Sorry this is long. My questions are as follows. What would you do in this situation? Should I leave or stay? I have a few savings I could live on for a bit. But I'm worried it would look bad on my CV.
And secondly, I've been in a career funk for too long and feel like I'm chasing my own tail. Is it worth hiring a careers counseller to make me more proactive? Friends and family are pretty sick of hearing about it, understandably. But I've no idea where to find someone who could help.
Thanks for reading!
In a nutshell:
- I am ten years out of graduating, have worked in marketing/comms for different not-for-profit organisations for most of that time. I am pretty sick of working in an office.
- Last year I took a part-time art and design course which I loved. I'd like to go back to university and study this full-time but can't financially. While doing this course I got made redundant from my part-time office job, and took a low-paid temp job working in an arty, hands-on environment, in retail. I loved not working in an office, but couldn't live on the pay, and I also (shamefully?) missed having some status at work.
- I then got my 'dream job': working for an arts company, doing communications. It's turned out to be a nightmare. What they didn't tell me in the interview was that nearly everyone was being made redundant due to funding problems, so I now work with only 4 people, in a huge silent office. The company is crumbling and has no money to continue past this autumn. The two founders/directors are both, to put it mildly, extremely eccentric.
- Lately work has been really hard to deal with. It's not difficult at all, and it's well-paid, but I feel like the work is meaningless as the company has no future, and it's another job where I stare at a screen all day and don't interact with people. One of the directors can be very aggressive and recently started sending me a series of emails about a petty issue (the company's recycling policy) which culminated in me being shouted at for ten minutes for not putting a piece of paper in the right recycling bin.
- I have two issues - firstly I want to leave this job ASAP, and secondly I want to do something more enjoyable and meaningful, but I have no idea what. The second is conflicting with the first, as I am tempted to just apply for the first job I see, and probably leap straight from the frying pan into the fire.
Sorry this is long. My questions are as follows. What would you do in this situation? Should I leave or stay? I have a few savings I could live on for a bit. But I'm worried it would look bad on my CV.
And secondly, I've been in a career funk for too long and feel like I'm chasing my own tail. Is it worth hiring a careers counseller to make me more proactive? Friends and family are pretty sick of hearing about it, understandably. But I've no idea where to find someone who could help.
Thanks for reading!
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Maybe you could talk to some recruiters to see what's available? Also an information interview is a great way to meet people who do the type of work that you want to do. They may be able to give you suggestions on places to contact for jobs or if you need more training in a specific area or something like that.
posted by dawkins_7 at 11:07 AM on April 12, 2011