Make Good Use of Your Time Alone

I don’t like the long hours (20 weeks working straight).

I’m living in India and cannot grasp the culture; it’s demanding work with no reward and I’m cut off from family, friends and have no social life.

~Worker Living in INDIA

Okay, well, sometimes we find ourselves having to deal with ourselves…alone…without family, friends or a social network. 

At the end of the day we have to deal with ourselves.

We have to be with ourselves, our thoughts, our interests, our values, our hopes, and our dreams. 

We have to like being with ourselves. 

Call it what you want…living on an island, the dark night of the soul, the valley…whatever…this will NOT last FOREVER. 

When we find ourselves alone without a social life to distract us from how miserable we might be in our work life use this time as a catalyst to truly be introspective. 

No distractions. Work Step 4 to discover your purpose.  You won’t regret it.

You Are Alive...So Live...BE In Your Life

I am very unhappy and feel like I should be doing more with my life.

I am tired of working for someone else and literally dread coming into the office every day.

I hate my boss and tolerate her only because I have to, but each day it gets harder to do that.

I feel very strongly that if this is how my life is going to be I’d rather not be in it! 

~Worker Living in ILLINOIS

Today, we are here.

We are all here.

We are all alive…so live…this is your life and no one else’s…BE in your life.

We will get through this, but we don’t have to stop living while we’re going through it.

LIVE.

Clinically Depressed??? That's Your Wake-Up Call.

I have no boundaries between work and home; I am doing two people’s jobs in a culture that doesn’t align with my values.

I gave so much recently that I was off work for 5/6 months with clinical depression.

~Worker Living in the UNITED KINGDOM

Being diagnosed with clinical depression because of your job is your wake-up call. 

This is the moment you know that something has to change.

It’s not easy to get that diagnosis and you certainly don’t want anyone else to know that you are clinically depressed, but YOU know. 

You know that being in this particular job is causing you distress.

You have to figure out how to get from where you are today to where you need to go.  It’s difficult, yes it is, but it’s not impossible. You will look back on today, 5 -10 years from now and say…I did it!…I did it!…I did it!…

Is It Time For You To Reset and Reflect?

I’m completely burned out and exhausted from years of advancing progressively within this agency only to find higher titles actually reduce the ability to create positive change.

I need time to reset and reflect.

~Worker Living in NEW HAMPSHIRE

Sometimes in life we just can’t figure it all out where we are. 

It’s too much static and noise.  We need everything to stop.  We need to regroup, reset and reflect.

Sometimes you don’t even want to go directly to another job because you know that it is not the answer.  You need a breather. 

It is not impossible. If you have a game plan you can take a break.

 It takes courage. 

It takes planning.

If this is what you need to do, then, everything will line up and allow you to do that. 

It is not impossible to reset and reflect before you start again.

Today, imagine the possibilities.

Is Your Job Killing Your Soul? Listen Hard and Move On.

Because it’s killing my soul.

I never wanted to be an engineer.

I want to finish my technical communication degree more quickly. I feel like I must.

~Worker Living in CALIFORNIA

We can get stuck in the safe professions that we fell into. 

Those professions may even pay well. 

We might be in respectable professions to the outside world…but they are ‘killing our souls’. 

If you are in the wrong profession today, just admit it and figure out when and how you can move on.

When Is The Last Time You Felt "Beautiful" About A Career Decision?

The scheduling manager at the organization I work for has decided to give me shifts that are the death knell for any associate–shifts that she has stated she cannot work because she has a family. I have always made it clear that I am only available for part time work because I have family obligations and health concerns that make part time hours a must. However, there has been one reason after another that this manager has needed me to not only work double the hours I signed on for, but also mainly night hours, heavy weekend loads, and shifts that start at store open and end at store closing.

I became physically ill and my family life was suffering tremendously. My son failed his first class ever in seven years of schooling. My last blood pressure reading was 160/120. I had to head straight to the hospital.

My garage was broken into while my kids were home alone during a shift I was called into without sufficient time to line up child care (they are 11 and 14). It was one of those, if you don’t cover this shift, don’t ever come back type of call-ins. I figured out that my manager was using the full-time gal to babysit her son in exchange for reduced hours and weekends off–which she conveniently gave to me.

I actually quit today and the best part was knowing that the scheduling manager would be the one who would have to cover my closing Friday and closing Saturday shifts…and I get to go to my son’s football game tomorrow…something I have not yet gotten to do since starting this job in late June.

I woke up this morning depressed and dreading the idea of even going to use the bathroom to start my day…I literally laid in bed, legs crossed, unable to move. That is when I knew something was dreadfully wrong with this situation. I felt like once I got out of bed, I’d talk myself into just dealing with it, sucking it up, and going in.

I’m not ashamed to say that two weeks’ notice in my case was not an option…I’m a people pleaser and my boss knows how to wind me around her finger. What I know she did not see coming was the phone call today and subsequent resignation email. As well as my follow up with the district manager about my manager’s abuse of her scheduling authority.

My sales numbers/quotas/CPI’s are so amazing, the DM is going to be at least slightly interested in knowing why they lost an employee as good as I was. I was the only employee with a degree, and I was a customer favorite. My kindness however, was taken for weakness. My husband is the breadwinner and I took this job because it was in the field of sales and beauty and I have a background in business and cosmetology. I was hired on the spot and I gave my all…then I started to be taken for granted and used. I offered to work extra hours to cover for an employee who abruptly quit; that was two months ago.

I continuously told my manager that I could only work part time with no more than two closing nights per week. She smiled, said she would see what she could do and for the past month she has scheduled me full time hours, closing 4-5 nights, with at least 2 of my shifts being open to close hours.

My doctor suggested I either cut back my hours or find another occupation. I quit this morning. I feel beautiful (weird adjective for this situation, I know) inside and out. My mom is coming for a visit next weekend and I am absolutely tickled that I have extra time to spend with her. By the way, I was only making 600 bucks a month. What a joke. I can make more selling my homemade pralines, and I think I will be trying my hand at that.

~Worker Living in ARIZONA

Sometimes we can’t give the standard two weeks’ notice.  The situation just doesn’t allow it. Feeling “beautiful” is when you KNOW that you have done the right thing regardless of what anybody else thinks.

Feeling “beautiful” is what “Just Quit” is about.

When is the last time you felt “beautiful”?

Think You Made A Mistake Taking Your Job? Remedy It.

I’m miserable here.

I’m being pushed very hard to do things that I don’t think I really know how to do and that are increasingly outside of the kind of work that I want to do.

The workplace demands a deep, personal commitment to the job – they want this to be a like my life’s mission and not just a job. I understand and support the organizational mission. I think the goals are worthy. However, this will NEVER be more than a job to me.

My performance is starting to slide, and I just don’t know how much longer I can endure.

I moved 3k miles, leaving my family, friends and hometown behind to take this job. This was a huge mistake. It’s time for me to remedy this mistake.

~Worker Living in PENNSYLVANIA

We all feel that we’ve made mistakes. We don’t have to beat ourselves up because of them.  We don’t have to stay; we can leave and know that we’ve learned a lesson. 

• Maybe we jumped at the first job offer. 

• Maybe we didn’t quite get all the facts before we decided to take the job.

• Maybe we were desperate to leave another work situation. 

But…are there really any mistakes if we learned from these situations? 

Would you have had all of this experience that you have if you hadn’t made a boat-load of “mistakes”? 

Don’t see your current job as a mistake, see it as a lesson.