Working in Crazytown has its ups and downs

September 8, 2014 6:52 AM

I have a job with a few perks and a few biiig downsides. Should I pursue a new job or am I being a big baby?

I live in a major Midwestern city. I have a job. I make between 35k-40k/yr. The job is not perfect. To wit:

- The hours are not great, sometimes random, kind of like shift work, and I end up working a lot of evenings
- I work every weekend, at least one day (Sat or Sun)
- I don't get holidays off, so I am usually working on several major holidays
- I'm on call all the time, expected to check on situations often
- MAJOR downside: the job is in the publishing industry, working for a notoriously huge asshole, who regularly screams at people, whines like a baby, throws tantrums and writes cruel emails (truly cruel! purposely eviscerating people, trying to make them feel small)

The antidote to that is that I work among cool people and I am mostly shielded from asshole-boss, rarely deal with him in person, and mostly only have to field his shitty baby emails.

The plus side is that I'm not a morning person, so shift-work type hours are usually fine with me. Also, I have good benefits, decent job security, and wear whatever I want to work. The downside is that I live with a human, my boyfriend, who works a normal M-F, 9-to-5 office job, so we don't get to see each other as much as I'd like, and we don't get to make many plans on the weekend. We also can't usually make plans for the holidays since I have no idea what my work schedule will be like. I am getting older, in a few years I'll probably be having kids, eventually I am going to hate this (getting bitter already) and at times I think it's not worth it for the OK salary. I am very family-oriented and not having holidays off kills me, when I know I could have a normal office job elsewhere with nearly the same pay. (And just for the record, this job is not a dream job or in any way related to my passions.)

So I've been applying for jobs, and I've gotten three interviews already. (My work is sort of niche, so this is fairly normal.) Most of these jobs are in the same salary range but about 1-2k less than I'm making now. Also, working for a jerk in a fast-paced environment has it's perks-- my job stays interesting, at least. I'm afraid some of these new jobs will be less challenging, which I am not necessarily looking for (just wanting to have regular hours and leave my work at home).

I should also mention that I have some debt (mostly student debt) so the extra 1-2k/yr is not entirely negligible. On the other hand, I'm going to be paying my debt off for awhile, and not having regular vacations/hours is already giving me a bleak depressing view of life. I know most people advise against making a lateral move (due to risk), but in this case it's a lateral move for the sake of work-life balance. I'm not sure how long I can stay in this job with my sanity-- I feel like the lead character from The Devil Wears Prada. (At least I'm not getting coffee for anyone.) Would I be making a foolish choice to take a similar paying job with similar job duties just to go back to the land of the living, even if it had no other benefits?

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (14 answers total)

Answer to your last question: NO.

$1-2K a year is nothing. You're probably spending it on transportation and meals for the extra trips to work on the weekend.

And obviously you don't like the job - I noted that you find it "interesting" and are afraid that a new job won't be as interesting. Unless you're one of those rare people who really thrive on stress, you'll learn to live better with less of it. And if you do really like something about work-related stress, you'll find a better-paying job, because people like that are in high demand to solve REAL problems, not just the stupid stress caused by an asshole.
posted by randomkeystrike at 6:57 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

$2K a year, at the top end, is very very roughly $100 a month after taxes et al.

I don't know about you, but for general sanity plus not working for a jerk plus having a schedule more amenable to having a family in the long term plus being able to see my SO more often - all that sounds like a pretty good deal for $100/month.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:10 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

This sounds exactly like my last job. I quit after three years. You should too.

In retrospect, I now liken working there to having Stockholm Syndrome. The minor perks (free tickets to events, working with creative people, having a prestigious title) weren't really perks at all, they were just things I used to justify why I was allowing myself to stay in such a shitty situation.
posted by Brittanie at 7:29 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Is less money the standard for your industry and experience level? Can you negotiate a better salary in a new position?

Eventually the crazy boss will get you in his sights. It's what they do. Never count on crazy bosses not inflicting their crazy on you.

Short-term, you are actually making less than you stated, due to stress and being on-call all the time. If you counted all the hours you were actually dealing with work, your hourly wage would drop by a lot.

Long-term, if you want more money, you might consider a move to a more lucrative but related field. Which has better hours.

(I used to work in book publishing. I'm in marketing now. I get paid for my time, and my work seldom ruins my week. I get all the holidays off and vacation too. My boss is truly nice. I miss some things about regular publishing, but the tiny checks and stupid stress I miss not at all).
posted by emjaybee at 7:30 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Most of these jobs are in the same salary range but about 1-2k less than I'm making now.

First of all, no it is not worth staying in this job for 2K a year. Find another. Second of all, salary range is just a range; an offer is just an offer. Women tend to take the offer as made; men tend to negotiate upwards. Learn to negotiate upwards.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:32 AM on September 8, 2014 [7 favorites]

I know most people advise against making a lateral move (due to risk), but in this case it's a lateral move for the sake of work-life balance.

