On a practical level, now in my 30s, I have to be very conscious in group work/volunteer situations that I am not taking on duties for the greater good at great personal expense (and outside norms). The only positive is when there is work for me they are very large projects with very tight timeframes and there is no one else around who has the time or know how to do the work. Ive also had much more interesting jobs that took up much more of my time and mental capacity, and paid worse. Some place that when the shit gets you down, you can look at it and remind yourself what the end goal is. I am also part of the state retirement system which I already have 17 years into, and if I stayed in my job for 13 more years I could retire with 30 years of service at age 55. Its important to find that balance. I spent several years sticking it out in a less than ideal job with good pay and flexibility. Youre stressed and irritable on Sunday night. Also as they age it will be easier to help them stay in their homes longer as we will be close by to assist them. Some people can stick with the job just for the benefits alone and are perfectly happy to only do what is put in front of them. Striking a work/life balance with young kids is so hard. Im in a similar situation (minus the kids but plus some other personal life stuff that make flexibility very valuable). ONe of my college professors made an offhand comment once along the lines of, Money isnt the only thing that motivates people to work. The comment has been so freeing. We dont get vested until year 5. tl;dr only you can make this decision, but in some ways I have been where you are and I really sympathize! "Most of the . It was a cool little world, though. OP, whether or not you have the option to leave, I dont know, but it may not be an option these days. On Friday and Saturday nights you can push work out of your mind, but by Sunday you can no longer deny that its coming. Almost 2 years ago I left a job with a NFP company where Id been for over 20 years (in a succession of jobs from entry-level up to exec committee). That might help. It sounds like OPs job is the monkeys paw of employmentit technically gives everything that anyone would wish for in a job, but comes with a major catch that ruins the whole thing in spite of that. Every Friday night I typed into a Word document all the horrible things she did and the way I felt about them. It couldnt hurt to look. My gut instinct was is OP high?? I have thought about working on a blog, but wasnt sure if that was feasible to do while at work. My response, Its 10% completely amazing tasks that you literally could not do in any other job. Agreed. I wouldnt underestimate this portion of the calculation. Paying for insurance on the market means you will pay higher and higher rates as years go by before turning 65, and if a certain lawsuit pass, might be impossible to get if you have a pre-existing condition. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. I had all the different races, their characteristics, how much of the population in hundreds of cities was each race, diseases, wars, magical disasters caused by mana concentration from uncontrolled magical individuals in locations which culturally did not allow them to be trained what percentage of half-dwarf males are Chosen by the God of Thieves? I think one of our current receptionists just always has a tab open with CNN and switches to that. Continue doing your job well. Jobs can be toxic for many reasonsthey might be overwhelmingly stressful, or intolerably dull. Yeah, honestly, just examining the other options (even if only in your head) and actually choosing to stay helped me a lot when my job was feeling frustrating or stressful or confining. OP, you sound a lot like me when I worked for a toxic department in a large school district office. It's probably between (a) being miserable but well paid with great benefits and (b) being happy with pay/benefits that are decent but just not as unusually stellar as you have now. I have known people to leave unhappy high-paying jobs for more pleasant lower-paying ones, only to become miserable in a different way due to financially-caused problems. Was there a reason for it? It is easily the best state retirement system in the country so I dont want to lose that opportunity, in addition to the good health insurance and generous time off. I was in a similar situation to OP great salary and benefits, a lot of flexibility which was great when I had babies/small kids. Although if there are lots of firings and reorganizations, you could get caught in them too. Yes, it's the job I currently have. Every time I feel this way about my job and realize how much worse it could be and the trade-offs are worth it. Two this is not a sentence for 13 years. Sympathy OP. I would *love* to be able to retire with a pension in 13 years (at 60ish), so Im a little biased towards stay. But if you stay, focus on becoming ready to leave look for some skills / certification that you can use in your existing job or one thats of interest to you. Yes, this. at my age, I would probably have to move. Some days you wake up and the idea of going to work just seems impossible. Ivanka, please take Jared and the kids and go back to New York. OP, this is how I live/feel about my life, but my meh seems WAY less intense than your meh. Set yourself a date in the future when you will reassess. how can I get better at spotting talent in people different than me? But not every state is managed that way, they may indeed be able to count on it. I would take a pay and/or benefits cut for a better job. Doesnt work with food, doesnt work with jobs. Ive also been (currently am!) Do you make tons of money but have to work such long hours you never see your family? The pay was great, vacation and holidays very generous (of course I had to work a lot of Christmas, Easter, ect. I haven't heard back from ANYONE and it's a little disheartening. If you do decide to start looking, remember you can afford to be picky. I used it in particular when I was living with my parents after college. I have been having a difficult time at work recently due to my boss, quite frankly, being a complete and total idiot in the media. If thats the case, I think you should look at leaving. 