How many of you have changed jobs late in life? Not for money or advancement, but for the potential of a less toxic envi onment? Or is it ridiculous to think any workplace isn’t somewhat toxic?
It really depends on the level of “toxicity”, what other options there are, and what your risk tolerance is. I know people who have jumped ship from my office and have come back in a hurry while others have found happiness (or at least more money) in a new job. A family member was downsized and took a package in part due to feeling the job had become toxic and unfulfilling. She has gotten a new job, but for less money and worse benefits.
All jobs have some level of dysfunction and negativity. I would not say all are toxic. But my definition of toxic may be very different than yours.
Care to share more details?
What do you consider toxic? I hope no one thinks I have a toxic environment, but people have quit before. I’d say life is too short to be miserable.
Someone has to work in toxic environments, if only the clean them up (e.g. the Clean Harbors company).
H mostly liked his workplace of 45 years. He did have some issues with some staff, but fortunately they transferred elsewhere (once with his assistance). He refused to apply for openings at places that were known to be “difficult” work environments, even if it meant turning down money and promotions.
Mostly, I was OK with my work environments. They weren’t perfect, but all were pretty good and mostly comfortable and supportive.
Life is too short to endure toxic work environments long term. I believe it takes a toll on the health of the workforce.
I quit a job where I had worked for 12 years after a new supervisor made it miserable. I tried to stick it out for 1 1/2 years with the new supervisor, and kept trying my best to change/adjust to the new supervisor’s demands. It finally dawned on me that I would NEVER do a good enough job for the new supervisor, who evidently wanted me gone.
This was a second part-time job - I also had a full-time job, which I loved. But the extra income from the second job was very helpful since my spouse was unemployed.
After I resigned, I felt such relief I wished I had quit earlier!
My friend left one govt agency for another (age 57) and is MUCH happier with the second job. It is a longer commute, but more respect, autonomy and money.
I worked for almost two years at a place that was horribly, terribly, unbelievably toxic. I was hired at 62 and left when I was 64. I left only because my manager absolutely went over the line in terms of crudeness and harassment, and I reported her to HR. She wound up lying to HR about the horrible things she said to me – forgetting that I had a witness! I was able to get out of there with severance of 25% of my annual salary and my bonus of 30%.
But all the while she was harassing me and the place was toxic, I refused to quit. It was horrible, but I really needed the job, and I was afraid I’d never get another one. Once I realized I just couldn’t stay there, it became clear to me that if DH and I just downsized and got rid of the mortgage, we could make do.
Three months after I left, I fell into something else, and then something else again. Six months after I left, we sold our house and moved to a smaller one. And now I couldn’t be happier. =D>
Look for something else. It’s worth taking the chance on a new job if you really can’t stand this current one.
I left a job that was costing me too much in stress and frustration. Didn’t regret it for a minute – even when I heard that less than a month later, most of the department was laid off, and would have been let go, too. So I missed out on severance pay and unemployment! And still felt good about the decision. (When you know, you know.)
My H left a profession–medicine–because the stress was killing him. Now makes about a third as much, and much h happier.
I left a midlevel administrative//advising/counseling job at a college with a sort of toxic boss, and went back to adjuncting. That serendipitously morphed into a full-time instructor job that pays about what the first job paid, but I didn’t know that would happen when I left.
Peace of mind and a reasonable stress level are much more important to us than is money.
There’s no severance package for staff, so that’s not an issue here. Toxic in the sense that I’ve been made aware of my boss’ deep dislike of my personality – not my work, my personality — but she sees no reason we can’t continue to work together successfully and seems puzzled that I would be disturbed by her assessment. Dislike deep enough to reject me for a position in favor of someone with zero experience but still expect me to train the newbie. And tell me all this.
I stay at my job for these reasons: pension and flexibility. I could leave now and collect 84% of my retirement, but I would not feel comfortable leaving til I know where my D class of 2018 will end up in college and what the cost will be. I absolutely despise my boss. I have looked elsewhere within my company but think my age is a deterrent to hiring managers. I could look for a job at another company, but if I leave, I cannot collect my full pension til 65. If I stay I can collect at 60.
@greenbutton, if your boss really dislikes you, it’s tempting to want to quit. Every day, you’re walking into a situation where you know you can’t win. However, if you quit, you get nothing. If there’s a chance she might really misbehave and you could get something out of it – embarrassing her, showing to management what she’s really like, revenge, or even just karma – it might be worth it to hang in there.
