To ask if any of you have ever walked out of a job and if it worked out for you?

[HangingBasketCase]

I'm very unhappy in my current job at the moment and am actively looking for something else. It's got to the stage now where I'm dreading going in in the mornings, I've grown to dislike it so much. I hate everything, the incompetent management, the pay (a pittance for what we do), my colleagues just everything about it.

It's my day off today, I should be relaxing but can't as it's all that's going around my head. I feel full of resentment and anger, it's only a matter of time before I blow.

Ive always been taught never to walk out on a job without something else lined up first, but even if I do find something I'd have to give at least months notice first. They are very particular about notice and have been awkward with former colleagues when they've tried to hand in notice., they won't make an exception.

Help?

I did. I took a job that I had been warned against accepting by a previous (lovely) boss - he told me via email (so really putting his neck on the line having it down in writing) that he wouldn't recommend that I go there and I naively didn't listen and thought I could be the one to make a success of a role that had already got through 3 people in 12 months... I last 6 months (longer than any of the 3 previous people!) and then said I was leaving. Vile Boss said I could leave in 2 weeks and I said, um, no, I have a 3 month notice period - so you will pay me in lieu if you want me to go. He hadn't realised that this was what my contract said, and he was angry.

Ultimately he was so disgustingly rude to me that I picked up my handbag and went and knocked on the office manager's door to tell her that I was leaving then and there. She said, 'You wouldn't be the first' and gave me a hug and wished me luck. I took a few months off to spend with DD1 and then luckily an application I had made whilst working at the awful job (on a whim) started progressing and I got my current job offer after 5 months of being at home. I only applied for one other job during that time, I needed a break and to re-think as I was planning to make a total career change.

It was absolutely the right thing for me, but as others have said - I wasn't financially dependent on that job (I did issue a tribunal claim against them after I walked out - I got about 6 weeks' pay out of it which helped) and I wasn't worried about how it would reflect on me as the Vile Boss was extremely well known in professional circles for being 'difficult'. I spoke to the recruitment consultant who placed me there (she's someone I've known professionally for years and we have a great deal of mutual respect) and said, 'you need to make sure the next person you place there..' and she cut me off to say, 'we won't be placing any more candidates there'. THAT was very satisfying.