So I quit my job. How's your day been? (longish, rambling. LJish)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I gave my notice yesterday.

Regardless of whether I’ve got a new job or not, I finish on the 24/8. Four weeks from yesterday.

I was having sleeping problems, stress problems. Breaking down in tears over the most stupid things. When I brought it up with my boss, he got me two weeks emergency leave & they packed me off to the company counselling service. Helped a little, but when I came back the stress was just as bad as before I left. Even though the counsellor admits it appears I’m suffering from depression and at least one anxiety disorder her suggestions were to “fake being normal until you fit in” and “exercise more, it’ll make you feel better”. Yeah, okay. Exercise more, get some endorphins up. Helps a little. But a little isn’t enough.

I’ve been applying for other work, going to interviews. I don’t know if still being at work is a hindrance because other employers are wanting pretty quick starts and whilst my current employer really couldn’t stop me if I got a new job and had to start in a week, I still have to tell the other employers I need to give notice. Plus it’s hard to get to interviews when I work anywhere between 8 am and 6:30 pm. It involves a lot of shift swapping, which the higher-ups hate having to do.

Hubby’s been telling me I need to get out of there for months now. He has encouraged me to leave, saying we’ll work our bills out, cut down on unnecessary luxuries and work on one salary for a while if we have to. He can see how ill I’ve been due to stress, how badly I’m sleeping, how often I’m having nightmares. He hates call centres on principle anyway, and wants to see me in a job where I won’t be so much of a drone. I don’t fit that mould.

Once I’m out of where I am I’ll be able to start taking temp jobs as well, so I don’t expect to be out of work for long, even if I am hopping from temp-to-temp for a few months until something solid comes back.

It’s still scary. I quit a full-time job in late 2001 to move to Sydney and lived on temp jobs for nearly three years until I came back to Adelaide. I’ve been with this company full time since January 2004 and it’s scary to be stepping out into the unknown. To not know if I’ll have a job the day after I stop working, or if we’ll be living on one income for the next six months.

We’re in an okay situation financially at the moment. Not great, but not terrible. The big credit card is paid down to a balance of about $700. There’s a couple of other things on credit that we had planned to pay off over the next 12 months, but that we can hold on minimum payments for a while. If necessary we could even put them both onto the one card - the combined debt left over now is about 4k and the other card is 5.5k available total - and just pay the minimum on that one until I’m back at work again. But that’d only be in an emergency. One debt is on interest free until March next year, and I’d rather not fuck with it until we have to start paying it off or else.

I’m in the process of changing our internet to a cheaper provider. We can downgrade or completely ditch the cable tv if necessary. We currently get the house cleaned for us once a fortnight for $50. We can even cut that down to once a month if necessary (though not stop completely. I’m a terrible house cleaner even when I do try plus it’s family who clean for us, and they’re using the money to supplement their own income). There’s ways and means of saving money. We’ve had a lot of disposable income, there’s a lot of ways we can tighten our belts for a while. We’re quite cavalier about how we spend on food (occasional trips to the gourmet supermarket, no real food budget we just buy what we feel like), but especially if I’m not working, I’ll be able to sit down and work out a meal/food budget each week and if we have to live on spaghetti and tomato sauce with frozen veg for a while, so be it. Though I don’t think it’d come to that. Hubby’s earning a good wage.

Plus I’m a world-class food hoarder. Picked that up from my mum and grandma. Pantry’s full of dried/tinned foods. I don’t think it’d come to that, but if necessary we have got enough food in tins and packets to last several weeks supplemented simply by perhaps a bit of minced beef, some frozen veg and some bread.

I said it’s scary, but at the same time it’s a relief. There’s a new beginning in sight. For the next 20 days (excluding weekends) if someone’s shouting at me, I can let it roll over my head. They’re shouting and it won’t matter because in 4 weeks I’ll be gone and never have to talk to them again. The pressure over stats, being a nameless, faceless voice in a chair. Gone.

I like the people I work with. They’re good people. The company is great in terms of benefits and trying to care about its people. I just don’t have the right mindset for that work any more. I used to, but I’ve changed.

I’m hoping I get new work before I leave, or shortly after. But we’ll cope. And the job market’s pretty good down here right now.

