AIBU to ask why you left your job?

[IsAnybodyListening]

In that, what finally pushed you over the edge so to speak?

I have NC, regular user etc. Didn't want other posts linked.

I have worked for the same company for 2.5yrs, subcontracted by another company. The pro's being flexi working, decent annual leave and fantastic colleagues. The negatives being the workload is untenable (finance), it's a never ending hamster wheel and we have been oversold in terms of what we can physically achieve each day.

To my point. I was recently called to Jury Service. I had to liaise with HR to stop my pay for a couple of weeks. What I can claim from the court leaves me £££ out of pocket. I accepted this reluctantly as part of my civic duty, whilst also being annoyed my colleagues who do the same job, that aren't contracted would have received full pay (not their fault obviously!).

Anyway, the case I was on was utterly horrific. Court finished, and I had a couple of days downtime at home for mental heath reasons (unpaid by work and court) and within the time frame work have 'excused' me from payroll. I am back to work tomorrow (earlier than expected), and I am dreading it. Even though it has been an odd couple of weeks at court, I haven't woke up once with my heart hammering in my chest, worried about a client I have never met or other work matters. It has finally sunk in I need another job, and this almost abstract panic is absolutely not normal.

Can anyone tell me that they had a realisation like this and made things better?

In my last job I had an absolute bully of a boss/owner. He would bully staff and constantly change his mind about the way he wanted things done. You never knew if you'd get Jekyll or Hyde!

The final straw was when he told me I needed to change how I spoke to my colleagues.. it was my usage of the word "ta" rather than the word "thankyou" that he had a problem with, and he wanted me to only use the word "thankyou". This was the final episode in a long series of issues!

That was my damascene moment! I found and got a much better paid job without the bullying.

OP I think you need a new job. Start looking now and be ready for change in the new year. Good luck ♥️

P.S. OP - I also had the stress and anxiety for months n months on end. It was horrible. Your health is your wealth. You obviously have amazing skills that just aren't appreciated

Change in culture that I couldnt countenance.

New job 1 year in loads better, although ironically seems to be going the same way!

Look for a new job op, good luck :)

After a horrible year where I was under investigation (cleared) a nasty colleague brought it all up because I dared to suggest she stopped trying to shift her workload onto me. The level of vitriol was frightening. I knew I couldn't work with her a minute longer so I handed my notice in the following day. Best thing I ever did, I now have a lovely job where I'm treated like a human being.

I have normally left a job when it is no longer intellectually challenging and I am bored out of my brains with every month being the same. I also once left a job, many years ago, in the Finance Doctorate of a university because the whole department had so little to do. We literally chatted all day. It was great socially and we'd all pile down the road to the pub etc but I'd come from the private sector and was used to working to very tight deadlines and working unpaid overtime every month end. I just couldn't stand dossing about all day.

Stress dreams.
Arbitrary targets, either pulled at random from someone's backside or deliberately designed to be impossible to meet.
The Sunday teatime blues gradually rolled back to about lunchtime on Saturday
Realising, when it was announced that it was moving to the weekends, that Radcliffe and Maconie on weekday afternoon radio was the main thing keeping me going.

Life's too short! So I worked out what my transferable skills were and talked my way into a career change. Slightly lower pay but only as an annual salary - if you calculate it by hours worked I'm quids in, and even more so if you factor in all the 3am worrying. I can't recommend it enough.

I left my last job (admin/ customer service kind of role in an interesting sector) because I didn't have enough to do and I was so bored!

Usually when I get bored or when the structure changes and I either get an arse as a new boss, or the interesting parts of the job vanish (also finance).

I’m a self-employed contractor now. I never get bored. The longest I’ve been in any business since I started contracting is ten months. All the cash, far less stress.

BTW I can’t quite fathom your situation: if you are employed by a business that has subcontracted you into the company you are working at, were they not prepared to cover your salary whilst you were on jury service? Why not? Also, when you say you spoke to HR did you mean HR at the company actually employing you or HR at the company you have been placed in? If the latter, why? You’re not under their jurisdiction surely, if your contract is with the first company who employ you and have subcontracted you in?

Change in rota after 13 years to inflexible hours/ refusal to allow set working days. Nursing. NHS.

The crushing boredom of not enough to do, unengaged colleagues, and constantly being told my efforts to use my initiative ‘aren’t your job’ even though no other fucker was doing them.

A job that robs you of your agency is soul destroying. I lasted 8 months and moved to where I am now which is a great place to work.

I was in a similar sort of mental situation as you. I worked in a major car dealership for a premium brand. If x amount of labour hours were available to be sold then xxx would be booked in, so the jobs over-ran, weren’t done properly/completely/at all so customers shouted at me. Alternative was not booking them in so we missed target, or urgent work wasn’t carried out in time. So bosses AND customers shouted at me. If there were x parking spaces available, there would be xxxxx cars on site. So they were parked 3 deep, got damaged, took ages to find and retrieve. So customers shouted at me. Major faults with the cars so parts went on back on order, so customers shouted at me. Then the bosses shouted at me because I was supposed to phone this growing list of customers EVERY day (on top of all the new customers that day) to tell them that the parts were still on back order, which took time because it was then another opportunity for them to moan, whine and yes sometimes shout at me again.
I had a bit of a melt down one day when a customer actually followed me into the loo to shout at me.
Told them to stick their three pointed star up their arse basically. Life is too fucking short.

