We’ve all been there. The desperate part of the job search. You have sent out resumes. Talked to recruiters. Had phone interviews and maybe a few in-person ones. You have scowered every job site, newspaper and seen every ad on Craigslist that you have memorized a few and noticed which companies post on multiple job sites. Funds are getting lower, idle time is making your mind go to strange places. Perhaps you are reading this from the comfort of your sofa-cushion fort.
The temptation is there. I’ll take whichever job comes at me first. It will be only be temporary. Anything to end this goddamn search. So you settle. You take the first company that blows a kiss at you. You cannot be faulted for this, as there are obvious financial and emotional reasons for doing so. This is the reality for so many people every day that fall into a shitty job. Many others take shitty jobs out of pure eagerness or naïveté. It doesn’t matter really, except…
5 years later there you are. You hate your job. You look at the clock daily. You wonder how you ever ended up here doing meaningless tasks for a company that has less culture than yogurt. Everyone is miserable. Each morning you feel your soul sucked out of you. The boss is a jerk and berates you constantly. You haven’t had a raise since you started and your co-worker Betty keeps leaving bran muffins in the break room that gave you explosive diarrhea for a week. “Why have I stayed so long?” you ask yourself.
HOW TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS FROM SCRATCH! YOU DON’T WANNA MISS THIS!
There are many reasons we stay too long at shitty jobs. Several of them are:
- Don’t want to do another job search. Job searches are about as much fun as getting kicked in the eye.
- Sense of guilt. “If I leave, what will they do without me?” The sad thing is that your employer makes you feel a sense of loyalty despite showing no loyalty to you.
- Worry about looking like a “job-jumper” on a resumé to future potential employers.
- Bad job market or economy.
- Bills to pay, family reasons, or you may be the provider in your family.
- BUT! THE SINGLE PRIMARY REASON YOU STAY AT THAT SHITTY JOB: You blame yourself for the bad position you are in….this is important, and we’re going to touch on this next.
You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be in a job where you feel fulfilled and are rewarded for your efforts. But, you are like a battered spouse. Asking why you make your abusive partner angry and makes them hit you all the time. This is the single most important concept to grasp here. Maybe you have had a string of 3 bad jobs in a row that ended badly. However, it may not be completely on you. You just may have bad taste in partners, or you were seduced and roped in and now you’re stuck in a bad relationship.
Many workplaces are dysfunctional and unorganized. Many workplaces have favoritism, nepotism, narcissism and a whole of other -isms. Maybe you got written up because you were poorly trained, or a reprimand for some petty grievance because the boss wanted to make an example of you. Maybe it was a verbal spanking for not following orders on something you knew was unsafe. Or you just have a really, really bad boss who has no idea how to manage, motivate or train. In any case, these are all everyday things that are not your fault.
The first step like any other alcoholic is admitting you have a problem. But you cannot admit you have a problem until you recognize you have a problem. You need to recognize that you have a shitty job and spell out the reasons why. Write down a list of pros and cons of your current job. You will soon see if the negatives far outweigh the positives, then you need to rethink your current career choices.
Next, is some self-affirmation. You need to convince yourself that it is not your fault. This place was a dysfunctional trash-heap before you came and it will continue to be so long after you are gone. You can’t fault yourself for the fucked-upidness of an organization. Some places are just BAD places to work. Other places are just a BAD place for YOU to work, because your talents are better served somewhere else.
Still, there is that little voice on your shoulder that keeps you there. That part of you that makes it hard to cut the cord because change is difficult and stressful. So, just like a bad relationship we stay. And we remain faithful to an entity that makes our lives shorter, more stressful and painful every day. We stay with Bubba the beater or cat-claws Karen, rather than finding a nice sane person to settle down with. We stay in the dysfunction of the shitty job. This time, you really need to stray. It is time to start seeing other people!