So off I go, and we’ll see what happens.

2

I quit my job today too, but I’m pretty ecstatic. Didn’t even give notice…but they totally deserved it. :mad:

3

Good Luck to you. It’s never worth it to stay at a job that is losing you sleep at night. No matter how much they pay you.

Speaking as someone who has little in the way of money, you’d be surprised what you can through together with pasta and frozen veggies.

4

I sympathize with you both. I’ve come close a couple of times. It’s not like they’re horrible to me, and the pay is OK, but the thrill is gone, and I’ve changed enough so that customer service is no longer my thing. I’ve decided to stick with it until I get a little more education and maybe a degree in a field in something that’ll let me get something a little more useful and substantial. But I still understand your decision.

Out of curiosity, what did you two do?

5

Yay Little Bird. As I said, I do like my company so I thought I’d at least give them the benefit of some warning. There’s still a chance I may get fed up early, think “Fuck it” and just walk out the door one day.

I did call centre customer service. For the first three years I did tech support for dial, DSL and ADSL2+. Some office politics and the offshoring of so much of our low-level support sent me running (speaking with customers after they’ve just spoken with three offshore reps who can’t or won’t help them? Kill me now) upstairs to Financial Services (collections) where now I get people calling in to tell me why they can’t pay their bills, to shout at me that we have no right to cut off their service even though they haven’t paid their bills in three months, and to scream when we’ve default listed their credit and they want it removed so they can get a car loan even though they still owe our company a grand.

I did FS a bit before I moved into the permanent tech support role. When I did the FS before I liked it, but that was nearly 4 years ago and as I said, I’ve changed. My priorities and job needs have changed and it was starting to drive me crazy. I don’t know if the depression is a cause or effect of the job satisfaction (or lack thereof), but I do know that when I spend most mornings crying or hyperventilating because I just don’t want to be there any more, then something’s seriously wrong. If it turns out the job wasn’t the cause of the depression exactly - as in I’ve actually got a brain chemical depression rather than a stressed-out depression, then at least in a lower-stress job I’ll be more able to manage it.

6

Christ, that’s the pits. No wonder you’re stressed out. I kind of feel like a fool bitching about my library job to you.

If I could give you some advice that I learned the hard way a long time back . . . Don’t be too quick to blame things on yourself–You know, what you’re saying about the potential chemical depression and stuff. A lot of times, it’s just the environment, and you can drive yourself crazy trying to change your attitude, your looks, your tastes, and even your basic nature when really all you need to change is your scene.

Good luck to you. Whatever you go on to, I’m sure it’s going to be better than this.

7

I gave notice on Monday. I am taking that next step in a relationship, moving in together, and that requires me to move to a different city. I told them I would try to give them to sept 15, but no promises. I too have found it to be a giant pain in the ass to get an interview in city that is 2-3 hours away requiring me to take the whole day off. Prospective employers often say “can you come in tomorrow?”. “Well no I can’t, can we arrange something for x-day?” “Hmm, we will call you back.” Sigh. At least I have one guaranteed interview for a job that be AWESOME, but I miss a few of the technical requirements, so I don’t know how likely it will be.

So in short, I hope everything works out for you. Maybe that will mean everything will work for me too !:slight_smile:

8

Good for you. I quit my job a few months ago – it was the biggest, scariest decision I’d ever made. Nobody wants to lose their security and income (and health insurance if they’re in the US), but sometimes it’s important to focus on your own mental health and emotional well-being. Stress can kill a person, and if your job is making you suffer, then there’s really only one correct decision, as difficult as it may be.

Good luck, and may you find a job that you enjoy.

9

Thanks so much for the well-wishes guys. And good luck to those of you who’ve also just recently unshackled.

I’m lucky in that over here my health insurance is completely self-funded. Unlucky because I do have to pay for it even if I’m not working. But if I need to quit it entirely, there is still medicare for emergencies. Hooray for semi-socialised medicine.

I don’t think I’ve completely come to grips with what I’ve done yet. Four weeks feels like a long time going forward, but then the last four weeks have gone so quickly I can’t imagine it’s going to drag that much.

