We've all had that day - You know the one I'm talking about. Hopefully we wait until we're home before we kick off our shoes, sit down with a glass of wine and let the tears start to fall. Bad days, in any job, are inevitable. But if this is your evening more than 4 times a month, it's time to have a really serious conversation with yourself.
It might be time to break up with your job. And mean it this time.
Time to Break Up
We're an industry of people pleasers. That trait is the best of us and the worst of us. We want to excel, and we want to work hard. In my tenure in property management, I've met very few people who are really just skating through. With the job we do, either you want to be here or you're not employed for very long.
I don't know about you, but I remember having the break up talk with my bosses several times before I ever really went through with leaving a job. Not face to face, of course. I mean the imaginary boss in my head who hangs out in my car during the evening drive home in the traffic jam, or the one that I talk to while I walk my dog...or the one that I talk to when I'm gardening.
(It occurs to me that I'm lucky my neighbors don't think I'm schizophrenic. Or maybe they do, but are too polite to say anything.)
I was often in that "pre-break up" phase for weeks or months before I'd finally jump out of the plane and hope my chute opened. I'd vacillate between leaving or staying, wondering if I could make it better or fix it... wondering if I was the problem, and not the company or my boss...thinking about how when I started I thought this was going to be the place I'd be forever... But eventually, you have to decide. No one looks good with a fence pole up their butt.
So is it time for you to go? Assess your situation with a few questions:
How often are you this unhappy?
When you start to talk about your job, do your friends roll their eyes because all you've done for the last 6 months is complain about it?
Why did you start this job in the first place?
When you first started, and you remember loving what you were doing, why did you love it?
What's missing now that makes you hate it? - Is it a challenge, a better boss, better benefits, a good company, or what? If you don't know what you're searching for, you'll never know it when you find it.
What is the real root of the problem? - Is it that your personal life is bleeding in to your work life and you're not performing up to standards? Is it that you don't have the tools or support that you need to thrive in your current position? Is it a personality conflict? Is it that you hate the job that you're doing? What ever it is, search out the root, not the symptom. Follow the path of "Why?" after every answer that you think you find until you get smacked with the epiphany you're looking for. This process, by the way, could take a few weeks. Don't rush it.
How is your job dissatisfaction intruding on your personal life? - This is a big one. Just like how when there is turbulence in our personal life it can affect our job performance, the reverse is also true. You work 8 hours a day. The other 16, you're something else, a whole new role with it's own duties and responsibilities and perks. If you're losing the other 16 in a bottle of wine, then you're not really living anymore, are you?
Get off the fence post and chose to be in love with your job or chose to break up with it. De-engaging and Re-engaging in a relationship is EXHAUSTING, whether it's romantic, a friendship, or a job. And the only thing worse than going back and forth is actively disengaging but staying in the same situation. Life tends to suck when you stagnate.