Please help me resign

[TimeTraveller2718]

I posted on here the other day about how much of an awful time I am having at work due to a micromanaging manager and bad culture. I have been with the company for 4 months and since returning from Christmas things have got much much worse.

I am in tears every morning and evening and often sneak to the loo to cry. I am at complete rock bottom and feel so hopeless in my job, it’s an awful fit for me and it’s making my life miserable.

I have decided to resign but I don’t know when to do it. I have been offered help from my partner and family in the meantime, although this really was a last resort for me but I have hit rock bottom and feel I need to leave for my health and wellbeing.

I have an interview next week and another tomorrow for 2 separate jobs, I was hoping to last out until I have a job secured but I don’t feel I can. I feel I need to get out as soon as possible but I’m worried how this will look to the employers I am interviewing for. I feel I have a good chance of potentially securing one of these jobs but I am worried if I leave my current job now it may look bad.

I know recruiting takes a while and there will be multiple stages so it could be weeks or months if I’m successful from one of the interviews I have but I don’t feel I can last any longer at my current job without having a breakdown, I sound pathetic but this is my situation.

you don’t get benefits for five months if you leave a job. you’d be better going off sick with stress.

That sounds awful. I need a bit of clarification. Are you asking us to A. help compose a resignation email or B. reassure you that sometimes it's ok to jump before you have something else lined up?

I guess to get some perspective on whether I should resign or not given my circumstances

Hmm the first post does give some good info. What do you think about that?

I don’t feel I can last any longer at my current job without having a breakdown

I know it’s easy to say as we all have bills to pay, need a roof over heads, food on the table BUT no job is worth risking your health for.

I did go off sick and when I went back I thought I had a great back to work meeting and thought we were moving forward. Slowly slipped back in to what it was and I resigned not long after. Like you I had a poor, incompetent line manager.

Have you tried talking to your manager or HR and telling them how you feel? Even if you still leave it might help things. No idea if you've already done this but it would be crazy to resign and unprofessional to go off sick without exploring all options.

If you are regularly in tears at work, I would go to your GP and see if they will sign you off sick, that will give you some headspace to focus on your interviews, and it should flag with HR that you are struggling. I’d say it’s unlikely they will actually do anything but at least it will be recorded that you are experiencing workplace stress.
I worked for a micromanaging pain in the arse years ago, and I feel your pain. The best day of my professional life was my last day there, and I simply could not do it again.

This may sound strange, but can you resign “in your head”? It’s amazing how things shift when you’ve definitely checked out emotionally. It would be better not to leave until you’ve secured something, but you could compromise with yourself and say that if you don’t get one of the jobs you’re up for, you will resign anyway.

Why would you go to a doctor as a way to flag to HR? That's wasting NHS time and unprofessional at work. You attempt to sort things out at work first!

As someone in a similar situation to you OP (sympathies!), I really think this is excellent advice from @friedaddedchilli.

But, if you really cannot switch off and you are as close to breakdown as you say, then you must prioritise your mental health and resign immediately. Don't give them a backwards glance and put it down to experience; not all jobs are a good fit for everyone.

I’m not suggesting she goes to the doctor in order to flag the problem to HR @HoskinsChoice, I’m saying she should go to her GP and explain how she is feeling in terms of stress and being close to a breakdown, and in these circumstances the GP may sign her off work due to stress. She will have to provide this “sick note” to her employer if she is off work for an extended period (for my employer it’s if you’re off for more than a week), this her employer cannot claim that they were unaware of her difficulties and ought to have processes in place to deal with workplace stress. I cannot understand your perspective saying that someone seeing their GP when they are nearly having a breakdown is a waste of NHS time.

You stated that going to the GP to get signed off, '...should flag with HR that you are struggling'. That's literally what you said!

Going to a GP BEFORE addressing the problem with HR is treating the symptoms not the cause. It is absolutely a waste of NHS time if there's a simple fix to this in the workplace (there might not be but it's pretty unprofessional not to at least try). It's also incredibly unfair on colleagues who will have to pick up her workload if she just goes off sick without going through the official processes with her employer.

@HoskinsChoice Given what the OP stated in their first post about how seriously the situation is affecting her health, she needs proper support. Going to HR to start a grievance process is likely to add more stress and in my experience will do nothing to improve the situation, however, if she has medical evidence of ill health caused by workplace stress they have a duty of care to act. That’s why I’m saying go to the GP first.
As for the impact on colleagues workloads, it’s up to management to ensure appropriate resource, it’s not the OP’s problem, she needs to look after her own health.

I would want to know what your job actually is before making suggestions.