Have you ever quit a job without having another source of income lined up? There’s another thread in MPSIMS where the poster put in his two weeks without having another job lined up. I imagine many people have been in this situation before for a variety of reasons. How did you pick yourself up and get going again? In the long run, do you ever regretted doing it, or wished you quit faster? If you interviewed, how did you explain your reasoning for quitting like that?
That’s my normal mode of leaving jobs. I know things are different in the US - people seem to think nothing much of interviewing while still employed somewhere else. But I would feel a bit weird about being deceptive at my current workplace.
Tomorrow is my last day at my current job BTW. I’m going to spend some time being a SAHP to free-up my spouse to look for something full-time. I have a plan to start some more part-time work early next year, and I don’t expect the “off-time” to be a problem. Admittedly, the fact that I am female, and a parent, helps out a lot with this - nobody really expresses surprise at career breaks when you say “yep, I’ve got 3 kids and the youngest is two”
IMHO it’s a great thing, psychologically, to take a complete break from work for a couple of months and then come back to it refreshed and re-focused. Maybe I’d think differently if I’d ever had trouble getting a new job when I wanted one, but I never have.
After a brief and miserable period of unemployment, I accepted a job that I knew wasn’t a good fit. I made it 4 weeks before I had to quit, with nothing else lined up. It was terrifying and exhilarating. I met my then-boyfriend for Chinese food for lunch. When I got home, there was a message on the answering machine from Microsoft…did I want to fly out for an in person interview? I got that job and had a blissful 10 years at Microsoft.
This has been my normal mode, too, especially since I became an office worker. There is always a temp position available. I have no concerns for losing my healthcare coverage because of quitting a job (or needing to get a job to get coverage).
Picking myself up afterwards is usually not a concern; it’s usually more a case of, “Whew, I’m glad that’s finally over.” I sometimes I think I should have quit sooner, if I have quit over being treated badly. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t quit, but not often. Explaining jobs I have quit in interviews can get tricky, but you just have to be careful. For example, I quit my second-to-last job because I was starting my own company, not because my supervisor expected me to do far too much work for the very small wage they were paying (both are true, but only one is my answer in interviews).
Yes, because I like to take a break of a week or two between jobs.
It’s not my preferred method, but I’ve actually done it that way more often than not. Usually because I was moving–home to school, school to home, both times we’ve relocated for the husband’s job.
It’s not the most secure way to do things, but yes, I’ve done it more than once. I probably wouldn’t if I had a lot of bills to pay or people to support.
I just unwound my law practice in anticipation of moving to DC (wife is in the Army). This is the first time I’ve ever been unemployed with no job lined up. It’s worrying for sure.
Yes, but it was a horrible interim job.
A couple of times, yes.
The first time, I got a call for another job while I was waiting to leave the old job’s parking lot. The cocaine-snorting Godfather-wannabe of a manager had made us stay until 3:30am for nothing but his ego, then we had to be back at 8am, and I was so tired I couldn’t read the screen, so I asked someone to call a taxi for me. He said “if you leave, you’re out”. I said “I’m out then.” Later he begged me to stay and I explained that I’m a woman of my word, when I say I’m going it means I’m going.
The second time, it was health related as well, but I was in worse shape. I was having the shakes every day because of the stress; it was driving me both crazy and sick, so I had to leave. The good things I did: count my savings and apply to a graduate program I’d been eyeing for a while, and stay in contact with my business contacts. The bad things I did: go “visit my mother”, which with one thing and another turned into a four-month stay. Four month stays with my mother are not good for either my health or my sanity, either 
My skills are rare enough that once I said “by the way, people, I’m available again”, it took about a month to get the next job.
Yes, done it twice.
The first time I was in a job where the bosses were totally taking the piss, landing me with more and more responsibility without commensurate pay or support, and after 3 years I’d just got to the end of my tether. Unfortunately, my employment contract required 3 months’ notice, which they made me work. By the time I actually left I’d practically forgotten that I was leaving. My leaving was, however, very amicable.
