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I Hate My Job - I'm Gone!

Written by: Maria E. Hebda, CCMC, CPRW

Sound familiar? If so, looking for another job is the solution, or is it? Perhaps it might not be the job itself, but the personal challenges that are causing you to hate your job. If this is true, more than likely, the same problems will follow you to your next employer.

Who wants to quit their job, get a new one, and within a few months or even weeks, start feeling the same way they did with their past employer – not me. You'll just be going back to square one.

Asking yourself the following questions may help you discover if leaving your current employer is the right thing to do or not. Finding answers to these questions can help you put things into perspective before making the decision to call it quits.

1. What led me to hate my job?
2. Why is my job no longer inspiring?
3. Why do I feel leaving will solve all my problems?

It’s no secret that today’s job market is tight and the decisions you make about your career are not something to take lightly. You want to make sure that leaving your employer is a comfortable and sound decision. Leaving your employer may lead to great disappointment rather than career fulfillment if not carefully thought out first.

What a waste if you were to discover that you hate your new-found job after spending time preparing your resume and cover letter, researching companies, investing time and money to mail out your resume, and posting your resume on the Internet. Why? Because you’re back to square one and faced with the same challenges you had at your last job.

It’s very important that you look at the big picture, not bits and pieces, before making your decision to quit. A few reasons why people want to leave their job is because they feel they’re being dumped on, they don’t get chosen to work on the exciting projects, someone else gets the promotion they deserved, or their salary is nothing compared to what they feel they’re worth.

Let’s try to see if we can come up with some answers. Let’s analyze the situation of feeling dumped on. First, ask yourself why you’re being dumped on – is it because the company is short staffed, because you’re a “yes” person who won’t say no because you’re afraid of ruffling feathers, or is it that you have so many other on-going projects that it might be truly a matter of managing your time well?

After answering these questions, what can you do to change your situation? If you’re the “yes” person, why do you fear you’ll ruffle feathers? Have you actually tried to say no to a request that someone else could easily take on? If not, why not give it a try? You might be surprised that if you hold out, maybe someone else will step up to the plate instead.

Again, evaluate your circumstances and try to resolve the issues at hand before making the decision to look for another job. Finding solutions would just turn the job you hate back to one you loved long ago. If you find that you still hate your job after giving serious thought, analyzing your situation, and putting forth every effort to make it work, then maybe it is time to move on.

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