Different reasons as I've had a long working life. First working in emergency services burnt out with tragedies and arse hole colleagues. Later left a job in a women's refuge due to manager's 'mishandling' of charity funds. Neither the board of trustees or the publicly funded extremely well known charity were remotely interested 😠

I couldn't make things better. I left teaching when I really could not do it any more. It wasn't a choice, I couldn't even pretend I could cope. That was six years ago and I'm not yet fully recovered - but almost.

My manager was a power crazed witch with a personality disorder

Me me!! I left a job in Finance and now doing something completely different. BEST decision ever. My MH is benefiting so much!! New role means we are flexible enough to get a dog!! More time to exercise, finally getting there...Sending a hand hold, you only live once, current situation is only temporary. Make that change. I worked with some proper witches and two faced wankers!! Good luck

I left my last job after 6 years. Mainly because I was bored and wasn't enjoying it any more. I wasn't learning any new skills, and my boss and I were annoying each other a lot! I loved it for the first five years though. I'm enjoying it a lot in my new place, I have learnt a lot of new skills since starting.

Left nursing after 26 years. Constant interference from management (who didn’t even understand the specialty I was working in.) Constant moving of goalposts / petty rules/ increasingly intimidating atmosphere and attitudes.

I left my last job because my old boss turned into a monster who took all my responsibilities from me, demoted me to a junior position under the guise of "development" and eventually stopped talking to me unless he absolutely had to.

I started crying at my desk one day and couldn't stop. I called the doctor who signed me off over the phone and I never went back.

I'm 8 months into my new job, and while I love many aspects of it, I'm bored out of my mind and the lack of flexibility is making my life difficult. I'm thinking of looking for something new or sticking it out until I've had another baby.

My headteacher was a bully to me. Barely a day went by without them saying something unpleasant, there was never any professional discussion, just a telling off. If any staff member had treated a pupil like that they'd have rightly been hauled over the coals.

I returned after maternity but my request for part-time working was refused so I left. I've never been happier and I love my new job where I'm treated like a professional! So actually I should say thank you but I'll be buggered if I talk to them again!

I left the last one in academia because the manager couldn’t manage performance. If another member of staff was getting student complaints or was missing deadlines, instead of tackling the issue, she’d just move the job to someone who could it. It meant that those who didn’t give a shit got rewarded with less work to do, while those who were busting a gut trying to manage their own teaching and marking load, do the research and admin required by their contract, and manage dissertation projects, ended up with too much of all of them. The year I left I ended up with two extra modules to completely rewrite and teach, taking me well over my contracted teaching hours, and 16 extra dissertation students, meaning the research went out the window. At certain times of the year I was working 15 hour days just to get marking done. Meanwhile, those academics who’d been relieved of those jobs just carried on, taking home the same salary as me, but doing practically nothing. In my appraisal I even said, “Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should have to”. It changed nothing. In the end there were about 7 of us doing the work of 11, while the other 4 had the life of Riley.

There is a lot here that resonates!

Iamthewombat Exactly. The questions you asked me are the same I asked. The company that employs me and pays my salary aren't based in the EU. I am contracted to work for a company in the UK and I do the same job, without the same privileges as most of my colleagues.

Mostly, bad management
It's not an amazing job to begin with but I had my sights set on management as I was taking on more and more tasks to upskill.
Went off with mental health, partly due to being scrutinised within an inch of my life on my "actual" job by my manager when none of the others agreed, and 2 other less experienced colleagues (one who I had personally trained less than a year before) were put in as interim managers and I was quite literally told it was because I had been off.
I was then told to expect a lower end of uea rating that last year because the "framework" changed and was introduced in March but managers hadn't read it properly til they needed to rate us and realised no one had been properly prepared.
Ultimately I felt like there was nothing for me in it anymore when I had bent over backwards for them, and my suspicions were confirmed when I told our head of department I was leave and he basically didn't care.

I used to work in finance/accountancy & left because of poor management too. Increasing targets to achieve (lower job budgets, higher chargeout rates, more technical work, limited support etc etc) & a very poor office morale.
My manager frequently threw things like folders & pens at me/us, yelled at staff for not finishing stuff yet. But she has been promoted now apparently, their office's succession dream lady.

I jumped ship - from the frying pan into the fire, lol, & didnt like the change much more unfortunately, so am now working at a minimum wage retail job. A huge career change from qualified finance manager to retail but really enjoying it all.

Since I left that first role though about another 5 or 6 staff (total of about 25 from memory) have left too & not been replaced, so can only imagine the work pressures.

I suspect she's my manager now, @PrincessHoneysuckle.

I think I'll follow your lead.