Do you hate your job? I hope not, but if you do then you should find another immediately. Life is too short to not be doing what you love!
I recently quit my last 2 jobs within 3 months. That’s right! I went to lunch and never looked back! I know it’s totally unprofessional, but so were the places that I worked, so I call it even. I should add that I don’t have a degree, but I did attend college. I could not finish college because of my health. About 12 years ago, I had a great job as a human resources assistant. We worked well together as a team in our tiny office, and respected each other as human beings.
I loved that job, the benefits were awesome including tuition reimbursement. I took advantage of those benefits because I worked for a medical center and I wanted to be a nurse. Sadly after being diagnosed with a chronic illness I was unable to work for about 10 years. The past couple of years I have been healthy enough to return to work. With no degree thanks to my health, I worked in customer service which is what I had done for over 15 years. So you could say I have plenty of experience.
Now here is where things get tricky. Back in the day (like 15 years ago) there was such a thing called (OJT) or On The Job Training. Companies actually cared about the service their employees were providing to their customers. Employees felt confident in their work (because they actually knew what they were doing) and it was a more productive work environment.
I have only been out of the workforce for about 10 years, but I realized how everything has changed (and not for the better). These new corporations don’t seem to care who they hire, or about training them. The attitude I have experienced in my last 3-4 jobs has been “Lets throw them to the wolves, and if they get it, then they can keep the job.” Kind of like when someone throws you into deep water unprepared and you either “sink or swim”. Sink and “You’re fired!” I don’t agree with “fake it until you make it”.
Not only does this ridiculous idea of treating your employees like crap and not training them properly for the job create a highly stressed work environment, but it creates a high job turnover. Sadly some companies purposely create a hostile work environment wanting high turnover so that they don’t have to pay benefits. You are doomed if you stay! If you are companies please understand that while profits and the all Mighty Dollar are very important, people are important too! Stressed out employees create stressed out customers. Is that the ultimate goal? What customer would ever want to return to your miserable establishment to do business? Eventually it will fail.
Another big problem is hiring one employee to do the job of three. Dumping the entire workload on one person creates burnout, which is exactly why I went to lunch and never came back. I was completely burnt out after only 2 weeks on the second job, and doing the work of 3 people. Many employees would leave early and were always calling out “sick.” That’s certainly not somewhere I would want to be to all day to earn my money.
The supervisors were useless, there was no team effort, and some even yelled at untrained employees for making simple mistakes. Um …hello? You should have taken the time to train them instead of belittling them! All they ever did was complain about how they had no help! Gee I wonder why?
This needs to change and if you are working for one of these companies I advise you to start looking elsewhere immediately! Here are the reasons to quit your job soon!
- They lie about training: Have you ever been told you would train for 2 weeks or a month? All of sudden you are working all alone after 2 days with no help or no clue as what you are doing? Quit!
- Lack of respect: You walk into the office and the boss can’t even lift up his head to speak. Apparently a simple hello or good morning is too hard. The employees are yelling and swearing at each other and there is no team effort. Quit!
- You are doing the work of 3 people: Did you ever find yourself working a double shift covering for someone all the time? There is a reason everybody keeps calling out of work. They are tired of being overworked. Quit!
- They don’t listen to your ideas: Let’s say you have a brilliant idea and you bring it to your bosses attention and it just gets brushed aside. Quit!
- No room for advancement: This is huge because there are many people who have no college training and start at the bottom to work their way up. If your company doesn’t have any room to grow chances are you won’t either, and you don’t want to be stuck in a dead end job. Quit!
- High employee turnover: You ever notice how a certain company is always hiring? Constantly advertising how they are “growing” yet people are leaving as fast as they are hiring? Well of course, it’s such a horrible place to work nobody stays. Quit!
Now, i’m not unreasonable at all. I completely understand if you have responsibilities and it may not be that easy to just quit, but my advice is don’t find yourself trapped in one of these situations. You may never be able to get out and start doing what you love. Have you ever heard stories about people who were laid off from a job, or all of a sudden find themselves unemployed and they are devastated? Only to find out later that it was the best thing that happened to them? Through lack of employment they were forced to find their passion or start their own business. They realized that some of the best failures is what created their success.
After I quit my most recent job, I took some time off and spent the weekend on the beach. I needed to get away and clear my head from that horrible work experience. It was there I met a wise, wealthy woman who owned one of the beach houses and she gave me some great advice! She was really friendly and sat down near me with her dog. As we talked about enjoying the ocean breeze, eventually she asked me what I did for a living. I told her how I had just quit my last 2 jobs and how poorly I was treated. She said “I absolutely don’t blame you for quitting.” I was completely surprised by her response. Then she said “Don’t you notice a pattern here?” You quit because you are not doing what you love!” The money doesn’t matter because you need to work for yourself, you need to follow your passion.”
It was then that I remembered what I loved, which was writing and helping people! I have been so happy since I took her advice. I started blogging again and I have never been happier. I can’t wait until I see her again so that I can thank her. That day I made a decision, I refuse to work for anyone else again but myself. With my new found freedom, I have had time to meet some really nice people. I know I was meant to meet her.
I am sitting on the beach (my new stress free office) as I write this article, and I want you to know that I won’t ever go back to a miserable job again to earn a paycheck. I refuse to be just another replaceable body, because I am unique, and so are you! I hope I have inspired you to figure out what it is that you love to do. Go after your dreams and find a way to make money while doing so, and quit that miserable job! If you liked this article, or know someone in this situation please share it.