When I was in my horrible, terrible toxic situation, I just kept telling myself everyday, “This is not my real life. This is temporary. In my real life, people love me and respect me This place is nuts.”
It helped. Of course, only to a certain extent.
I’m doing it right now…or trying to do it. At 60 years of age. I have high hopes that my last couple years working will be less toxic. You could be writing my story @greenbutton Whatever you decide, good wishes to you.
@greenbutton - been there. Left the organization last year. Actually, I was pushed out. From the start of the year I thought I could get through it or it would get better. It didn’t. Things finally came to a head and I moved into a different organization at the same company at the end of last year. I am much, much less stressed and definitely happier. It was never going to get better and nothing I could do was going to change a senior manager’s opinion of me. I ended up in the job my replacement had. She loves it. Go figure. Sometimes, you just have to figure out when to cut out and do it.
I left teaching in a public school due to very high stress and an awful principal; quit with one day’s notice after 18 years in education, during which I hardly missed a day. (There was a great replacement teacher waiting in the wings, so didn’t leave the kids abandoned.). I just couldn’t stand to get up at 5:00am another day and just couldn’t face the 12-hour work days and having to be constantly “on.” I was out of work for two months, then got hired at a clerical level job in my earlier profession, 4 months later became assistant manager, and now work as the manager. Pay is much better, and I love my job, and I feel so relaxed!
Two years ago, when I was 58, I left the job where I’d been for 19 years because of my own “toxic” work situation – namely, my primary boss, who had major anger management issues and snarled and/or yelled at me (and just about everyone else who worked for him) almost every day for most of those years. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! The last straw was when my 94-year old father was very, very ill, and my boss asked me how much time I planned to take off if he died (after all, “when my parents died, I had to sit shiva, but I know you’re not observant, so how much time do you really need? And besides, we’re really busy right now”), and I felt pressured/bullied into saying “maybe a day or so,” and then when my father died a few days later and I realized that I couldn’t possibly come back after one day, or even work at home the next day, he basically had a tantrum and accused me of letting him and the firm down. Never mind that I was entitled under the firm’s policy to three days’ bereavement leave (which I only realized later).
That was it, and I quit a few days later, without having gone back in. (I did go back for a couple of weeks later on, after quitting, in order to go through 19 years of files and figure out what had to be kept and where it went, and to meet with the people who were taking over my cases, etc., even though I wasn’t paid for the time that took.) I know I should have waited until I had another job lined up, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. I’m still unemployed after all this time, and paying my rent at this point out of my not-so-ample retirement funds, since my savings are otherwise depleted – I haven’t talked about it here or elsewhere, because it’s embarrassing, and I hate hearing myself complain about how hard it is to get a job at my age, never mind in light of certain other aspects of my history (which aren’t necessarily apparent from my resume or even from meeting me in person). But I haven’t regretted what I did for one single instant. I don’t care if I never get a job again; I’m glad I quit. I should have quit years ago. Both because of my boss, and because after 35 years of doing primarily commercial litigation (with employment litigation as a secondary specialization), I was pretty much tired of the former. And not so enamored of the idea of spending my entire career in the law firm world. (Something I was reminded of when my father died, given that he spent 63 years at the same firm.)
A couple of years ago, I quit my employer of 15 years for a combination of push & pull factors. It was so worth it to go.
I nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to decide whether to leave. I look back now and wonder what all the fuss was about.
Not sure how relevant the “late in life” aspect is. For those of us with 20 more years left in the workplace the light at the end of the tunnel is so much farther.
Anyway, my story is - my workplace of 7 years became unbearable due to changes in the client organization. I moved to another project, keeping my seniority and comp. However, the new project proved even worse. While I wasn’t attacked personally or humiliated too often, people around me were treated appallingly and I just could not bear it. Everyday I had to talk myself into going to the office.
I started looking for a new job 2 months into the new project, but it was slow going even though I was willing to take a pay cut. Eventually took a new job that pays better but the title is lower. OF COURSE I was sold a bill of goods… the work pace is excruciatingly slow, and I have not “clicked” with my manager, who is also new in the organization and cannot, or won’t, help me grow my own network. But everyone is nice, there is less stress, I am finding ways to use the time productively (cough CC cough), and let’s not forget a steady paycheck. It certainly beats the previous projects that had a lot going on but made me physically ill.
Bottom line, no workplace is perfect, but there are some faults we can tolerate and others that truly poison our minds and bodies. It is OK to escape a bad environment. When you know it’s time to go… you know.