What to Do When You Hate Your Job

McKinsey has recently surveyed and found out that 40% of workers say that they are thinking about quitting their jobs. People who responded stated they wanted to quit in order to find work that pays more or is more fulfilling, or both.

Moreover, in its newly published State of the Global Workplace: 2022 survey, Gallup discovered that in addition to dissatisfaction, employees are also reporting shockingly high rates of disengagement and unhappiness.

You never enjoy telling people you hate your job. Having put so much effort into getting where you are today, you don’t want to risk jeopardizing it. On the other hand, you do not want to look at yourself in 10 years from now and suddenly realize that you are not satisfied with your job in a long time. 

So what can you do? Here are some helpful tips to make your workplace happier.

7 steps to take if you hate your job 

1. It’s Been a While Since You’ve Stagnated

In the beginning, it can be difficult to identify stagnation in a job. If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you’re likely to go into your comfort zone. 

Time flies by, and five years have passed and you have not grown your skills. You feel like you have no motivation and lack the enthusiasm to do your job. 

There can be many reasons that you feel stagnant at your work. If there is no one directly pushing you and your objectives are easy to accomplish, then you may want to follow the flow. 

On the other hand, you might be eager for new prospects. If you have approached management with fresh ideas and expressed your desire to learn and develop, merely to be treated with quietness or hollow promises, you might well have reached a point of stagnation.

Now, you are constantly bored in this situation. Over time this can result in a lowered mood and even sadness. 

Here’s What You Should Do

I believe that your career should constantly be motivating you and pushing you to do better. If you find yourself feeling bored or unchallenged at your job, it might be time to try and add some creativity to your work. 

Even if your job title doesn’t sound very creative, there are always ways to spice up your work and make it more interesting. For example, if you’re good at organizing, maybe you can try reorganizing your filing system. No matter what your career is, there’s always room for creativity.

2. You Work in a Toxic or Hostile Environment

Unhealthy work environments can cause a lot of problems both in and out of the office. Competition, low morale, stress, and negativity can all be the result of a toxic workplace. This can impact your professional as well as your personal life and in the end, you feel like you hate your job.

It does not take much time for a workplace to become a toxic work environment. When a business turns toxic, it spreads across the entire structure of the corporation.

As we all know what a toxic workplace environment looks like. It is unlucky for you to find yourself in the middle of one. 

Toxic workplaces are usually born out of greed or a cutthroat attitude, and they can infect an entire organization quickly. Once toxicity takes hold, it’s hard to get rid of.

What to Do

In this situation, many would want to quit their job. It is helpful to develop strategies to handle the dysfunction while you look for a new job because finding a new job takes time and you can’t walk away immediately.

• Identify others who feel the same way you do and you will be able to share your feelings with them and watch out for each other. 

• Furthermore, joining a gym can help you fight back against stress from your 9-5 or you can invest your time in learning a new skill.

• You can keep yourself busy by creating a list of tasks that keep you focused, giving you a reason to continue working.

• When you need to file a complaint, it will be essential that you keep all your emails, notes, and other records.

• You might want to stay at your job if things improve there. Nevertheless, begin your search for a new job while you wait it out. When things get tough, this will help you remain positive.

Toxic workplaces can be challenging to deal with, but by learning how to recognize them, you’ll be prepared to deal with them on your own terms, in your own time. This will ensure that your next job is one that you enjoy.

3. There is an Undervaluation and Overlooking of Your Work

A busy schedule is not uncommon at work. One year has passed before you realize it, and it feels like you have achieved nothing – but you know it’s not true. As a matter of fact, you have achieved so much.

Unfortunately, you haven’t received any positive feedback, recognition, or promotion opportunities or your work is overlooked and undervalued. 

Perhaps you don’t need constant positive feedback. Negative feedback, on the other hand, can drain your confidence reserve if you never receive any.

Overworking, being given new projects, and being exploited can all result in this.

High-performing employees often find themselves in this situation because they can perform their work efficiently and accurately.

So, this could also be an organizational-wide cultural issue, which would be much more harmful or leadership is likely to be the problem here. Your manager’s responsibility should be to lead his or her team, in good times and bad times.

Here is What You Can Do

In these situations, you need to express your unhappiness. To better align your work output and job responsibilities, you can ask for a yearly evaluation. It could also be the right time to ask for a raise. Ask for a promotion, both in your position and in terms of pay, if your job description corresponds to a new role with significantly more duties.

4. The Confidence You Once Had is Eroding

You were very confident when you initially started working at your job. You dominated the interview procedure and were prepared to advance your career. After three months, six months, or a full year, you suddenly feel as though your confidence has worn thin.

In this kind of situation, you feel unpleasant. When your job undermines your self-esteem, you could always feel vulnerable when you get to work. 

Due to the constant criticism of your boss, your confidence may be eroding. You may not feel confident because you’re undervalued at work.

When your job seems to be demanding more from you than you’re willing to give, it can really take a toll on your confidence and emotional well-being.

Here is What to Do

If you feel like your job is taking a toll on your mental and physical health and if your coworkers are constantly putting you down, your boss is dismissive, and you have no idea what you’re supposed to be doing, then you feel lost, hopeless as well as stupid.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can take control of the situation by speaking with your leadership about what you can do to improve, how to maintain open communication, and how to cooperate effectively. 

Try expressing your requirements in a transparent manner while listening to theirs. Be receptive to advice that is positive.

What More You Can Do About It 

If you’re feeling down about yourself and hate your job, talk to the people who love and support you. Your family and friends will help you remember that your toxic workplace is not indicative of your worth as a person. They’ll give you the confidence boost you need to get out of your rut and find a job that better suits you.