The second time I had a big fallout with the boss. Total breakdown in relationship. I left quickly and under a cloud - a horrible time. That was two years ago and I’m very happy to say that I’ve been self-employed ever since and much happier to be making decisions and money for myself than for other people. I don’t ever want to be an employee again.
I’ve also just beat my old employers to a huge project, which is a delicious ‘up yours’ to them.
(I would add that I don’t have children and work in an industry - graphic design - where it’s pretty straightforward to work freelance, so leaving was never going to leave me on the breadline).
Yep.
Don’t know if I would do it today, but have done it a few times in the past.
Of course, back then (when the economy didn’t suck) it was easy to find at least something to hold you over until you found something better.
Today - not so easy.
Yes I have and I’d do it again.
The first time was after I’d worked for a local council for three years. The team dynamics were seriously screwed up and I eventually broke down at home and told my husband how much I hated it there. We agreed that I’d resign, take a couple of months off, then look for another job. I did it, and it was fantastic. I used the time to de-stress myself and I think it had a really positive impact on when I started my new job.
The second time was after I’d moved to the UK. I’d taken the first job I’d been offered and again found myself in a really strange work environment. The culture was such that improving the way we did things was actively discouraged. We only had one weekly meeting as a team and no discussions about work were allowed, it was only allowed to be about what work was in and when it was going to be scheduled in. I was supposed to be project managing, but I wasn’t allowed to tell my team how many hours they had to work on a particular part of the project, because then ‘they’d just slack and make sure it took them that long.’
After I left that job, I ended up self-employed and working from home, then I started a temp assignment that became permanent.
Yes. I was really worried but it worked out very well. I say, if you’re really miserable then leave - life’s too short. Mind you, I’m single, educated and childness in a country with free healthcare.
I just left a job this year with nothing lined up. I had been working overseas for a number of years and my wife and I wanted to come back to the US. We both quit and came back. She has a job and I’ve been doing some consulting and working on the house. We were able to do it because we had quite a bit of money saved up, also in our industry, it’s not that uncommon to be in this situation when you are transitioning from the field to life back in the States.
When I’ve moved and such, I guess I’ve always been unemployed - but because I work contract, I don’t really think of it that way - and explaining that you’ve relocated has never been a huge hurdle for me.
But there was one time when I gave my notice at my job with nothing solid lined up. The asst. manager of my group was a paranoid delusional and convinced I was trying to make him look incompetent. (He was incompetent - I didn’t have to do anything - it showed up without anyone’s help.)
So he trumped up some job performance issues: coming back from lunch 5 minutes late one day, even though I had come in early and worked late, calling in sick on a Monday - evidently you can only get sick mid-week or you’re faking it, etc. He got our boss to call the 3 of us in to a meeting to give me a written warning - something I had never gotten before in my life. So I told them I was giving my one month notice.
I had been interviewing, but had no job offers. I called back one that seemed really interested and told them I was about to get another offer but they were my first choice. They scrambled to give me an offer and I started within a week of leaving the old job.
I’ve only done this once, but then I’ve only changed employers twice in the past twenty-odd years. I was living in France and a combination of family issues (both parents had long-term medical problems) and a downturn in the industry I’m in made it look as though there wasn’t much future there. So, I pulled up stakes and moved back to the States, living at my sister’s place while I looked for consultancy work. Found something in less than a month, at something like 30% higher income than I had been making previously. So, landed on my feet, I guess.
Since then, I’ve actually ended up back with the employer I left, but in their US division.
Yes once. Left a company I had worked for for 10 years, it had got to the point where the job was more internal political nonsense than actually doing anything worthwhile and I was not getting on well with a couple of the VPs. My wife was fed up with not seeing me as well, so I quit, and went to build a house for a few months. There was not much love lost at that exit interview. Eventually fell into full time employment with another company after doing a spot of consulting, that built over time to being a full time job.
About half the time I’ve quit on the spur of the moment. As an example I got into work at my old job one day, looked at what I did and had to do, and just said “fuck it”. Told my boss to mail me my final check and walked out. Never was unemployed for too long (a couple weeks at most) over it and never really regretted the times I’ve done it.
Are you licensed in DC, Virginia or Maryland? That’s got to suck.