The U.S. is trending towards recession, I’m hearing warnings about the increasing job market competition, I’m in debt, and for the first time in my life I can’t pay my rent. My contract ends in a few weeks, maybe an extra week tacked on if we need it. At most I’d miss out on a few paychecks (net $1.5k a week), but again, I need every cent. I’ve had some unfortunate luck this year and my rainy day fund is gone. There’s no one that can spot me right now and I can’t even imagine the conversation I need to have with the family I rent from.
HOWEVER. I hate every person on my team, my boss is the worst of them. I’ve been in this industry for over a decade and I’ve never seen a sloppier, more egotistical, and weirdly secretive group of individuals to make up a production. It’s film/tv, so I’ve been around it before, but these guys are 10/10, supremely terrible, they take all the cakes.
To illustrate the extent of the “suck,” here’s a small sample of what I experience with my direct report on a daily basis from 9ish to literally 4am sometimes. And I’m expected to answer regardless of the hour,(I will if it’s necessary for the gig, but in this case it’s not at all, it’s not emergency life saving surgery).
I can’t make it through 15min without a text from her. If I don’t answer she sends more. If I still don’t answer she sends question reactions on all of her texts to me. If I answer, she checks in on every single task on my docket. I have no time left to work because I’m constantly stuck on the phone with her explaining every second of my day and the decisions/emails/calls I make for this job. Note: maybe 10% of what I do directly impacts her work. That’s it.
If I don’t answer for a few hours she will back to back call me and then follow up with texts detailing what to do, how to do it, and what order to do it in, and end it all with a shitty text saying she needs to make sure everything is getting done and she’s frustrated with me for not answering. One time even threatened to send someone to my house to see if I was there if I didn’t reply in the following 15 minutes.
Again, I’ve never encountered this before, even when I first started out. I know it’s not illegal to be a bad boss, but mine would change federal legislature if she worked over the right (or maybe for her, wrong?) person. Note: this is the tip of the iceberg with one of ten people on my team, and pretty much all of them come with their own special forms of insanity.
At this point I’m morbidly unhappy and barely getting anything done. It started with weeks of 14-16 hour days, but it’s completely unnecessary for this particular project. Don’t get me wrong, I’m used to going weeks working those type of hours, but it’s always been for good reason before. There’s zero leadership. No one knows who to go to for what. The communication sucks. It’s either over the top/incessant, or nonexistent/last second.
I usually come highly recommended, work/offers come to me, but here I get treated like the greenest PA that is one mistake away from the no hire list. I swear I’m not arrogant, this might make me sound like I am, but I want to paint the picture of my very frustrating experience and why someone in a dire financial situation would rather quit.
I also want to show why I feel less concern about the impending recession here in the U.S. I’ve always found work easily, but is it possible it could all go away with a growing population of workers to compete with?
I don’t have anything else lined up and everyone has and will always say “don’t leave your job until you have another,” but I can’t take it anymore. Am I being foolish? Should I be taking this recession more seriously? I’m embarrassed by how out of the loop I am with our economy.
Hopefully I gave a clear enough picture of why my broke ass is so desperate to walk. I’m used to having fun every day in my work and getting along with no interpersonal complication. I’m used to enjoying the people I get to meet and work with. The contrast of this current job has me considering other industries. It’s that bad.
I love people, I am hopelessly optimistic, I’ve seen some dark shit that’d ruin lives and yes can still find the goodness/purpose/lesson/acceptance in what I encounter, and this is the thing that has me crushed and confused? Plz send help.