Thing to Do #69: Leave a Job You Hate

I have been lucky in life to have mostly had jobs that I actually enjoyed.  My joke has always been that with a Bachelor’s in Art History and a Master’s in Education, I didn’t exactly set out to make money.  However, I have made it a priority to have jobs that were fulfilling, that I looked forward to going to each morning.  This life is far too short to spend 40+ waking hours a week misreable. 

I was laid off this past Monday; thus is the state of the world we live in.  Let me quickly say that I very much enjoyed my job as a Community Content Liaison with NBC 17.  It energized me and provided exciting opportunities; no two days were the same and I enjoyed the variety of work.  Being laid off is probably also a rite of passage, an experience everyone needs to go through, if anything just to see what you are made of when the going gets rough.

However, I have had one job that I hated.  When I first graduated college, I had difficulty finding a “grown up” job.  I waited tables and tended bar, which paid the rent, but I sought a job that required a degree, a job that actually required brainwaves.  After about a year, the opportunity presented itself in a library job at a local community college.  This job actually only required a 2 year degree but it had benefits and steady pay, so I jumped at it. 

In the end it wasn’t the actual job duties that made me grow to hate waking up everyday, although they were pretty mundane and monotonous.  Everyday I was entrusted with putting out the periodicals, re-shelving books, checking out books, and preparing new books to go on the shelves by placing their call number stickers on the spine.  When I ran out of that work to do, I actually had to go through the stacks and “front” the books, making sure the spines were all even with one another, as well as “read” the shelves, making sure no books had been mis-shelved.   

I know what you are thinking.  Be still my heart with all of the excitement I was exposed to.  However, that was fine.  I do like routine and some days went by rather quickly.  In the end, it was my boss that ran me off.

To protect identities, let’s call her Lucinda Ramshead.  Lucinda was the Director over not only the library, but also AV and the student tutoring center next door.  Lucinda was all the things a manager shouldn’t be: micro-managing, negative, lazy, insulting, demanding, controlling…the list goes on.  She would second-guess the way everything was done, was quick to dash down any other ideas or thoughts, and effectively made everyone walk around on pins and needles, mostly trying to avoid her at all costs.

I lasted a full year in this negative environment and decided I had had enough.  I took a chance, gave my two weeks notice in April, began my Masters in Education and had a teaching job by that July (which I LOVED).  And I’ve loved every job since. 

Soon after my departure, the college had had enough of the rapid turnover within the library (whereas in the rest of the college’s departments, employees stayed for DECADES) and slowly began taking away responsibilities from Lucinda, at which time she eventually took her retirement.  I hear that the library is a much more positive environment now.

Although I did the whole “two weeks notice,” I was still taking a chance by leaving one job without having another lined up=I needed out of there THAT badly.  Ever left a job you hate?  I especially want to hear if anyone really just up and quit, telling their manager exactly what they thought of them!