The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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How shit of an idea is just quitting your job without a replacement job to go to?
I am completely, utterly burnt out on my current job. The past few months have been non-stop ass rape on a personal and professional level. We had redundancies sprung on us in December with zero warning that I only dodged because another person took voluntary redundancy, and before that we were doing 9 hour days for about 2 months due to the business promising far more than it could actually deliver. The personal shit could be its own post. I haven't properly unwound since september.
There has been a team change and my team now comprises of me, who works on software written in one language, two devs that work on completely different language on completely different software, and one dev that would normally be working with me but is tied up with temporary projects for the forseeable future. There is no one with lead or managerial capacity on the team. This is a random grouping of devs with no clear overarching goal and it feels like I'm just expected to somehow make it work when I'm least equipped to do so.
Every task seems to take much longer than it should. I keep making really obvious mistakes that I don't seem to ever catch in the moment. I keep saying or doing things that bother my colleagues and they don't bring it to me so I can fix and address them, but to my manager who schedules a meeting about 2 or 3 weeks after the thing in question has occurred to discuss it. My manager also now routinely brings up things that I did wrong in the codebase two or three years ago and beats me over the head with them. I was on holiday last week, and the last thing my manager did before I went off was meet with me to discuss my performance, and then had another meeting with me first thing on the Monday when I returned.
I don't know really if I want to get another dev job or go back into education or work a shit but slower paced job for a while. I do have friends/family I can stay with and I have more than sufficient savings for the forseeable future, so that part is not an issue. I am primarily concerned on the effect it will have on my ability to get jobs going forward.
I've done it and I have to admit it was a bad idea. Financially I'm OK, but I started off thinking "I'm just going to take a little break for mental health," but then the break got longer and longer. Long-term unemployment has totally wrecked my motivation and self-discipline.
Can I ask how long you've been off work?
3 years now. I got extended UI from covid and never went back. I guess it's not a massive amount of time, I'll probably go back eventually, it's just hard to get back into that worker grind mindset.
That's rough. I hope you make it back OK.
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I've done it. I had a lot of money saved up and needed a break. The hardest part was not getting through interviews for another job, but psyching myself up to update my resume, which I hate doing.
Ultimately it depends on how much money you have saved and how much of it you're willing to burn through and how tight the labor market in your industry is. If the labor market is tight, you can probably find another job without too much trouble even if you're not currently employed.
But I was applying for software engineering jobs in 2012, so my experience may be nonrepresentative. I wouldn't quit my current job without a replacement lined up.
Can I ask how long your break was?
Oh, sorry, I didn't see this until now. It was about a year and a half, half because I wanted a break, and half because I really hate updating my resume and kept putting it off.
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For what it's worth:
When I hire someone who quit, I have to do a lot more mental and emotional math. Are they a diva who's too good to stick it out? Did they get canned and are lying to me about it? Anyone interviewing you probably isn't going to ping your boss and won't know if you're telling the truth with high certainty. It makes things a lot easier for everyone if you can grab something new while still employed somewhere.
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It may or may not be your fault, but it sounds like the feedback from your manager and coworkers is fairly negative. From your employer's perspective, it probably doesn't matter much whether it's your "fault" or not.
At the very least this is a misalignment in terms of the role and expectations, and/or a bad cultural fit—or perhaps, they're just awful and shitty colleagues, and you should find a way out. To me, personally, your manager and coworkers come across as snakes.
It wouldn't be the end of the world, but I would advise against quitting without something firm lined-up. Jobs are like women; it's always easier to get another one if you have one already. Recruiters don't want a candidate who isn't wanted by other recruiters.
You have to do what's best for your mental health, though. If you have to quit for your own mental sanity, so be it. But maybe you can tough it out for a while at the job. You can always quietly coast/quit while searching for the next venture on your current company's dime, which would better position you financially and professionally. If you get officially put on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP): treat it as a Paid Interview Process, as the saying goes. You could also use that as a springboard for negotiating a separation agreement.
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Job market is bad right now especially for devs. Line something up now before you jump ship.
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It depends on your confidence that you'll get a new job before your savings run out. The reason people say to not quit a job before you line up another is that it's safe, but that doesn't mean quitting before you have a replacement job is going to blow up in your face.
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I've done it. I don't think it's as big a deal as it's made out to be, if you are a competitive applicant. It sounds like you have the kind of skills where recruiters are probably hitting you up on LinkedIn all the time. So I'm sure you'd be able to get a job. Which is all you really need to know. Don't just sit there and suffer, you only have one life to live.
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