In this case the lateral move is worthwhile because you can define the benefit that you are getting out of it, and it's something you really want but don't have at your current job. It would be different if the reasons were more nebulous, such as being unhappy in your current situation and wanting a change, without really being able to define exactly how the new job would be better for you.
posted by jazzbaby at 7:33 AM on September 8, 2014

Everything else aside, if the 1/2k is really an issue you can find some part-time or freelance work now that you'll have a stable schedule and won't be on call and expected to check on things "all the time".
posted by mikepop at 7:50 AM on September 8, 2014

Get a new job. If for no other reason, you learn new skills and ways of doing things in different positions that will pay off in the long run. $1K/yr is equal to 50 cents an hour. Odds are you will recoup that in a raise withing the year.
posted by readery at 8:00 AM on September 8, 2014

I would only leave for two reasons:

1. Other positions you're qualified for have better hours,

or

2. You can 100% guarantee that your new boss will be someone you work well with.

Otherwise, isn't it just going to be more of the same?

The work time/hours situation sounds like something that is going to be "grass is greener" no matter what. Right now you don't like going in on Saturdays or holidays when you'd rather be off having fun. In a more "bankers' hours" type of job, you'll hate having to wake up early, the commute grind, not having random weekdays to get errands done, etc.

And getting on well with your coworkers is a total crapshoot. (On the other hand, I've endured terrible bosses before, and generally in hindsight feel like I totally should have quit rather than put up with it.)
posted by Sara C. at 8:04 AM on September 8, 2014

I had a job I loved for five years where I worked at least one day every weekend for most of the year. At first I didn't mind, then it started to get on my nerves that I rarely had a whole weekend to myself, and then near the end it became a slog where I obsessively looked forward to the weekends I didn't have to work.

It's not a big-baby reason to leave a job. I mean, sure, if the choice were between working a weekend day and starving, work the weekend. But if you have other job options, where you can have a more human-being schedule, that is totally legitimate.

And really, I loved that job and the weekend-work thing eventually burned me out on it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:11 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Change jobs. It's too hard to not be in sync with the rest of the world. I did it for years, and I honestly regret it. My regular schedule at my old job was Tue-Sat: I loved my Saturday crew, I loved the relaxed environment, but I hated not being able to live life with everyone else in the world on Saturdays. No one ever got my schedule right for planning, either.

I now work a much higher-paying job M-F where weekend work would be a total fluke, and life is SO MUCH BETTER. I miss having Mondays off for appointments and shopping without crowds, but the social life improvement is huge. I would definitely have taken a tiny pay cut to get out of my old job, but as it turns out I didn't have to. Negotiate your salary when you get a new offer. There is always wiggle room.
posted by clone boulevard at 10:09 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I also work in publishing, doing web and magazine work. Though it's sadly an "industry standard" to overwork writers and editors with long hours and crappy salaries, not every job is like this.

One more thing- I find a good exercise is to sit down and list the things I like and don't like about my situation, but also to take into account how much these things are likely to change.

Let's look at your list of pros and cons.

Things you don't like:

• Working bad hours: Not likely to change. In my experience this is not something bosses or companies change until they get to a crisis point, where they realize their actions have had a severe detriment to the company's well-being by running off all their talented workers.
• Working weekends: Not likely to change. See above.
• Having the stress of being on call: Not likely to change. See above.
• Difficult boss: Depends on the boss's history. Generally, publishing is a very fluid industry and it's rare for people to stay at a job any longer than a couple years... but there are always outliers.

Things you like:

• Working with cool people: Likely to change in a high stress environment like publishing. This is an industry where it's standard to job-hop every couple of years or so in my experience, especially in big cities like New York or Chicago (if that's where you are).
• The benefits: Sadly, likely to change. I appreciate the company I work for, but my benefits have gone up and down since I joined it. They got worse for a couple years, got better for a couple years as the company did some major investment on hiring better talent, and now they have gotten worse for two years straight.
• Job security: With a difficult boss, this is likely to change. Don't expect things to stay this way in such a volatile industry, too.
• Wearing what you want to work: Who knows... HR departments love to mess with this sort of stuff. But either way it's a pretty minor benefit.

Bottom line... to me it seems like the stuff you're not excited about is generally stuff that probably will never change during your time with this company, while the "good things" are mostly things that could easily change for the worse.

Likewise, this is 2014. There is no reason a company should force a skilled employee to work that many hours and that many days per week in an "on call" environment, unless they are rewarding them handsomely with a very high salary. You aren't getting paid nearly enough for that kind of work load and that kind of drain on your personal time.

I would start looking elsewhere!
posted by Old Man McKay at 10:15 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Not working with an uberstressful boss is reason enough to go. I had one of those at a previous job and he poisoned the entire job with his occasional temper tantrums*. I endured for years, and he eventually did calm down and turn into a decent human but by that time my body still went into involuntary stomach pains whenever he popped into the workplace. Ain't nobody got time for that.

*he wasn't evil, just incredibly stressed, but it was still hellish.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:07 PM on September 8, 2014

Leave. I've been in this situation with the crazy mercurial boss and every day now I think about how incredibly happy I am to no longer work for him. Learned a lot from that job, but the stress and the crazy isn't worth it long term.
posted by annie o at 9:29 PM on September 20, 2014 [1 favorite]