Frustrated At Work, or In Your Job Search? Take a Deep Breath

We’ve all been there before. You’re working in a situation that was fine for awhile, maybe even great at the beginning.

Then, things started to go sour. There were a few warning signs but you shrugged them off or ignored them.

But at some point, things started wearing on you, and it got to the point where you dreaded the start of another work week. Finally, it hit you that you had to move on. You had to get out.

(Come to think about it, staying in a lousy job has parallels to staying in a lousy relationship).

A couple of things often happen when you get hit by that lightning bolt and realize it’s time to leave. There is a great sense of relief, like you’ve been shipwrecked and drifting in the sea, and then you see a rescue helicopter coming your way.

Another emotion that may come up though, is panic or anxiety. You may think “okay, I’m ready to bail out of this miserable job, but where am I going to go? What am I going to do?” If you don’t have a ready plan, it can be a stressful time, wondering what the next step is.

If you don’t have to leave immediately though, having this sudden insight that you don’t want to be around your current situation long is a godsend.

Sometimes, you don’t have the luxury of time and you have to make a run for it, now. You have to hustle and scramble to take what you can just to get the rent down. You learn a lot about yourself, though.

Way back in the day, I had a short-time gig working down in the sewers. It wasn’t as funny as Ed Norton’s job in the Honeymooners. (If you aren't familiar with the show, it featured the great Jackie Gleason and his friend, Norton, who worked in the sewer system).

Without going into great detail, I’ll just say the job in the sewer was brutal. It was a very cold winter in Chicago, and there I was in the early morning, dressed like I was going on a polar expedition, descending down a ladder to fix cracked sewer pipes. I hated it and froze my ass off, but as bad as the cold was, I was glad it was ten above zero. The ice and cold served me better than working a gig like that then if it was eighty and sunny, because from what I heard the smell in the sewer in the summertime was unbearable.

The sewer job was bad, and the supervisor was worse. I knew I had to get something else before I threw him down the sewer and pushed the lid back on. I was young and had no idea what my skills were, but I knew my apartment rent was due and I had little savings.

I quit the sewer job and signed up with a day-labor oufit. It was a temp agency for blue collar work, and every morning you reported to the dingy office near the elevated train tracks to see if they had work. The pay was minimum wage.

For two weeks, I got on a beaten old school bus that had been painted over, and we were shipped out to some factory. About a dozen of us were on that bus. Ex-cons, homeless guys, drifters passing through, and young punks like me all just trying to survive. It was not a happy crew. We didn’t talk to each other much, but there was respect shown to each other, unless you were a jerk.

It was a different kind of city life. I learned a lot in that short burst, sobering and bleak as it was. I pocketed every dollar I could, covered the next months rent, and started hustling for an office job where I could wear a clean shirt to work everyday. I found one and it was good.

That's an extreme story of leaving a bad job too quick and what the ramifications could be. Most of the time, once you decide you really have to leave your current situation, you have at least a little time to think about what your next move might be. If you know exactly what you next move is, that’s a beautiful thing. If you are not sure, and the only thing you are sure of is you have to get out, the beautiful thing is at least know you know.

What’s the next move? Take a deep breath, slow down, and take stock. It can be a great relief to look around and think, “my god, shortly I will be out of all this chaos and foolishness.”

That alone may a balm to soothe your psychic wounds, at least for a short time. Knowing you’re on your way out can help you relax a bit and allow you to deal with whatever stress you situation is causing you. If someone you work with is borderline insane, or you’re expected to fulfill inane duties, knowing you’re on the way out means you can chill, or “chill-ax”, in the words of the late, great Bernie Mac.

You look around and say, “Wow, it’s getting crazy up in here. I’ve got to go.” Then at home, you start devising you exit plan. Maybe you want to take out paper and pen and write things down so you can see it. Maybe you need a new resume, or you need to polish up some skills by talking class somewhere.

The thing is, now that you know what you’re leaving, that’s half the battle. Relish in that. Embrace that and just roll with that for awhile, even if you don’t tell anyone. You’ll probably feel a little lighter, a little less damaged.

Everything doesn’t have to happen at breakneck speed. You work on your plan to move on diligently and with purpose and things will fall into place.

So take a deep breath. Look at your surroundings. Take it all in and decide what you want. Do not panic or make rash decisions. It can be a smart thing to sit quietly and slowly draw on all your reserves. No matter how awful your situation is, knowing that soon you will be free of it can give you a sense of calm and detachment.

Yes, sometimes you have to scramble, and hustle and it has to be right now, and if that’s your situation then godspeed to you and go for it. But being impulsive and just acting for the sack of action can lead to bad times. Just look at General George Armstrong Custer.

Hold fast.

Michael is a Coach and the Operations Manager for Human Workplace, a publishing, coaching and consulting firm. Our mission at Human Workplace is to reinvent work for people.

Check out our newest 12-week virtual course, Extreme Career Makeover! Extreme Career Makeover and all Human Workplace 12-week courses begin on Saturday, September 27, 2014. Learn more about them here.

Reach Michael at [email protected] .