I Hate My Job, But I Need the Money

Dear Liz,

I've been a fan of yours forever, and love your human-centric point of view. I could use your help with a problem at work.

I'm in a tough situation. I was out of work for 18 months before landing the job I have now, working as a client relationship manager in a large behavioral health firm. If I said "It's a toxic environment" that would not begin to cover it.

I've only been in the job for eleven months and it's already hard to get through a day. The stress level is off the charts. Turnover is rampant. The executives are at each other's throats and the staff is caught in the middle. I'm earning the best salary I've ever made and I cannot afford to quit. But I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel in this job, and I'm a stress case, as is my wife. I feel trapped. What do you recommend?

Thanks,

Brian

Dear Brian,

Most of us have felt trapped in an unhappy work situation at some point, and it's no fun. It's awful - disrupts your sleep, takes over your mind when you should be relaxing, and generally destroys your quality of life. I understand why you feel stressed out.

The good news is that you're not the slightest bit trapped. You only need to change your relationship with the lousy job, and you can start working on that this minute.

This job is just a stop on your path, Brian. The job doesn't define you. So, some people act like children and storm around the place? That's great. That's absolutely fine. You know what's going to let you rise above all that nonsense? The fact that you have bigger fish to fry. You're going to start working on Brian Career Plan 2014 and put the craptastic job in the rear view mirror before the kids get out of school.

The first thing I want you to do is to erect a very thin, pliable membrane around your heart and your ego when you're at work. I'd never recommend that as a long-term strategy, because I want you to dive in and bring everything you've got to your job, and find the connection to your power source at work every day. But this job isn't conducive to that kind of connection, so you're going to treat it as a way station, a resting place from which you'll leap to a better assignment.

You're going to create a little force field that keeps the toxic stuff far enough way from you so that you don't get emotionally involved. What's that you say, someone slimed me in a meeting? They ripped me to shreds in absentia? Oh, okay. That's fine.

You have to detach. Your emotional investment in the drama at work is what's sapping energy that should go to plotting your next adventure. You're spending your finite mojo supply in the wrong place. Forget those turkeys you work for. Your priority is you.

The key thing is to take your time. Don't bolt into an even worse job and tank both your resume and your mojo level. You need more than an escape plan. You need a new direction, and the good news is that if you can treat your remaining tenure at the awful job as a kind of forced reflection period, you can use that time to very good advantage.

First, you need to get some altitude on your career so far. What would you be doing professionally, if it weren't this? Do you love everything about the job except for the energy in the workplace? If so, you know how to reach out to hiring managers at your company's competitors. You know about Pain Letters by now, and how to put a human voice in your resume and reach hiring managers directly.If you understand those tools but have never tried them, now is the time to take that step.

You can take your time! You're employed. Employers often prefer to interview people who are already working somewhere else - as horrible as it is for me to write those words (I'll be writing about that phenomenon soon).

The frustration you feel is the pain of being in a bad situation that you don't feel you can change. The good news is that you don't have to change a thing. Let the Lord of the Flies action at your job run its course. It has nothing to do with you.

When you turn some of your mental and emotional energy away from managing the daily dysfunction and invest it in charting your own path, you'll be amazed how much better you feel. The drama at work won't bother you as much, because you'll be working toward your next grand adventure and letting the weenies do whatever their weenie brains tell them to do.

Watch "The Great Escape" with Steve McQueen this weekend. Get a journal and write about what you'd do for work if it were up to you, because it is up to you. The universe is pushing you away from the nasty people to figure out what's next for Brian. Suck everything you can get out of that job -- accomplishments, Dragon-Slaying Stories, and any customer or colleague references that you can use safely.

Everyone is a teacher -- awful leaders included. I'll bet you've accumulated some awesome How Not to Manage stories on this job. Those will stand you in good stead forever!

You're going to erect a two-lane highway, Brian, where one lane is your current gig and the other one is the lane you build to take you wherever you're going. We think "I'm exhausted when I get home from work - I couldn't make time for a career change!" but of course you can. When the pain at work gets bad enough, you'll do it.

As you work on your 2014 career plan, take a second to reflect on what the best salary you've ever been paid is actually costing you. Sometimes, there's a reason lousy jobs come with excellent salaries. When executives know that the jobs are untenable, they throw money at people instead of telling the truth about the Godzilla dysfunction that has rotted out the heart of the organization, the way termites eat a house from the inside.

This is going to be a great year for you, I predict. If you have time left after journaling and making plans for the opening of your two-lane highway, take a look at your expenses.

Often when we say "I need every penny I'm getting paid!" we find that we can snip or slash our household expenses when we set our minds to it. That's not only prudent, but also empowering.

Your mojo is everything, so keep in mind that you are powerful. This job and these people can't diminish you. Your fearful bosses don't affect you, define you, or have any control over your self-esteem.

In fact, through a magical process, any bad vibes anyone at work throws at you will transform into muscles and mojo that you'll take with you when you sail out the door a few short weeks from now!

You rock and rule Brian. You are likely to be in a better job before Flag Day, having grown all kinds of wonderful new muscles through this ordeal. Do the things that fail to kill us make us stronger, or what?!

Best,

Liz

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