Your job is your most significant source of livelihood. You might have several passive sources of income, but usually, one’s day job is considered the primary source of income. One has to be engaged for a considerable part of the day, for the entire week. And while some have to work 40 hours a week, whereas others have higher working hours. Hence, it is crucial for one’s physical and mental health that one loves the job one is engaged in.
Not loving one’s job only adds to the stress and monotony, and it hinders one’s productivity in a big way, and you are unable to find joy in something you have to do for the better part of a day. Of course, there are both good and bad days at work. But if you find your job unbearable to the point that you hate it, that becomes a problem.
The most tempting thing to do at this point is to quit. But that is, of course, not possible. You need the money to sustain yourself and your loved ones. As a result, you subject yourself to the daily grind, which costs you happiness and peace of mind. Hence, if you hate your job that much, instead of despairing, here are some things you should try to make it easier for you until you find a position more suited to your liking.
Things You Should Not Do When You Hate Your Job
It is very easy to feel frustrated when you hate your job, which might lead you to do certain things which might not be the best thing to do for your career. Here are some things to keep in mind.
1. Do Not Complain About Your Job at Your Workplace
There can be several reasons why you hate your job. It could be the grueling work hours, it could be an irritable boss, or your office space could be dinghy and dark with the management not paying heed to upgrading the outdated tools and equipment you are forced to work with.
Or, you could be given tasks outside your skillset, and you feel your potential lies somewhere else. It could be any number of reasons, and yet, you should not complain about your job at work to anyone.
Even the colleague that you are closest to and is your best workplace buddy should not be privy to such thoughts. It is one thing to pass a casual remark at the coffee machine about how long the day is, but venting your thoughts about hating your job should be avoided. This could backfire in so many ways. Your entire professional integrity is put into question, and your loyalty toward your company is compromised.
If there is a severe issue at the workplace that needs to be addressed, then opt for more professional channels of communication. Write a letter to the management voicing your concerns and politely request them to look into the matter. That will be a more productive way of resolving whatever is causing your concern rather than simply venting about it.
2. Do Not Despair
One of the commonest mistakes people ends up making when they hate their jobs is to allow themselves to feel stuck and then start despairing. You have to remember that you are not going to spend the rest of your life at the same job, and better opportunities are going to come knocking at your door sooner than you expect.
Despair will only make your work hours harder, which will only make your distaste for your job more evident. Also, refrain from posting anything on social media about your career. Your employers will find out about it sooner or later and will only compromise your position more within the company.
3. Do Not Quit Immediately
Quitting your job hastily is not always the best thing to do. Unless you are being subjected to deliberate workplace harassment, quitting all of a sudden is not the best option either. Once you realize that you hate your job enough that you want to make a change, plan a strategic exit so that you can gain the most from your present company.
Hastily quitting your job could mean that you could also end up losing the benefits that you might have received at the end of a given period, like completing a certain number of years in the company. Do not let your dislike for your job cloud your judgment.
Moreover, try to understand whether quitting your job will immediately improve your work experience. Are you sure that joining the same job at another company will give you the desired satisfaction? Sometimes, the dissatisfaction is not with the job but with the people and the management. Hence, you could wait around and check whether there is going to be a shift in management, and once there are new people on the block, there could be a significant improvement in the working conditions.
Things You Can Do When You Hate Your Job
Even if you hate your current job, there will surely be a few aspects about your present job that you must like. Here is what you can do.
1. Learning New Skills
If you hate your job, then the chances are that you are already thinking about looking for another, better position in another company. However, even your prospective employer will be eager to know which roles you fulfilled in your past company and what kind of skill sets you learned or improved upon.
Hence, even if you hate your job, make sure you learn all there is to learn in your present company. Be it learning new skill sets, or simply improving upon what you already knew with more practical experience, do not waste your time in your old company simply hating your job.
2. Make a Strategy
If you hate your present job, you should also have an idea about the kind of job that is going to satisfy you the most. And to do that, you need to have a strategy in place. You could have spent years imagining a particular career and spent your entire adult life studying and preparing for it, only to realize it was not the job you intended to pursue. It did not bring you the satisfaction you had imagined.
Maybe, you realized that your passion lay somewhere else entirely. Hence, you would have to think of a new strategy, which would take some time. Use your time in your old company to understand if there is anything you would like to continue with even after hating the job so much, and if not, what new plans can you make for your future.
3. Looking for a New Job
It would be best to start looking for a new job in the next phase. You should be discreet about it and avoid revealing to anyone that you are looking for a new job. That will immediately result in a plethora of questions, or you could be judged silently by your colleagues and bosses.
This, despite the fact that many of your colleagues could be looking for better opportunities as well. However, looking for your job is entirely your prerogative, and you should not immediately involve anyone else from the workplace in the process.
4. Resign With Dignity
Finally, when you find a suitable job that you feel will give you the satisfaction you desire, you can think of resigning from your present job. However, just because you hated the job, your resignation letter should not reflect those attitudes.
Instead, it would be best if you devoted some time to draft the perfect resignation letter, expressing your thankfulness for all that the company has taught you, no matter how brief your stint was. Writing anything negative in the resignation letter will somehow always stay on record and could cost you opportunities later in this networking age.
You should also make allowance for a notice period and ensure that your transition is as smooth as possible. Leaving the company with any hard feelings will also not be suitable for you, and you should start at your new job without bearing any ill will towards anyone. Make sure that you use this time to focus on the new company.
Bonus Read: 22 Lucrative Part-Time Work From Home Jobs in 2022
Conclusion
It is essential to build strong professional relationships, and no matter how much you hated your job, there are chances that something that you learned or acquired here would prove to be useful for you somewhere down the line. Every workplace teaches you something. If you left your previous company because of toxic work culture, you would have learned some valuable lessons about how to handle these unpleasant scenarios. It would be an essential life skill to learn. Eventually, you will surely find a position that you will like and ultimately build your dream career.
