I have recently reached a point where I have submitted my resignation due to my frustration with the companies direction and ongoing staffing constraints having shaped the work culture towards sacrificing quality and getting product right the first time in favor of output and volume. I have a number of other gripes about the company at large that have contributed to my decision to leave, but the impact on work culture has been the big pressure. I’m a perfectionist by nature so the trends over the past 5 years are increasingly problematic for me.
All things considered, it’s not a bad place to work. As a food manufacturing environment, we are paid fairly well (a bit over $20/hr to start) for the work that we do. As a Quality Assurance Tech, I function in a role supporting production and actually get paid a fair bit more than our production techs. Unfortunately, years of losing our experienced staff and pressure to do more with less has changed the work of my department to be increasingly focused on catching and containing mistakes in product and trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to convince scheduling to accommodate reworking product over producing new product. We used to be more focused on talent development, helping our workers to be more active in paying attention to their quality checks to both prevent mistakes and improve their ability to troubleshoot effectively. Certainly there were instances of product and material holds that sometimes are unavoidable, like raw material defects impacting our finished goods or mechanical issues causing ingredients to expire, but those were completely reasonable work tasks.
The issue I’m encountering is guilt. This isn’t particularly new. I felt the same guilt when I transitioned to the Quality role from years as a production operator. I felt the same guilt when I left my security guard job to join this manufacturing team. It’s just part of my nature. I have no ill will towards my coworkers and even the managers I work directly under. At the end of the day, we are all stuck working for the same corporate giant. I know the feelings of guilt will pass after a few months of my new job, but it’s making my last few weeks exhausting. I’ve spent more than 8 years building a good rapport with my team and I can’t help but feel awful leaving them to continue us dealing with increasingly frequent problems with material shortages and the logistics of constantly having to adjust plans around mistakes in planning and scheduling, issues stemming from general bandwidth limitations in all departments, and trying to make the companies ever increasing ambitions/demands happen. Things weren’t so bad before we got bought out by a big investment firm 5-6 years back. The new owners spent the following years “trimming the fat” by letting go of support staff and stripping benefits wherever they can to increase cash flow for more acquisitions.
My managers are bummed and they understand, but it doesn’t ease my anxiety. Part of me is disappointed in myself for giving up on a nearly decade long investment. There’s a lot of newer employees that look to me and my role for guidance and direction. I’m leaving more than a dozen excellent production folks, support staffs, and shift managers that trust and depend on me as much as I trust and depend on them. I know this will pass, but it’s still miserable.
TLDR: I liked my job, but I can’t stop the corporate machine from stressing me out so I’ve finally gotten a different job and I feel so damned guilty about giving up.