You know you’re starting to emotionally check out of a job when you find yourself constantly running on autopilot to get through a shift. If you're at the point where you're on the clock just casually daydreaming about quitting, usually all it really takes is one excessively irritating moment to make you lose the last teeny-tiny bit of willpower you have left.
Most of us have had bummer jobs where we stayed employed way longer than we wanted to only because we had to. These bills definitely aren’t payin’ themselves.
I know there are success stories about people who finally had enough and were able to break free from their toxic job, and I'm curious to hear what that breaking point was. If you have had an experience like this, let us know! Tell us what occurred during your shift that was so stress-inducing that it led to a moment of clarity and made you think, "Yeah, I'm quitting." I would love to hear what went down!
I'll go first — I used to work at a call center that was not known for its enjoyable work environment. They did not pay well, always promised bonuses that never came, loaded us with meaningless busy work, and required overtime without any warning. I dealt with all of this fun stuff because, you know, I need a job to survive. However, I was slowly running out of emotional stamina to keep it up. That stamina abruptly depleted when, one day, the building the office was located in changed the rules about where we could park our cars. Instead of the company that I worked for just communicating that change with us and suggesting we relocate our vehicles, they began towing our cars.
I was working at my desk, full of misery, and decided to look through a window for a brief moment of sunshine and comfort mid-workday — only to see my car being whisked away into the abyss. To make matters worse, the amount of money the towing company had us pay to release our cars exceeded what we would even make in a day’s work. So technically, I paid to work that day. I applied for jobs that night and started the following week.
Maybe you had a boss who bulldozed past your boundaries one too many times? Was there a customer who said something so outrageous that it pushed you over the edge? Perhaps after a stressful morning, you took your lunch break only to discover a coworker had stolen your lunch from the break room — again? What moment, big or small, had you so frustrated that you decided working literally anywhere else would be better?
