What to Do When You Hate Your Job
Imagine this…
Your alarm goes off. It’s 6:30am. It’s Monday.
You have half an hour to get yourself ready and out the door to catch the 7am train. You take the train in a few seconds and get to spend an hour sitting there daydreaming until you get to New York City at 8:30am.
This gives you a half hour to get to your office by 9am and as long as the subways are on time, you’ll make it.
You get to your office after being away from it for two days and remember how much you hate your job.
Even though this is my story, I’ll go out on a limb and say I wasn’t the only one in this situation.
The stomach turning, stress inducing feeling of hating your job and everything that goes with it can be a drain on your existence. I’m not even trying to be dramatic here either. I want you to know that if you clicked on this article for help, I’ve felt your pain. I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve gone to the pantry in my office to get coffee multiple times a day, when I didn’t even drink coffee.
I feel your pain and after reading this article, I want you to feel some hope and a plan.
What You’ll Learn After Reading This Article:
· 5 steps for what to do when you hate your job.
A topic like this deserves a blog post that’s straight to the point, helpful and doesn’t waste your time, so let’s get right into it so you can get moving out of a job you hate.
5 Steps: What to Do When You Hate Your Job
Step 1: Evaluate The Reason Why You Hate Your Job
If you read the beginning of this article (if you didn’t it’s okay, you can go back and read now) I talked about not only hating my job, but how draining my commute was.
There are many factors that can go into a person hating their job, so in this step it’s the time for you to do some good old self-reflection to figure out what’s going on.
Questions to Ask Yourself About Why You Hate Your Job:
1. Do I hate commuting?
2. Do I hate people?
3. Do I hate the company?
4. Do I hate the actual work, field, and industry?
These are four really important questions that need to be answered before you can go any further through this list. You need to understand what exactly you hate and how much of a change you need to make.
In my case, I answered 3 out of 4 with those questions with a “yes”, the only thing I did like was the people.
*A note about the people you work with*
While working with and for great people who you like and get along with is important, it’s not a reason to stay at your job if you hate the work itself. I worked with a lot of great people who I was close with at the time, but once I left the company, we drifted apart pretty quickly.
Knowing the reason why you’re working in the first place, is it to go and make life-long friends, is it to go and pick up a paycheck, or is it to do something meaningful and make an impact doing what you do.
These are all the questions that you have to answer. Even though it might be tempting to quit your job and run to another job immediately, you need to stay in Step 1 until you can answer the questions we just talked about. If you rush through this step and don’t answer them, you’ll just run to another job you hate.
Step 2: Identify Your Skills
Welcome to Step 2, I hope you follow my advice and know the reason why you hate your job.
Now it’s time for more self-reflection. We love that kind of stuff. Now you really have to be honest with yourself, because this time you’re going to be figuring out what you should be doing.
It’s time to figure out what you’re good at, what you’re bad at and everything in between.
This step can also be something that takes a decent amount of time. Let me give you an example.
When I realized I hated my job, writing wasn’t really a skill I would say I was strong at. I took about five years to really build up my skills, do some serious learning and experiment. I wanted to be a writer before I really had the skills to be qualified to do it.
Whether you identify skills you already have or identify skills you want to have, this step should be a place where you get clear on what you can and can’t do.
Step 3: Explore Alternative Career Paths
This step can be tweaked slightly if you figured out in Step 1 that you either hate the company or hate the commute.
If that’s the case, you can start going through the job search process to find similar jobs in a closer area and at a company that fits more with what you value. This will be a little less painful (hopefully) than the rest of us who hate the work itself.
Speaking of hating the work itself, if that’s the case, a career transition is what it’s going to be. The good news is you did a lot of self-reflection in Step 2 so you’re ready to start the transition process, kind of.
A career transition is a big thing. I’m not saying that to put pressure on you, but it is. Especially if you’re married with children. Even more pressure.
Since I could write a whole blog post about how you can transition to a job that makes you happy…. oh, wait I already did.
Check out the link here so I don’t have to make this blog post longer than it needs to be for people who want to get to Step 4 already.
*A word of advice*
A career transition does take time, so if you’re in a job that you hate so much it’s causing you physical and mental health issues, I’d suggest potentially taking a leave of absence or temporarily moving to a similar job at a company that might be better than the current one you’re working at.
Step 4: Develop a Strategic Plan for Transition
Having a plan is so important and I don’t say that just to say it. Here’s what happens if you don’t have a plan.
A friend was working in a job that she hated for about 5 years. Every day she hated the job more and more and more. She hated the company, liked the people, hated the work and loved the commute (if you were wondering).
She decided she needed to get out ASAP.
Because she wanted to run away from the job, she hated more than finding something she actually wanted to do, she accepted the first offer she got.
And guess what?
That job is arguably worse than the one she was running from.
The moral of the story here is to really be intentional about exploring career paths before just running to a different company doing the same thing.
Step 5: Find Support
I think it was The Beatles that said, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”
Even though they probably weren’t talking about job stuff, it relates to the conversation.
Finding someone who can help you in your journey is extremely important because it’s really hard to do it alone. Just to talk to someone about what’s going on in your search can be therapeutic. This isn’t a shameless plug for career coaching services either (we can do that later).
So how do you find support?
1. Reach out to friends and family first.
2. Check your college alumni database: A note on this one, don’t waste your time at Career Fairs or at the Career Center of your college. Look up at alumni directly. It will be much better use for your time.
3. Join groups on LinkedIn: A pro tip here, the less random a group, the better chance you’ll have at finding someone of use. What I mean is, if you want to be a writer, don’t just search “writer groups” cause the group will be too big. Find a group in your local town or county instead.
It can be hard to find support, but the more you look, the better chance you’ll have of finding someone who can really help you.
What to Do Next
The best thing you can do if you hate your job is to do something. Get the ball rolling by taking the first step. It will give you the confidence you need to get out of where you are.
If you do find that you need help and can’t find someone to support you, that’s where Your Career Strategy comes in. Our amazing team of dedicated Career Strategists and Coaches can help guide you through every step of your journey. From hating your job, to finding the career path that’s right for you, our team will be there.
Click here to schedule an absolutely free discovery call to see if a Career Coach is right for you.
Unfortunately, being in a job that you hate can feel like a drain on your life. Don’t waste another day feeling hopeless. Get up and get the ball rolling.
Good luck, I believe in you.