Dear disgruntled employee: Quit your job… PLEASE.

To all the people who hate their jobs:

QUIT.

no seriously, please quit.

And to be specific this is for people who hate their job and use every moment of every day to make that fact clear.

We get it, you’re probably not being paid what you deserve AND they are probably over working you. The office kitchen is probably messy, the canteen may be garbage and all the people you work with may be imbeciles.

So of course you treat everything and every one with attitude, work to rule, take every opportunity to complain and generally use every interaction to reinforce that you’d rather be somewhere else and that the place is a patty shop.

Effectively you’re probably the biggest pain in the ass in everybody’s day.

So the other 15 other people who work in the patty shop probably have less problem with the patty and more problem with the paté (read: sh*t) you drop on them everyday. Your displeasure with your job is probably causing several other people to hate their job and some of them may really have no other choice but to work there.

Now I’m not saying it’s your fault. Toxic institutional cultures have become a bit of the norm especially as people become more overworked, less fulfilled by their jobs, and are forced to spend more time in the presence of other overworked unfulfilled people who get on their nerves.

But in the making do with what’s there…some of us become a bit of a burden to bear. And some of that some don’t have to but we continue to do it because we’re afraid of the what if:

What if I can’t find another job?

What if I hate it there too?

What is my resume looks spotty because I moved around too much?

What if I get another job but I’m bad at it and they fire me?

What if I quit just before something changes for the better?

    

What if you stay where you are and make yourself and everybody else miserable?

Nobody is telling you to leave your job on a whim and step out on faith (though it’s been done and has worked for some) or act like some monied white westerner with a business to inherit (no shade but y’all write the most articles telling people to do stuff that only your 5% of the population can do). I am telling you that toxicity can be changed and sometimes you’re the one who has to change it.

So quit.

BUT before you do that, do a few things like this:

1. Apply for and find another job.
2. Accept that you MIGHT hate it there….you may also love it. What IS clear is that you hate it where you are so let’s keep that reality at the top of the list before we go planning our lives around things that may not happen.
3. People have spotty resumes. You can explain it in your job interviews. Perhaps its time for employers to accept that a) just as they are shopping for the right employee, employees are shopping for the right employers and b)they should do something about their crappy institutional cultures so people maybe want to stick around. Job jumping is often just as much the fault of the employee as the places of employment.
4. If you keep up your frowsy attitude you may get fired from your current job so being fired may be closer than you think.
5. You’ll really have to weight the odds on what could change at your current job and what could cause it to change or stay the same. Often that moment just before a big change is the most terrifying and we lull ourselves with the idea that things could change. They COULD as well as they could not…there’s risk to everything.

NOW one final word: I know there are some people who cannot make this change. And trust me…me feel it fi yu. I also find that there are some people who have options and don’t take them because they sell themselves on the idea that they are living on absolute limit situations. Check your privilege, assess the truth about your life and do what you actually can. Stop living somebody else’s life and use what’s given to you to get to a position where you can create meaningful change. Meaning….don’t change positions and recreate the same crappy culture you just escaped.

Claro?

Bueno!

Peace.

Carla