5. Leadership Has Undergone An Uncomfortable Change

It’s not uncommon to feel like you hate your boss. It happens to a lot of people. Oftentimes, it’s because you and your manager just don’t have compatible personalities. However, there are other instances where your boss is just a flat-out jerk.

It’s no secret that working for someone you don’t get along with can be extremely stressful. You might find yourself rolling your eyes or getting anxious at the mere mention of your boss’s name.

This isn’t a healthy way to live, and the stress of disliking your boss can have a negative impact on your work. If you’re in this situation, it’s important to find ways to deal with the stress and make the best of the situation.

There are a lot of reasons why your boss’s requests might feel like too much pressure. It’s possible that you and your boss don’t work well together, that they communicate poorly, or that they’re disrespectful, abusive, micromanaging, or just not good at their job. 

What to Do

If there is still hope for this relationship to improve, consider scheduling a 1:1 meeting with your manager. Express your disconnection and offer potential answers.

In managing up, you put in the effort to strengthen your relationship with your employer.

You may want to take the situation to HR if your boss behaves abusively or engages in seriously questionable practices.

And finally, if your boss is HR, it might be time to look for a new job. 

6. You are Experiencing Workplace Burnout

The amount of work you have to do is so overwhelming that you’re constantly dizzy. Is it even possible to have a conversation with your friends since the last time you saw them?

According to psychologists, burnout can be classified into three categories – worn out, frenetic, and apathetic. Worn-out burnout is characterized by a sense of exhaustion and constant overwork without any positive outcomes or recognition. 

Frenetic burnout, on the other hand, is brought about by working in high-pressure environments for extended periods of time. Finally, apathetic burnout is a type of burnout that makes employees feel indifferent and unmotivated. 

Burnout can happen when you feel like your job is constantly demanding more from you than it should. This can be a result of a continuous cycle that starts to take away from your personal life and relationships. Eventually, this can lead to serious problems with your overall well-being.

Here is What To Do

In a workplace where you like the job function, respect your boss, and are loved by your coworkers, burnout may be the culprit.

• Don’t Ignore Your Feelings: Burnout is often caused by strong emotions that we bottle up inside. These feelings can include resentment, frustration, and disillusionment. If we can pay attention to these emotions and when they come up, we can often prevent burnout before it happens.

• Take a Closer Look at Your Boundaries: Saying “yes” to responsibilities before taking into account the work, time, or effort they will require to finish is frequently the cause of a workload that is too excessive. We’re less likely to experience exhaustion and overload if we believe we possess command over our time as well as resources.

• Practice Mindfulness:  It’s easy to burn out when your to-do list gets in the way of your needs. Make it a habit to check in with yourself on a regular basis. Schedule a few minutes to breathe between back-to-back meetings on your phone or schedule a reminder on your calendar. 

• Talk to Your Manager about Your Concerns: Burnout risk is created or diminished at the organizational level. The assistance you have access to and how you feel about your job can be significantly impacted by your management team. It’s probable that you’re not the only one having problems, and perhaps a cultural change is necessary.

• Ask For Help: Burnout commonly occurs from difficult workloads, competing objectives, and unfulfilled standards, but it also tends to result from unacknowledged requirements. Ask your friends, family, coaches, coworkers, and leadership for assistance. It’s possible that you will have greater support than you realize.

• Collaborate with Your Co-Workers: Burnout can also happen if there is a lack of relationships between team members.  Building workplace relationships provides you a feeling of community, allows you access to common resources, and simplifies it to ask for assistance.

7. A Misalignment of Values

In the course of your career,  you encounter this often, but it can be hard to identify when it happens. The values you hold today (or in the near future) may or may not match those of your workplace at some point in the future.

In addition to being harder to identify, this is also more deflating. In the event that your values no longer align, you won’t feel comfortable or right in the career you loved. 

It was a pleasure to begin your job. Upon entering the building two years ago, it was your “dream job.” Now, it’s a different story. You no longer have as much of a “work hard, play hard” attitude.

Here is What You Should Do

This probably has to do with corporate culture. It may simply get worse as your career develops in a company whose values appear more and more at odds with your own.

For instance, if you believe that work-life balance at your company is very much “work” oriented, it will probably become even more so as you move up the corporate ladder.

So, create a list of your own values as well as objectives at this point, and also make a list of your organization’s values and requirements to go alongside that list.

You should make the necessary adjustments if there is a chance to realign. If you discover that your values are now wholly at odds, begin looking for positions inside businesses that coincide with your current values and long-term goals.

Final Thoughts

Regardless of how it feels right now, there might be a way for you to discover a way to love your job. You should think that this is just a difficult time or that everything will be better once you are through it.

If you do so, and you’re generally content at work, you might not actually hate your job after all. Consider what you might tweak to make it more tolerable if that is the case.

However, it’s not a good idea to stay in a job you despise for any longer than necessary (until you are able to discover a new or more promising job). It could be the right time to leave a difficult job environment behind because holding on too long can cause burnout.

The most crucial thing is that you should act immediately to manage your own satisfaction and opportunities for the future. You have the capability of transforming any work into an incredible job.

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Irish Verma Member since September 6, 2022

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As a polished and seasoned writer with more than 6 years of experience in the field of content creation for various industry verticals with B2B and B2C companies, Irish Verma excels at one thing - “curating unique, informative, and well-researched content that helps businesses rank on Google's first page and draw more organic traffic to websites, generating leads, and increasing conversion rates.” Irish aligns his writing pieces with the target audience's search queries to leave a strong impression on readers and influences their purchasing decisions. Away from work, Irish likes to express his inner thoughts through his compilation of poems, quotes, and short stories. Irish is one of the co-authors of an anthology titled "Irenic Ardour”, which is available on amazon.com in the paperback version. He is also an amateur guitarist, nature lover, and fond of taking both short and long-distance bike rides to new places.

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