I've been working at a place for nearly 4 years. For the first year I was extremely overwhelmed. Every day felt like I had a mountain of work and I was barely staying afloat. The second year was better. I became more accustomed to the work and was keeping a steady pace but wasn't so stressed all the time. Then Covid hit and things became unbalanced. My work place is an essential service so we stayed open in full capacity. Between callouts, product shortages, people getting covid and quarantining, the customers being customers, every day was a guessing game of literally nothing to do or absolute overwhelming insanity. I was there through all of it like an absolute idiot, even though I would've literally made more money if I had gone home and got unemployment with the $600 bonus. I regret not doing this deeply for many reasons.
As Covid restrictions have quieted down in the US and the difficulties imposed by it have subsided my work has become extremely boring. Combined that with my increased proficiency at my job I have roughly 3-4 productive hours of work to do per day, that I have to split with another full time employee.
There is literally nothing of any value to do outside of help a handful of customers, which I am always in a visible and highly trafficked area for just in case. I do not have to be there, I have the freedom to go anywhere on location I want to be. Many associates hide in the stockroom and goof off and then have to be called to their location to assist people at this time of night. Many of those in the supervisory role just go to the managers desk and bullshit for their shift. I have always had a “if you get all your projects done and our goals are being met I don't care what else you do” attitude. I stayed in a customer frequented area because it was the only way I could justify me wasting my time at this company.
Over time however, it has become progressively harder and harder to handle the emptiness and pointlessness of my work. I am literally a body that fills a slot doing near nothing for 3/5ths of my work life. *In case a random person needs assistance*.
Recently, my departments manager transferred to fill a management position in another department. Their old role is still unfilled, because why does it need to be filled when the flunkies are able to do all the work and keep things running without paying for a manager. Tonight my old manager came to my department and tried to tell me I need to be working and doing something and walked off. No explanation of what exactly I should be doing, no inquiries as to what I have done or what projects/goals need to be met. They know exactly what is left to do at that point of the work day, and were trying to task master someone they no longer had any authority over. So I went to the business manager, told them I'm going home and why. Then I did. Tomorrow I'm telling the business manager I'm putting in my 2 weeks. I hope they fire me. I know people here will say “just don't show up” but my family would throw a fit if I did that. So far tonight I have put in 4 applications for positions at other companies for positions I'm more than qualified to do, and they've all had a salary range increase of 10-25% my current wage.
I have roughly 3-4 months worth of expenses saved up and don't recommend anyone do what I did if you are not thoroughly prepared or are living with people who will shame you for making choices for your own wellness of being.
I kept a lot of the details secret on purpose, just in case. I know I'm not the only one at my work who browses r/antiwork and want plausible deniability. Mostly I just wanted to type this to help me get my thoughts and feelings organized and I've felt writing them down has always been an effective method for doing so. Thanks for reading.