I’ve been wavering on this decision for months. This past month has been particularly awful. I was publicly called out over an email chain with all of my colleagues (I worked for an agency) for not being able to uphold an unfair workload.
I was – on average- working 10-12 hours a day to keep up with expectations. The CEO refused to hire anyone to help me, dangled the opportunity of promoting me to management for 2 years, and always being told it would happen “the next quarter.”
At some point I started to cut my days at 8 hours. When this happened, not all of the work got done. I communicated I needed help and was faced with “you’re not organized or planning correctly.”
I was performing several more tasks outside of my job description with no compensation for the skills I brought to the job. There was no personal development options within work hours, and I was expected to learn new skills on my own time such as read novels and listen to series of podcasts.
I was expected to be a client manager, digital marketer, designer, sales person, copywriter and ads specialist. When I started my position at $45k/ year, I was only responsible for one of those roles. After taking on more and more responsibility, my pay did not increase, my hours got longer, and I lived in fear of losing my job everyday.
I quit today. I do not have another opportunity lined up, but felt eliminating this level of stress will allow me to put energy towards my next opportunity.
In the grand scheme of things, I’d rather take a baby step back, live frugal for a couple months than continue deteriorating my state of mind.