5. Mine is constantly telling me how much healthier and happier I seem after leaving the job, and how worried they were about me. But how do you know when your job is not just stressful but is actually toxic and is draining the life out of you? Your sleep is much worse on work days. This is SO HARD. I work for the largest employer in region and have been in my current job for over four years. I was previously in a management position and was hired in my current job as an administrator. When you've worked in a dysfunctional workplace for a while, you can lose sight of how bad things really are there, and practices that would have horrified you previously can start to feel normal. When Your Job Harms Your Mental Health Naomi Osaka advocated for her well-being at work. But I suggest trying to reframe and spend time building new skills/distance learning at work before hanging it up. I have a life long hobby that I do in my down time, but I find that I resent having to go to my soul sucking job still. I did eventually get a better job. So Ive finally come to the conclusion that I need to start looking, though I think I will wait until I come back from an upcoming trip, just so Im not juggling interviews or trying to deal with taking a vacation right after I start a new job. Your Boss Has Poor Leadership Skills Sometimes toxic work environments are derived from how the boss treats their employees. (Some government jobs with which Im familiar do for example, you can take leave without pay of up to one year once in your career.). I also didnt really like where I lived; it was expensive, my neighbors were from hell, and I felt stressed out because it was so overcrowded so my personal life wasnt my favorite either. Its nice to know that things can be crazy in my personal life, but work will be easy. It doesnt make me say things like my self-confidence is being destroyed or the life is being sucked out of me. Something clicked and now Im able to frame the political posturing as just part of a process to work through. However, like Alison says, theres no harm in looking. Im okay with this setup. I have had this fear also and something that helps me a bit was this: Its really unfortunate that some jobs have so much going for them except professional fulfillment. If it doesnt well, the search will keep you entertained while waiting for work to do. You are staying because you have decided that the benefits outweigh the costs, and that calculation can change at any time. Dont let it trick you. 13 years is a long time to just coast along. Hes committed to doing his job well but is mentally detached from the organization. Retiring at 55, unless it includes health insurance, is not as helpful as it sounds. If theres a chance you could be laid off, thats one more check on the list toward leaving. I do agree with Allison and others knowledge is power, and in knowing stuff, you may feel better in whatever your decision is. Yup. Can you pay down any debt you may have and build up a cash reserve? I honestly think Ill get canned before then because I have enough enemies here even if Im on the good side of management (for the moment at least). WebMD Expert Blog 2020 WebMD, LLC. Coworkers are a mixed bag, some great, some really nasty. And if they were to eliminate it, thered be severance. The benefits arent quite as good, but the pay is comparable. If some of these symptoms resonate with you, think carefully about your future in this position. If you decide to stay, make as many marginal improvements as possible (try to work under the least worst boss, on the least-dysfunctional projects, etc). I am just not being utilized as one. When your job is toxic, it can feel like you're fighting off a wild tiger at your desk. I dont know, but a friend of mine has been in a verbally (at least, Im not too sure if its physical) relationship for 30+ years and he always has a much better job than she does and shes usually only able to get crap temp secretarial jobs with no insurance. It made my job a lot more tolerable to know that I was actively considering all my other options. Just to clarify, you mean 6-7 hours a night, right, not.per week? One girl got nearly 1,000 of baby stuff at her maternity lunch. But even if that hadnt happened I would not have left. Focus on the things you have the power to make a positive change on (even if its marginal), and helping to lead that change can be very rewarding. Everybodys got their own calculation to make. The goal for me is to be able to get through the next 2 hrs on autopilot while meeting work expectations. Anyway, I got laid off from my last retail job (store closure) and decided to try one that made use of my culinary training. I haven't heard back Press J to jump to the feed. Cookie Notice I have more PTO at new job and greater schedule flexibility. I'm part time because I'm also in school. Maddie came in for her first newborn visit with her parents 2005 - 2023 WebMD LLC, an Internet Brands company. Anyone contemplating doing this should read this letter. Still its a struggle some days. There is no shame in staying in a sucky job because it works well for your family right now. Are there other jobs in your organization that could be done from home? I dont think tolerating this for 13 more years is either realistic or worth it. But ask your benefits office to be sure every state is different, and the rules may be different depending on when you first became a state employee, what kind of pension plan you have (if it IS a pension plan vs. a retirement account), and so on. Ive been in a position where the boss explicitly told me I could craft/do homework/work on other things when they didnt have specific work for me (it was a job where a lot happened the first 30 minutes and the last 30 minutes of my shift, but the hours between were sitting at a desk, occasionally pointing someone towards the bathroom). Have you spent enough time on it that this question is truly settled in your mind? Down the road when I dont have small children that depend on me is the time to re-examine the situation in light of shifted priorities. Sorry, yes! Reframing it so that I am telling myself I am choosing to stay because of the pay, benefit, and flexibility is helpful. I agree. Stress and misery can also take a toll on personal health. But the other 90% is pure hell. After a while, even during that 10% of cool tasks Id be thinking to myself, if I just had a 40 hr work week, Id have way more time to do cool stuff on my own, instead of relying on these little moments to provide satisfaction..