What to do about job?

[Sademployee]

Long-time lurker here, looking for some impartial advice.

I'm currently on a secondment from my permanent role. The secondment is fixed-term, and my substantive post is still available if I want to return. I took this secondment to gain additional experience that could help with future promotions although I could have stayed in my original role and still had the same promotion opportunities, so taking this secondment wasn't strictly necessary for career progression.

It was a huge decision to leave because I genuinely loved my previous job, the team, and the work environment. I actually enjoyed going in to work every day. However, I had been in the role for quite a while and felt like I needed a new challenge, to broaden my experience and see how things are done elsewhere.
I've now been in the seconded role for five months, and I honestly hate it. I dread going to work most days. I don't feel valued or part of the team, and the work itself isn’t what I expected it to be. I know the work was going to change a bit after April so have been holding off to see if it does. A few weeks ago, things came to a head when I had a panic attack — something that has never happened to me before. I spoke to my manager about how I’ve been feeling, and while they have started to make some changes based on my feedback, I’m still unhappy and unsure if things will really improve. I can't quite put my finger on exactly why, but it just doesn’t feel right.

Every day I’m wondering if I should just go back to my substantive post, where I know I was much happier. I also took a slight pay cut for this secondment, which now feels even less worthwhile. Part of me feels like I should just stick it out and give it more of a chance in the hope it gets better, but another part of me thinks that life is too short to be miserable at work, especially when you spend most of your days at work and when there’s no guaranteed promotion at the end of this.

I suppose my AIBU is:

• Should I stick it out longer and give the secondment more time to settle?
• Or should I start having conversations with my former manager about returning to my substantive post?

I'm also worried about how it might look if I leave this role early by current and future employers, and hurt my chances when applying for promotions. I don’t want to seem like a failure or damage relationships.

Any advice welcome

How long is left of the secondment? How long have you given the changes to take effect? What is it you are hating?

Life is too short to stuck out a role you don't enjoy for no tangible career benefit or pay bump. If your main concern is how it would look to leave early, I think I'd counter that by saying that a five months secondment doesn't look like you haven't given it a fair go. It could also give you some talking points for interviews in future - a STAR analysis of the feedback you gave and the results. Would it be unusual in your industry to leave a secondment early? Would it honestly stand out? If you were talking to a colleague about it, would you accept their reasons for feeling they should stay or would you feel that there was a degree of pride, work ethic and wanting to see the job completed regardless of the personal cost? I mean that kindly - we all like to feel we've done a good job and women, in particular, are conditioned to think about who they might be letting down or what others may think.

This it he beauty of a secondment, end it early and go back. You can just be honest and say it wasn't what you thought it was but value the experience for teaching you x,y,z. Life is too short to stick it out for no real reason and 5 months is long enough to reasonably allow you to talk about it as part of your development.

Six months - which you are nearly at - is already pretty long for a secondment, so I think there is no shame at all in saying “thanks for the interesting six months, I’ve learnt a lot and gained some interesting experience, but it has confirmed to me that my original role is better suited to me and to allowing me to give the best to the organisation.”

My only caveat would be if you were in a situation where eg you had been seconded to a client for a year to cover someone’s maternity leave, and not doing the full year would make your employer look bad and so possibly have negative ramifications for you.

Thanks for replies so far.
The secondment is usually for two years. I am not covering anyone it is a role created through funding so it is fixed term for up to two years but can be re advertised every time providing the funding is still there.

I know I have done a good job in the work I’ve been doing so far but just don’t feel happy in the role. I don’t think it’s down to just one reason and it’s hard to say what exactly it is.

We are going in to our planning period for the next year and I don’t want to commit to doing and leading things if I’m not certain about the job and end up leaving but it is a bit catch 22 as this is where I could put more of what I want to do on the table which might help me enjoy the job more.

I just don’t want to be stuck doing a job I hate until I achieve a promotion which can take a while to be successful in due to limited roles and the competitive nature of it.

Honestly I would go back. See this as a learning opportunity. They are more likely to they some else to take it for 18 months than you leaving later.

Ordinarily I'm a life's too short for this shit person, but in this case, I'd set some goals. Give yourself a time frame to make a decision and have a good think about what would make you stay or leave this role. If there are changes due shortly you might want to see what they are before choosing to go back to your other role so if you know when these changes are due, give them whatever amount of time that feels comfortable to you before deciding.

If these changes aren't going to be anything you get excited about or will improve matters for you, go back to your other role sooner rather than later. But do know what it is you would stick around for or not.

Also do be prepared for you to be wearing rose tinted glasses for your old job here. There was a good reason you went for secondment and left a role you loved and team you liked, perhaps reconnect with that while you are making your considerations. You could just be experiencing slow settling in after coming from another role. I do know it can be harder to change role in a familiar workplace than starting afresh because some of the ties are still around.

Thanks these are all thoughts I’ve had and what friends and family have said. I think I’ll take some time to see what happens over the next few weeks as we start our planning and then make a decision. It’s just such a horrible feeling it’s hard to get out of this mind set.