Hi everyone. I am planning to do a career switch and will be going back to school in roughly 1.5 months. Tomorrow, I will be having my monthly one-on-one with my boss. He has been persistent in asking me about my career aspirations in my role. To be honest, I have not had any interest in my current role for a very long time. Unfortunately, I don't trust my boss very much so I can't mention the truth yet (going back to school in 1.5 months) until I plan to hand in my notice. I strongly sense that he won't take my plans to go back to school well and may even fire me out of anger. I don't want to risk being unemployed 1.5 months earlier than planned. I still need to pay the bills for the next month.
What makes tomorrow particularly difficult is that I'm very close to resigning right now (still 5-6 weeks remaining) so I don't want to risk blindsiding him when I do inevitably hand in my notice 3 weeks from now. Plus he has been asking me the same question for nearly 6 months now, of which I haven't given him a straight answer by using the excuse “I'm still thinking about it”. I am sensing he is getting impatient with me if I don't “make up my mind.”
What I plan to do is drop hints that I may consider upskilling in area X because I'm very interested in learning and contributing in this area but that the details are still to be finalized. I'm playing a game of tightrope by not being concrete in my plans yet not giving him false hope that I plan to stay for the long term. What would you folks suggest I do in this sticky situation?