So, You Hate Your Job…

You’re sitting at your desk, staring hard at your computer screen, and let out a sigh once in a while. Weekdays are all about the clock hitting 5, and weekends are the only days that you actually live. You go to work everyday to look forward to your rest days, and at some point, you don’t even realize that the cycle just keeps happening, unchanged.

There are different, multitudes of reasons why. It can be because of the boss, the colleagues, the workplace, the company, and sometimes, it can even be because of you.

To continue or not to continue

No matter what the reason is, however, hating a job is not as uncommon as you think. A poll from Gallup found that globally, 85% of the workers have unhappy relationships with their jobs. For a world with billions, that’s a staggering rate of sadness on workdays. So, really, the important question here is, do you stay, or do you leave?

To continue

If you can’t afford to lose the job just yet, or if you don’t really have any other plans, the best option for you is to push through a little longer while changing your mindset. This has already probably passed your mind, too, but it’s time to believe it: you have power over your mind to control these lifeless feelings and direct them towards something. And that something could be building your credentials as best as you can.

One of the main secrets behind an employee who is unhappy about their job is the actual chance of getting one that they would like. Sometimes, it boils down to being a talent that’s attractive enough to stand out in such a competitive field of the corporate world. Whether it’s an external or internal issue, though, Get Landed suggests making it a game for yourself everyday. If you work in retail, count through every sale until it reaches your goal and beats yesterday’s store. If you work a desk job, breeze through your to-do list so fast that you can ask your boss for more.

Thinking about it, the idea seems crazily pretentious—but if this is what gets you out of your rut, as long as you get the job done, then it is going to work both ways. You turn your blinders on and focus on what you do, leaving the feelings behind, while the people around you get impressed with your work performance.

When it’s time, you put that on your resumé. When it’s time, and you have the weekends to live again, you can allot some time to ponder whether what you want in your career is to get promoted in the company you’ve already worked hard for, or to altogether start a new journey somewhere you will be passionate about. Whatever you choose after the grind time, you’ll be ready and excited for the next to come.

Needless to say, continuing a job that you’ve come to hate will also make you realize your deal breakers in your future endeavors.

Needless to say, continuing a job that you’ve come to hate will also make you realize your deal breakers in your future endeavors. It enables you to choose well for yourself, and to actually have the motivation to reach the standards that you think will finally get you to your dream job.

To not continue

When you feel like the game will never work, and your job is really negatively affecting how you view your life, though, you should try to take a break. Realistically, that’s one thing that is so easy to say but difficult to do because of various reasons that extend from emotional to financial. Quitting a job has many follow-up implicit and explicit consequences that include adjustments, impressions, and relationships. For instance, society has a perceived notion that quitting a job that hurts you and burns you out makes you weak, but it’s actually quite the opposite. It takes a lot of strength and courage to be honest with yourself and your employer about your career.

Unfortunately, as everyone knows, it doesn’t erase the fact that there are still bills to pay. So meanwhile, you might want to try other ways to earn while getting the rest and the breath of fresh air that you’ve been needing for a long time.

Compared to full-time, freelance, part-time, and contractual jobs allow you to have control over your own time or report for less hours. Applying for one may help you lay low for a while, figure out what you want to do in life, all while writing your resumé by itself. Surprisingly, this doesn’t become a choice for most people because of how rare it comes up, but there are career platforms, like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Kalibrr, that will easily help you filter your choices when you try to look for a new journey. It also helps that Kalibrr, specifically, allows you to control how you want your status to be seen between actively looking, passively looking, and not looking. This eases the small possibility of you feeling guilty about “cheating” on your current job. Then again, it’s always okay to want to grow!

Not everyone is made for full-time jobs. The huge number of the people in the workforce who are in a constant battle of choosing between passion and livelihood signifies that. Upwork finds that about 10 million American workers have expressed their desire to resign so that they could work as freelancers instead. Heightened even more by the pandemic, Bizjournal also notes that many have been switching to contractual work mostly for their own preference. Flexibility is a common thing to want to have these days—and that’s not only because of the current situation, but also because the world has come to a mass realization that ultimately, there is an option to earn without losing ownership of your own time, of your own life.

No matter how you look at it, though, going part-time or freelance will give you not only more time to yourself to recover, but also experiences and learnings about the industry that you’re part of in general.

In the end, as adulthood teaches us everyday, you don’t really always get what you want. But you have to set a limit on what you can bear and what you can change. That way, you will come out a better, happier professional who lives all the hours of the day, and all the days in a week.