Toxic workplace, so I quit, advice?
Needing honest thoughts from community, im 33 currently
So I worked for this company for almost 3 yrs, WFH once Covid happened, immediately was feeling anxiety within the first few months of working there due to the extreme micromanaging and incompetent leadership, job was pretty simple for the most part basically processing/data entry.
Job was more laid back when I first started but once Covid happened started becoming more strict, my guess is management is unqualified and unable to adapt to employees working from home, for example needing to communicate tasks that we were working on at all times in Teams chat, putting into the chat when we would go on breaks/lunch and when we got back, random check ins to see where everyone was at, leadership treating us like children talking to us in a condescending way at times, meetings were constantly berating us on things and adding more to our plates, leadership going on power trips, once threatened to cut breaks by 5 mins, breaks were 15mins each (not sure if this went through since I only had a week left at this point), pointless busy work disguised as this helps “career development,” Microsoft teams automatically puts you into away status after a few mins, screens were being recorded, time stamps recorded as well for any task that gets completed to track productivity.
Terrible communication from the top down, one of the most unorganized poorly run companies I’ve ever come across, procedure manual outdated/incorrect info, constantly making changes by moving to a new system for the worst to save costs that would cause new issues to arise that would cause errors and count against us, purposely making things more tedious instead of more efficient didn’t bring this up to management because it was implemented to avoid errors instead of providing more training to newer employees, always accusing employees of not working, manager was definitely paranoid from people WFH
I definitely felt like I was being taken advantaged of, I worked my ass off 110% was told I was a superstar employee, addt. tasks were given to me frequently, helped new hires w/ addt. trainings even though was not part of my job there’s a separate team that does trainings for new hires by the way and a team lead,but I was asked to help new hires as well, which I don’t mind helping team members but just felt unappreciated due to the level of disrespect going on, Picked up the slack, constantly understaffed felt like I was doing the job of two people but I did receive a couple of raises without asking one was for not receiving a promotion to keep me from leaving due to being a “superstar”, broken promises was told a couple of times new roles would be created or opened up soon and would be a great fit potentially then a month or two later they decided not happening now.
got to the point where the sound of email or teams message coming through caused anxiety, started feeling this within first 3 months or so of working there, unable to enjoy life outside of work, can’t enjoy things I used to enjoy and be in the moment, not wanting to hang out w/ friends/family, can’t enjoy weekends cause of anxiety thinking about work on Monday, stopped going on vacations since couldn’t enjoy it would be depressed on vacays but took PTO still and just stayed home, easily irritable any little thing would trigger me, couldn’t think clearly at times
So I eventually quit after working there for almost 3 yrs put in my 2 weeks w/o a job lined up 6 months ago! Hit my breaking point extremely burnt out, I just said fuck this shit, I ain’t putting up with this nonsense! Most incompetent leadership I’ve experienced.
Still unemployed been extremely hard to apply for any job due to anxiety/depression still in recovery mode 6 months later pretty sure I have PTSD now from working, been going to the gym 7 days a week and trying to relax /recover by watching sports, movies, playing videogames, talking to close friends from back home, and keeping up with everything happening in the economy and learning more about financial freedom
realistically have emergency funds to last over 2 yrs if needed living on bare minimums to survive, im a financial guy, been frugal my entire life, because of this job and past toxic workplaces I decided to look further into FIRE, currently 33 M w/ net worth of $250k, mostly invested well diversified stocks/mutual funds/crypto and 2 yrs of living expenses in a money market fund earning 4.74% yield
Any advice is much appreciated