LEAVE Your Misery Behind: When To Quit Your Job And When To Stay

There are varying degrees of misery in the corporate world. I will write about a few of them here, based on my own experience. Some warrant a departure from the job. Others do not. I will provide a rating for each with Low for Don't Leave Your Job and maybe find ways to mature personally, Medium for Look For a Lateral Move or a Better Job and High for RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. I mean that last one. There are some jobs that are absolutely toxic to who we are as humans and everything we stand for.

When I say 'Run For Your Life' I mean that in order to preserve your humanity, dignity, self-respect, confidence, to protect or recover the trust you had in yourself and in order to invest in your future by nurturing your present: You have to get away from your job at any cost.

(a) Occasional Annoyance (Low): It happens. There is always an annoying co-worker who rubs you the wrong way 20% of the time. This is okay. It just means that you have an opportunity to open your mind to a different personality. It also means that you're human and that you are perfectly OK as you are. You don't need to like EVERYBODY and they don't need to like you either. You do need to get along with everyone at work in order to finish a project satisfactorily. So do it. Read some books on personal development. Or ignore your undesired people. Focus on the things you love about your life, your job, your routine (or lack thereof), the people you love in your life (or lack thereof). Take vacations, enjoy life, treasure your good days at work.

(b) Serious Disagreement with A Co-worker (Low): If this person is an equal in your company's hierarchy, and you are working with more people that this one person, learn to grow from this experience. If they are an equal, learn better communication techniques. Open your mind to new ideas. Hate his guts? Try to stop focusing on him when you are on your own. Don't just foolishly ignore him/her. When you are with him, observe his behaviour objectively. When we see someone we hate, we see something inside them that we dislike about ourselves. This is the rule, not the exception. Use 'The Work' by Byron Katie and open your eyes to something very deep and profound within you. This is an opportunity for Enlightenment. Don't pass it up.

(c) Occasional Disagreement with a Senior Co-worker or Supervisor (Low): This is actually a learning opportunity. The assumption here is that there is no verbal abuse involved, just disagreements. The situation is that your supervisor wants something done a certain way, you disagree, you have voiced your opinions (or not) and supervisor sticks with his decision. In life, this happens. If you are a junior or intermediate engineer, this happens a lot. You have a lot to learn and a senior engineer has a lot to teach you. Learn, learn, learn. You may be confident, but be grateful that someone may show you the ropes. Your ego is good and serves a purpose, but there is no need to stroke it 24 hours a day. Healthy self-confidence is to be applauded. But blinding conceit (which happens to us all) can be met with a healthy alternative of objectivity and a curious nature. Nurture those good qualities in yourself.

(d) Frequent Disagreements with multiple co-workers (Medium): This is a sign. It's a sign that you have values, a method of doing things, and those are incompatible with the people you work with. It's natural. It's human. It's draining for the black sheep - but there is nothing wrong with you. You just quack when others neigh. Find another job. Try out a different department within the same organization. Change is inevitable. It's hard to accept, but try it. You are bound to grow - whether you initiate the growth opportunity or the growth opportunity comes to your door step.

(e) Disagreement with Company Policies (Medium): This is a deep problem. If you see that your values, ethics, reasoning, judgement are being opposed or violated, it's time to find an organization that is compatible with who you are. In a shitty economy, don't quit your job. Keep applying for new jobs and keep looking for the right place to be. If you are in a large corporation, find a small company. If you are already in a small company, try for another small company. NEVER will I recommend that anyone move to a large corporation to find people who honour values, ethics and sound judgement. It just doesn't happen.

(f) Tough Commute (Low - Medium): I've spoken to people who have moved jobs to accommodate their daily schedule. I was actually stunned when I heard this. But I later realized that some people don't really give a shit about what they do all day as long as the hours are reasonable and they get a pay check. Weekly donuts, monthly birthday parties, all these contribute to their overall happiness. They don't take life too seriously and are happy. If you are one of those people, then sure... find another work place to improve your commute. If however, you value your work, do get along with your co-workers, are challenged with your work or are pretty okay with your salary - then don't change jobs. Having even a few of the things I mentioned above is a stroke of luck. Consider moving residences.

(g) You Want A Little More Money (Very Low): This is the worst reason to quit your job. I'm not talking about a $50,000/year raise. I'm talking about $2,000 a year. You'll not even see it on your bi-weekly pay check. I only listed this point because my father's ex-coworker did leave a decent job for a raise of $2000/year. 8 months later they laid him off. Needless to say, this is a stupid reason to leave.

