I worked for a big box retailer for over a decade and wanted out for so long. This place treated people like trash with crappy pay, irregular hours, mostly terrible management, and more. The hardest part about leaving was trying to schedule job interviews around the current job and wanting to keep a stream of income going to pay bills, despite having savings. Finally in 2019, a lot of gig delivery driver apps starting popping up in my mid sized town (about 12k population). My idea: sign up for 3 of them, learn the ins and outs of “running my own delivery business” for a month, and then quit my job to temporarily live off of them full time. This allowed me to make my own schedule and go on these interviews until I get a new job that I actually want. I say 3 instead of 1 because they are all different as far as their usual busy times (morning, evening, weekends) and when one is slow, just switch to another. When the pandemic happened, it ended up being a blessing because the demand exploded and I made a lot of money for a bit over 2 years while trying to keep expenses down as much as possible. In that time I interviewed for over 50 jobs (and asked about everything during the first one), was offered about 20 of them (some of them didn't like me asking about pay/perks immediately), and I finally excepted one in April 2022. The pay, benefits, work/life balance, and respect supervisors show/sense of community is awesome.
Disclaimer: I do not recommend doing gig delivery work for a long period of time because of vehicle depreciation and does not provide insurance (I got by on state insurance). Nowadays I'm just down to logging on some weekends for extra income. If you do choose to do long term, it's better to find computer based gig work. Be prepared for tax season too.
I encouraged some family/friends to do the same and we all came out successful and happier, I've personally helped all of them to a better path. Everyone deserves better, life is short! Never ever will I just “settle” for a job and will repeat the same pattern if I just happen to turn miserable at this current job too. My town, like many others, has been scrambling to find workers and has had to resort to raising wages. Especially fast food, hospitality, and warehouses. Most of them honestly deserve what they got.