what inspired you to leave your job?

[itswednesdayy]

I hate my job - everyday, I go in and can’t wait to leave, I know I’m worth better.

What was the final straw for you? What inspired you to keep applying for new jobs?

I’ve applied for a handful over the past 6 months (some are still in process as recruitment is slow paced) but can’t properly get in the zone and focus on securing a new job! Just feels like a faff.

Good old incompetent management.

I have to minute meetings - I am not allowed to participate. The board suggest that we do xyz. I know that what the company needs is actually abc. My boss agrees that we will deliver xyz in a couple of weeks. I know that even if we were to deliver xyz it would take a minimum of eight weeks if I put aside all work to do this.

I explain this immediately. Boss says OK, rolls back on the need to do xyz. I recommend abc. Boss says no.

Repeat this cycle four or five times.

Toxic management, a general ack of support and refusal to treat staff with respect. I was hired for x experience but told by line manager that she considered my public sector experience inferior to the private sector because "they actually care about the patients". That was week one, I lasted 6 months after that before deciding my principals were worth more than the job. That I was worth more than the job.

I'd actually taken a pay cut to do the job because I wanted to make a difference. I went back to my previous job earning 35% more for doing much less, with an amazing, supportive culture.

Their loss.

thanks for sharing. having good vs terrible management really does impact wellbeing.

can’t wait for a new adventure and a fresh start!

We have a new head of department at work (Higher Education), who encourages people to submit anonymous questions ahead of departmental meetings. Someone invariably asks a pay-related question, to which his answer is generally along the lines of "well some of you have been here for years so it can't be that bad". I was already looking for a new job before he arrived, but taking my time to find the right thing - when I go I will get great satisfaction from telling him, especially knowing how difficult I will be to replace.

When my childminder text me that morning to say she had covid and had to close, I got in 30 minutes late after sorting emergency childcare (rather than taking time off for dependants, which i would have been perfectly in my rights to do). When I arrived and apologised for the stress I was told "this is why I hate children". At the time I was also pregnant so stuck it out, took mat leave as early as possible and changed jobs while on leave.

Final straw for me was being instructed to do illegal things with the accounts. I refused and on month 1, they did it themselves. On month 2 they insisted the same, I left. No way was I being put in that position.

Another toxic boss here. Such a shame as loads of our best people have left over the past year because of him.
I found a job laying loads more in a similar but smaller organisation so although it's a wrench to leave my network and a decades worth of knowledge behind its hood to have a new start.

Good luck.

When I first started in this low level public sector role I got put on a performance management action plan. At the time my dad was seriously ill and not all the ‘reasonable adjustments’ for my hearing loss had been put in place. But I needed the job, so sucked it up, while reminding them now and again of their legal obligations.

Over the next few years, management left, Covid happened, new tech was put in, I got new hearing aids and new equipment and a lot of the paperwork was stripped from my job, leaving not a lot. Two managers later, after having a succession of 1-2-1s cancelled, I had a meeting that turned into an informal performance management session. The ‘concerns’ included such sins as sticking labels on not quite dead centre, a customer parking in the wrong place without my knowledge, someone else putting the wrong attendance figures in an Outlook meeting calendar and then getting ‘confused’ by the results, and passing on a phone call to a person named by the caller, who then passed it back on to me as I could take a payment, which the caller hadn’t mentioned at first. Some of this stuff, I was told, had come from exit interviews, which sounded very sus to me.

Something crystallised for me after this and I knew I had to leave. It didn’t matter that everyone started being terribly nice to me (why do they always do that when they’re about to sack you?) I got my CV together and had another job offered within a fortnight. It gave me deep satisfaction to leave instead of being fired, and interestingly enough, I was not replaced.

Crap pay, crap management, crap job, crap development! I actively felt myself get stupider, unhealthier, more depressed and less employable the longer I spent there.

@Buildingthefuture

@Hillrunning

Christ Almighty! These are both awful. Hill Running - let's hope the ok applicant is barely that!!!!

An abusive and toxic environment.

I was very glad to leave my last job. Aggressive American Professor who was having a non stop tantrum because his secretary was leaving. I was not working for him but he was the big boss. He was trying to get rid of me. I ended up with zero confidence. Even now I only have a part time (bank job) in NHS. Every time I look at permanent jobs I talk myself out of them. I don't know how I lasted as long as I did. There was rarely work for me and the atmosphere was toxic. The other Doctors tried to get me to say ok to something that was not ok and when it went tits up, tried to blame me , even though as a secretary not a Doctor I would hardly go above their heads and say yes to it.

When my Dad was dying and I was sitting next to his hospital bed with my work laptop

Toxic environment, hated colleagues after lockdown huge resentment on their part as they felt we had it better being able to work from home during lockdown even though I would've preferred to be in the office and not stressed out doing my work and trying to balance home schooling but sure I was at home every day and they had to answer the phones in a locked office 🫠🫠

The resentment from one side of the office to the other never recovered and the office remained toxic so I left the corporate world altogether. I'm now in a job that's always different every day that I absolutely love.

Also my new career suits me and my kids and I love being able to be there for them! (Shock horror who puts their kids before their career anymore)

Incompetent boss. I need to work for someone who I can respect and learn from.

I decided to leave when my toxic boss phoned me while I was having chemotherapy cancer treatment to suggest I took voluntary severance as my job was going to be downgraded in yet another restructure. I'd been unhappy for ages but that just was the final straw. I got headhunted for a fabulous job and couldn't be happier. I have made it my mission to help my old team mates - I recruited 2 to work for me and helped another 3 escape. I feel no guilt - people don't look for a new job if they enjoy their current one!

Wanting a change. Boredom and no progression that I was interested in.
Hire of a new person who was an overpaid conman

Usually toxic boss though.

Constant grinding down of wages and conditions, final straw when I was assaulted and the company went out of its way to show they didn't care.

And they wonder why they can't get staff.