I’ve got some very promising leads on some jobs, some more applications to get filled out over the weekend and another interview Monday morning. Luckily I’m on late shifts next week, and in the coming weeks I’m not going to feel terrible about coming in a half hour or so late, or finishing a little early to head off to another interview. What are they going to do, fire me? :smiley:

The temp industry is huge down here as well. So even if none of the jobs I’m applying for right now come through, there’s definitely plenty of temp work I’m well qualified for, and if I get into a temp role I like then obviously I can use that to angle into a permanent job as well so that’s good.

All in all I’m feeling happier about this decision each time I think about it.

10

I would just say “good for you” - working at the wrong job can kill you. I would also say that while there are likely differences in banking and credit between the U.S. and Australia you might want to be careful about those interst free items. Sometimes here if you miss a payment or fail to comply with the terms in some way they charge you interest on the entire loan. That would be a really unpleasant surprise at a really bad time. Good luck.

11

Excellent news. Hoping you find something new, and that you love doing, and that you’ll make loads of cash at, straight off. :wink:

12

HUGS!

I quit my job a while back… for a new one.

Doing what I love (Specialized Retail)

it was a minor cut in pay (guess what, when current employer saw how good I was at it, they gave me $2/hr raise), + a bonus if I decide(!) to teach other new employees about my approach (A happy customer buys more - D’ohh!)

I am still deciding, cuz, I love what I do, and why mess with happyness…

You should quit! My last job (non retail, high end technical support/robotics) paid OK, but NO ONE understood what my job was, so each manager in the chain had a different idea of exactly what I was supposed to do/produce/create profit and limit cost…

I LOVE it when my former Bosses come to me and expect a deal… (Oh Yes! I have a VERY special pricing program for them! In that case, a stupid, greedy, ignorant customer gets to leave feeling happy… because their ass only hurts a little)

and I got two weeks paid between jobs…

Best of luck
FML

13

Yep. It’s the same over here. If there’s still any balance on the loan remaining when the interest free period runs out then it’s the full interest, for the life of the loan, charged on top. But that doesn’t run out until March, and by February one of two things will have happened. Either a) I’ve got a new full time job, which means we’ll have paid most if not all of it off and put the balance across to my other card or b) we’ll have completely paid off the “Big” credit card, which means we use that to pay the loan off in one lump sum and then pay the massively lower interest rate (12.5% vs 25.8%) on that one. It’s what we did with the Xbox 360 earlier in the year.

I definitely wouldn’t have done this if we still had the amount of debt we had 12 months ago (over 10k). We’ve more than halved that in 12 months, and what remains is easily manageable so we’re okay for now. And I’ve been getting callbacks from jobs left right and centre so if I can just get on through to 2nd interview stage with some of them, then it’ll be good.

(Oddly enough. Last night, 8:30pm, I was submitting some job apps online. I got a call from an employer Right Then. Like, ten minutes after I sent the application in. She wants to see me Monday, but I absolutely can’t [I have another interview that morning, then have to go to work]. So I’ve got an interview at 8 am Monday morning, then I have another one at 8:45 on Tuesday. Then if the people I saw Friday like me, they’re going to call me back on Monday sometime and get me in for a 2nd interview/meet with the boss sometime during the week. I may end up having to take a sick day just to cope with it all, because I’m on late shift this week, and will have to be doing all of this before I go to work for 8 hours.)

14

Well, especially when Hubby makes a good wage.
It’s never a good idea to quit a job before you have a new one. Companies can be very slow in their hiring processes and it can take weeks or months to finally land a new job.

You work 8:00 - 6:30. That’s normal. I had to work from 9:00am until 3:00am the next day for an entire month, including weekends and holidays. You even said you like the people you work with and the company’s benefits. You’re next job could be with a bunch of jerks.

Problem is that if you are suffering from depression and anxiety, changing jobs isn’t going to help.

15

Depends on the drivers for depression and anxiety. If its driven by the work situation, it will help. If its made worse by the work situation, it will help.

At the very least, quitting, being unemployed for a while and finding a new job where its the same shit in a different place at least can teach you an appreciation for the paycheck (or put your priorities in order over whether you need one).