Hate Your New Job? It's OK to Quit.
We've all been there: A week or a month into a new job, you get the sinking feeling that you've made the wrong decision.
What do you do? Maybe you dig into your Puritan work ethic and make a grim decision to stick it out for at least a certain (often arbitrary) period of time -- say, six months or a year.
And during that time, you quietly stew, resenting your incompetent boss, the insane workload, the pointless projects, or whatever it is that sent up the red flags in the first place.
But maybe that's not the right thing to do. Jamie Varon wrote recently about why her decision to quit a new job after two weeks was smart, and I have to say she makes sense. (I'm also impressed that at 23 years old, she's figured out some truths that have taken me almost two decades longer to learn.)
Here are her five reasons justifying a decision to jump ship before it leaves the dock:
1. Your job performance will be terrible if you hate your job.
"If you hate your job from the beginning, then you will never fully dedicate yourself. In fact, you'll resent both the company and yourself for staying at a job that you knew you didn't like early on... You'll end up quitting at some point soon, so why draw it out?"2. You'll have more respect for yourself if you respond to your needs.
"If you know that going to your job will make you stressed, unhappy, and angry, every single day, then continuing to go is being disrespectful to your well-being. The more you continue to disregard your own feelings, the further away you get from happiness."3. You'll prove your commitment to passion and engagement at work.
"I understand the fact that productivity comes more easily in the face of happiness. Quitting quickly is showing impatience for a meaningful work life. Everyone should be impatient for that."4. You'll do the company a favor.
"You are not helping the company by staying at a position you hate when someone else may be better suited for it who will, no doubt, excel, while you are just getting by. Do the company a favor and quit so they can reevaluate their training, that position, and their hiring strategy, so the next person doesn't want to jump ship after a week."5. You'll set yourself up for success.
"And there are no rules that say how long it takes a person to know a job is not right. But there is a rule for who succeeds and who doesn't: People who have self-confidence, respect, good teamwork instincts, and a sense of when it's time to cut their losses; these are the people who succeed. That's why high-performers leave bad jobs after just two weeks at work."My thoughts on this? I think she's dead-on. Of course it's easier to put this into practice if you have a fall-back option and aren't dependent on your job for your income, health insurance, or other reason. But staying in a job that's the wrong fit is never a good long-term solution, either for you or the company.
What do you think?
(image by rocketace via Flickr, CC 2.0)