Are You Really Stuck on the Job You Hate?
February 3, 2008 Life choices, job preparation No Comments
1. Do everything you can to make your job bearable.
This includes everything from decorating your cubicle with photos and bringing a live plant to listening to your favorite music. Get out of the office for lunch or a walk.
2. Use this job to help prepare you for the next one.
• Does your company offer classes, tuition reimbursement, computer training or other skill builders that will help you be better prepared for the next job?Although I didn’t hate my job, I jumped at the opportunity to be trained to teach online classes. Because this was made possible by a grant, I even got paid to allow myself to be trained. What a deal! That was years ago, and even though I’m retired now I still teach online classes whenever I want~in my pajamas.
• Make note of the things that annoy you most so you will avoid them on the next job. I don’t like restriction and lock-step rules, so I look for jobs that allow freedom and flexibility in how I carry out my work. The pay doesn’t matter as much to me as having choices and control.
• Is your company located near other companies of interest to you? Instead of engaging in shop talk and vicious gossip at lunch time, take a walk to other buildings and complexes to check out the work environment, meet people and sniff out job openings.
3. If you’ve made a conscious choice to stay on your job, stop thinking you’re stuck
Remember the scene in Roots (Too young to remember this series? Don’t worry it’ll be around in reruns.) where Chicken George talks about the benefit of being in a situation where there seems to be no way out. Your enemies relax and you have time to get creative.
George devised a plan that enabled his family to successfully escape a sharecropping plantation to go to live as free people on their own property in Tennessee.
One of my friends stayed on a job she hated so her son could get free tuition for four years. Another friend was two years away from retiring with full benefits. If you’re staying on your job for practical reasons and with identified limits, then you’re not stuck. You have a plan.
This shift in perspective will lighten your mood and improve your current job performance, I promise. Instead of being a victim, you are in control of your destiny as you plan your escape. It’ll be so much easier to seek new jobs, polish your resume and learn to ask for what you want. Your friends and family will enjoy being around you again.
Now when you leave this job for your next one, it’ll be a smooth move instead of a frantic bolt.