(h) Over Work (Medium - High): I have been overworked most of my life. I have traditionally worked 50-60 hours a week, and got paid for 40 most of the time. It set a very bad foundation for my adult-life-experience. But strangely enough, back then I didn't really mind it. I got paid for it some of the time (when budgets allowed) and I learnt everything very quickly. I managed to keep my work quality high, which was important to me. I occasionally worked the 80 hours, but it was a one-off incident yearly, which I thought was a "no biggie" sort of deal.
Then I joined that last company I worked for. By week 3 (after starting), I was working 60 hours a week. By the end of the second month I was working 80 hours a week. I didn't complain until 2 weeks later when I was given even more work. 100 hours a week. At last, when I realized that I would have to stay a total of 120 hours at the office that week to finish the work, I protested. For the remaining 9 months I worked 80-100 hours a week. I spoke to management every month about reducing my workload. On month 7 or 8, I developed chest pains. When I asked for help, they laughed at me. The most senior manager never got to work a minute before 8:00 and never left a minute after 5:00. But he laughed when I said that I can't do anymore 80 hours weeks.

(i) Abuse (High): Any form of abuse will destroy you.
You know why abusing children is heinous and infinitely worse than abusing adults? Because adults have the ability to walk away from that situation. If you being abused at work, recognize that you are an adult and that you are in a position to walk away. Take ownership of the situation. It would be best for you to leave the job.
Verbal abuse (in private or in public): Verbal abuse is intended to diminish your importance, make you feel smaller, and wrench power away from you. There is no circumstance where suffering abuse is a good idea. There can never be a holy intention where you were meant to suffer.

Bullying (being treated badly, being singled out):
    Group Bullying: You will lose this battle. You cannot fight group bullying. You just have to protect yourself and leave. If you have been targeted by someone who feels threatened by you, and you are new to the organization - you are going to lose this fight. I do not believe that any institution has a system in place for you to be able to fight this.

    Individual Bullying: If you have just one bully, you are not working regularly with your bully, and if they are an equal, then if you stick it out with your organization chances are that the bully will either leave or will get out of your way. I have seen this happen countless times. The bully tends to leave because they are more miserable than you are. Instead, focus on yourself: establish your reputation, your quality of work, and people within your company will value you for the work you do and what you bring to the table. When everything else is working out for you at this job, then don't let one bully deter you from building a successful career at this organization. You can even switch departments or offices if it still bothers you.

Life is meant to be good. There can be challenges now and then, but life is not meant to be excruciatingly hard. Suffering arrives in unpredictable ways. When people have to go through genuine suffering there is nothing they can do about it but accept it. And by this I mean things like war, holocaust, colonization, death of a child, being orphaned.
But for ALL THE OTHER TIMES there is choice. You Must Leave the abusive situation.

If you live in a first world country (like I do), and you are not leaving your job because of poor financial choices you have made, or low self-esteem then you have to take responsibility for your situation and face the fact that you are choosing to be abused. And you can CHOOSE TO GET OUT. Choose to honour yourself.

(j) Slander (High): If you are a professional, this is a career killer. If you have someone out to get you, you better get out. Run. Especially if this person is more powerful than you are and has a long reach within an esoteric community that you work in.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. 

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Silent and Enduring Cost of Workaholism

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

The Physical and Mental Toll

A toll must be paid to the bridge troll of workaholism. The price I have paid, other than the loss in quality of life, have been the ones below:

Self worth

10 years is a long time. It's a quarter of your work life - the most valuable and productive years of your life. In those 10 years, I personally have attached nearly my entire self-worth to the company I worked for and the work that I do. It took me a couple of years to disentangle my self worth from the very first company I worked for. Then, once I landed in a completely different company and got exploited beyond measure, I had to reject this profession based self-worth. "It really cannot be possible that the intrinsic value of man is linked to the work done by him", I thought.

There is a dichotomy in me. I thought that I did not judge the people around me based on their profession. I truly believe my CAD tech team mates are of equal value as I am, an accredited professional engineer. But when thoughts of owning a business and doing sales work crossed my mind, I felt threatened.

"Where would I be if I was laid off?", was the next question in my mind. I work in a city where the economy is primarily oil-based. It is August 2015 and a significant number of engineers have been laid off. All these shocked and desperate people are painfully holding on to the hope that oil-prices will rise, and their jobs will return. I imagine that there are a few amongst them who have based their self worth on their qualifications, credentials, work ethic and accomplishments.

But you cannot possibly be living from a place of truth, if you base your self worth on your profession, your gender, your race, your net worth, your country, your friends, your enemies....

