A few days ago I posted a thing on Facebook about how I have been feeling stressed out over the last little while. I don’t like “vague-booking” but I really felt the need to thank the folks who’ve been helping me through this.
Today, I can finally talk about what’s going on.
Less than an hour ago, I signed an offer letter for a new position at a different company. After 15 years of working for my current employer, it’s time for me to walk away. So that being said, here’s why things have been hard.
COVID aside, the last 2-3 years, maybe even longer than that, have been unsatisfying when it comes to my professional life. My job had become very routine, with very little challenge, and I was struggling to find ways to keep going. In fact, my dissatisfaction with my job was consuming me. On an almost daily basis, I would bitch and complain to Tamara about how much it sucks, or being bored, or wishing I was doing something else.
The unhappiness in my job bled into my health. I felt awful most days. Draggy, tired, uninspired, and just run-down all the time. I’d have trouble sleeping, or even just resting. I’d become lethargic even to the point where things I enjoy weren’t that enjoyable anymore. It was taking a toll on me everywhere.
The problem was, despite how miserable I was at work, it was a full time job, with good pay and good benefits, and I knew that even if randomly I got laid off, I’d still have a good severance and job options. Having that type of security, especially in today’s world, is something that despite how shitty I felt, was hard to walk away from. Not having to worry too much about being able to provide for my family is something I cherished.
So despite being unhappy in my job, I stayed because I had been there so long, and knew I could just keep doing my day to day work and get paid without issue.
Last year, I finally changed positions to a new part of the company in hopes that I would find a path there. It only took me three months before I realized I didn’t want to do that job either. And worse, the new job I had taken was so incredibly dull and boring that it had compounded my issue even further.
I went from teaching some of the most odd and complicated programming content to essentially teaching people how to navigate a webpage. Classes were short, and few and far between. If I had five classes a week, that was a lot.
Adding fuel to the fire, I found myself at odds with many of the things I was exposed to. Weekly, sometimes daily, I’d encounter something and go “wtf?!?!” I chalked it up to being new to that side of the business and kept on going. But day in and day out, things were getting so much worse. After enough time went by, it became clear that it was not a good fit for me. The people I had been working with are great, but the type of environment I was working in was not suited for someone such as myself. It just didn’t feel right for me and I was trying to ignore it but it just kept getting worse.
Then April of this year hit and it got worse. The sheer lack of work made my days even longer. With almost nothing to do week after week, I was bored stiff. Frustrated, I got more and more stressed and upset about the fact that my day to day job was sucking the life out of me, but still paying the bills. By mid-April, I started applying for other internal positions and did get some interviews. In fact, I have one scheduled for tomorrow that I’ll be cancelling after I give my manager the news about me leaving.
Eventually it got me down to where I was last week.
I had been interviewed for an internal position. Given that I was the only one they were interviewing, the likelihood of being offered the job was high. It was an interesting position (otherwise I wouldn’t have applied), but it also came with some responsibilities that I was less sure of. It would have kept me in the same company, making better money, and all the benefits I’ve had for the last 15 years. I’d be keeping that sense of security from being there for so long.
Yet in the midst of these internal positions, another one opened up outside the company. Much smaller company, but the position itself was… it felt like it had been created especially for someone like me. It had all the earmarks of things I was interested in. New challenges, familiar faces, and a much closer sense of comradery then what I was experiencing now.
But in order to go after the job I’m more interested in, I’d have to give up that long history I’ve had, and take a chance on something else.
How do you walk away from what feels really easy and secure? You want to be happy, and you want to enjoy your job, but the realities of life sometimes dictate you do something else. I felt like I was trapped and couldn’t go after what I really wanted. At 47 with a family, mortgage, and the responsibilities of life, I was going a little nuts trying to figure out what to do.
In the end, between my friends and my amazing wife, I came to realize that walking away from that long history of a job was not the end of the world. It was better for me to take the path that felt right, then to stay just because it’s comfortable.
So tomorrow I will reach out to my current manager and give her the bad news. I have no idea how she’ll take it (badly I’m guessing) but at the end of the day, I need to take care of myself.
I’m really excited about this new job. I’m excited about the people, the work, and just the chance to be back doing something that’s far more interesting than saying “click the browse button…” every few days.
Sitting in my chair, right now, I can actually feel the weight of all that stress and worry being lifted off me.
All of this being said, I cherish the time I had at my current employer. They are a fantastic company to work for. It just so happens that my own career interests don’t really align with what I can do with them.
Here’s to seeing what this next phase of my career looks like.
