Since moving to Seattle, this is the one topic I've most wanted to write about. It's what I have thought about the most for the past six months, and it's not an easy thing to think about at all.
I moved to the area without a job in August of 2008, right as everything was going to shit. No one really knew how bad things would get, but it was the beginning of the housing crisis (or at least the public's knowledge of it) and expensive government bailouts that would eventually do nothing. That summer the country was on the brink of the recession, and I was only barely aware of that as I packed up my things to move to a city I had never been to before, full of confidence that I could find something in my field before my meager savings dried up.
I was lucky when not many were; after a month of searching, I had a job offer from a non-profit. They had a part-time office manager, but wanted someone full-time, which sucked for her but was great for me. The salary they offered was abhorrently low - I could have made the same working a cash register - but it was survivable, the job was kinda in my field, and the commute was easy. I was also told to expect a significant raise after six months.
The first few months were a lot of fun. I learned my duties with enthusiasm, became close with my coworkers and got to meet the movers and shakers of the community through the events that we held. I got to know Seattle, made friends and became involved in volunteer groups and community organizations. The company had been lacking an Executive Director, and soon we hired one.
My dissatisfaction with the job began from there. There was never any health insurance, so I was struggling to afford an individual plan and quickly realized how expensive a cold can be when your yearly deductible is through the roof. My 6-month raise was not anywhere near what I expected, and of course the person who hired me and promised a grand raise was gone. We were losing money and there were other financial cutbacks.
With the new boss came changes, as well. Suddenly I wasn't allowed to help out at evening or weekend events, leaving my coworker to handle them herself, because my boss wasn't 'comfortable' letting me take off a few hours later on to make up for it. I was the member liaison, but I couldn't interact with them, and I was robbed of any networking opportunities. Taking any time off, including sick time or vacation, became a hassle that ended in confrontation and a lecture in how we were supposed to be in the office 40 hours a week between the hours of 9 and 5, every single time. My boss had no technical expertise, which I excelled at, and no event planning experience, which my coworker had been doing for two years, but he refused to listen to our opinions and made decisions that wasted a lot of time and money. Anything he interpreted as a challenge to his authority was met with the simple statement: "You work for me."
The job became stifling. Every day was a challenge, and my coworkers and I joked that our boss took turns picking on us. I felt relieved on days when it was their turn and not mine. I looked for jobs but it was 2009 and there were no jobs, at least not that I felt I was qualified for. I wasn't an engineer or a lab tech or an attorney. I didn't have any concrete skills that were in demand.
Eventually, my coworker found another job and left. The only other employee besides my boss had started working from home because her position required a lot of travel. I was stuck in an office with just one other person, and this person decided that the solution to our budget problem was not to hire a replacement for my coworker, but to have me do both jobs. I was offered a small raise in return for the expectation that my output would be the same as when two people had been responsible for the same tasks.
For a while, things were better. I enjoyed the added responsibility, even if it had been given to me as an afterthought to the budget. My relationship with my boss even seemed to improve - at least, I wasn't so angry all the time any more. I wasn't as frustrated when he was his normal condescending self; I figured I was learning how better to deal with a difficult personality. We had a slew of unpaid interns in the office helping us with necessary daily tasks, which is pretty inappropriate for a workplace but sure did ease my burden a bit.
Then, after about 6 months of this situation, with me handling the daily office functions, event planning, outreach, and anything that needed doing by something with a power button, we held a huge event that went well, and I didn't feel good about it at all. All I could see was the things that weren't done or the things that went wrong, even though it had been a fine event. I had interns making cold calls and handling registrations, and had been working long hours. I hadn't been sleeping well, was fairly irritable all the time, and had developed a headache that never really went away. I didn't feel any sort of accomplishment when it was over... I just felt tired.
What's more, I looked down the road at more months of working as hard as I was, and I thought about having to manage the biggest event of the year, four times as big as the one I had just put together, and I had this overwhelming sense of despair. I knew I could do it - I can do anything - but I also knew I couldn't do it well. No amount of interns was going to make my headache go away.
I also realized that the 'improved' relations with my boss weren't actually improved at all. Things were still the same, but I just didn't care. I had resigned myself to his inappropriate and unprofessional behavior, and life was a whole lot easier if I just didn't acknowledge the anger any more. I had gotten used to it, and knew it would never change. That, more than anything, made me feel pathetic.
At that point, I knew I couldn't wait for the perfect job to come along and rescue me from my misery. I had to take matters into my own hands. So I quit my job.
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