Of course, the choice is always yours. But if and when your profession goes down the shitter, so will your self worth. How terribly fragile.

Yet society is forever reinforcing the belief that our professions make us who we are. Our money makes us, our accomplishments make us, our jobs make us, our toil make us. That cannot possibly be true. What happens to us when any of those are gone? Money is a will-o'-the-wisp. Accomplishments are in the heads of people, and people are fickle. Jobs are lost on a moment's notice. Toil? If our hard work made us, then are we to condemn all members of the population that are unable to work due to circumstances and conditions beyond their control?

I have witnessed several hard working and competent co-workers wrongfully dismissed or laid off, and all I wanted to tell them is, "There is more to you than this job". There is more to you than the opinions of  the people that exploit you. When appropriate, I called them up and told them just that.

Viktor Frankl is a personal hero. I honour and respect his life and have read his life's works over and over again because his words give me hope and direction. He says things so deeply profound that it shines a light into the very deepest part of me that recognizes truth.

The following is an excerpt from the Introduction of 'Man's Search for Meaning',

"Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.
 There is a a scene from Arthur Miller's play Incident at Vichy in which an upper middle class professional man appears before the nazi authority that has occupied his town and shows his credentials: his university degrees, his letters of reference from prominent citizens, and so on. The nazi asks him, "Is that everything you have?" The man nods. The nazi throws it all in the waste basket and tells him: "Good, now you have nothing." The man, whose self-esteem had always depended on the respect of others, is emotionally destroyed."

I felt a similar sense of loss when I graduated from university with my degree in electrical engineering and no one wanting to hire me in a shattered hi-tech economy. My degree wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. I felt as if the 4-5 years of education and training was of no value at all. The big badge I received by paying a university a stack of money and working hard to finish all my courses, was completely invisible.

So shortly thereafter, after being (in my opinion) underemployed, we moved to a city where the economy was better, and I found a more challenging job. I worked so hard for the last 10 years that my health suffered immensely. Both my physical health and my mental health. And now the economy here is in its death throes. I have a secure job, but I am working 80 hours a week and I'm being psychologically and emotionally bullied by aggressive coworkers.

It has forced me to question the reasons why I'm at my job. And the answer has boiled down to self worth. Who will I be if I leave my job?

I have decided to leave my job regardless of my emotional and philosophical opinions. Unemployment is better than psychological undoing.

Relationships

My sibling and father are engineers as well. My sibling was so terribly exploited that I worried for his life. He stopped eating daily meals, stopped sleeping and also stopped taking showers. It was an unraveling. How did my sibling's micromanaging boss justify this treatment? They didn't bother. If the engineer takes on responsibility, the company does nothing to look after them. As I write this down, it really is silly to think that a corporation would look after the well being of a human being, isn't it?

I worried for my sibling. I worried for my relationship with my spouse. I was getting more and more estranged from my spouse. Evenings had become a regular occurrence of me breaking a promise to be home on time. My spouse is very kind. But my actions did destroy our workout schedule, our grocery shopping schedule, and our household chore schedule. I felt entitled to be excepted from household chores because I was at work all the time. My spouse disagreed but did all the work anyway. This went on for 5 years. I acted like an asshole.

Health

Gaining weight was a common occurrence at work. People just resorted to making fun of themselves every time they gained another 10 lbs.

But I went a few steps further. Not only did I gain weight, I also injured my back. First time I did it, I couldn't move for 15 days. Then, a few months later, I did it again. And again. Thrice in three years.

The shock and helplessness I felt when I injured my back the first time was palpable. I was isolated and knew that no one could help me. It was my body and my actions had produced this result. I watched all my friends and relatives wring their hands (metaphorically speaking) in desperation trying to help me while I slowly recovered. And then almost immediately after recovery, I resumed my 80 hour work week despite making personal promises and public promises of never working more than 40 hours a week.

Peace Of Mind

I have memories of being mentally at peace when I was a child. I even remember extended periods of time being at peace when I was doing non-engineering jobs. But ever since I got a job in consulting engineering, the peace of mind went out the window. I charged 40 hours a week to the client, but I was working every waking hour. At first I thought it would stop once I got more experience. It didn't stop. It got worse. The more experience I got, the more reasons there were to exploit me.

The Toll has been paid, Now what?

Now I'm left with me. Searching for a self-worth that is unrelated to my work. I feel like a person in the dark. The hopelessness of the exercise is only surpassed by the fear that there is no needle to be found in the haystack