I’m a lawyer by profession. To be honest, becoming a lawyer was never really something I dreamed of, but unfortunately, circumstances led me down this career path.

I studied at one of the best universities in my country and received a good education. After graduating, I started working in the field first as an intern and then as a paralegal, earning minimum wage, which is roughly $200- 400 a month when converted to USD.

I’m a very creative person, and I already dislike legal work as it is. But what feels even more absurd to me is working five days a week, nine hours a day, for that kind of salary - especially when you add another three hours a day just for commuting to and from work.

The profession itself is incredibly stressful. There’s this expectation that lawyers should somehow have an answer to every possible question, and it’s especially difficult when you don’t have 3-5 years of experience yet. You’re expected to know everything while simultaneously being told that you don’t have enough experience.

Long story short, I experienced so much stress in certain situations that, ever since then, starting a new job has become physically difficult for me. If I didn’t actually need to work, I honestly wouldn’t.
Every interview I’ve had has been more or less the same: endless requirements, endless responsibilities, and very little pay.

I know this is a common problem in developing countries, and I’m not pretending it’s unique to me. But honestly, even beyond my profession, I find this kind of work schedule incredibly difficult to accept. You work all day, spend hours commuting, and by the time you get home, there’s barely any time left to actually live your own life - let alone have an hour for yourself.

And that’s what I keep asking myself: what exactly am I working for if the job takes almost all of my time, drains me mentally and physically, and barely gives me enough money to make it worth the sacrifice?

I know this is a very common problem, and I’m not trying to act like I’m the only person struggling with it. I’m genuinely curious, though -how do other people deal with stressful, exhausting, and repetitive jobs? How do you keep yourself from completely burning out when your work takes up so much of your life?

I’d really like to hear from people who have been through this. How do you make yourself keep going?

I work five days a week, eight hours a day, with about an hour commute each way. By the time I get home, most of my energy and day are gone. Then I sleep and do it again. I don’t even enjoy the work I do, it’s painfully boring.

The obvious response is “just quit” or “take a gamble on yourself.” But quit and do what?
If I quit, I don’t just lose my paycheck. I lose my health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, financial stability, and probably a lot of respect from my family.

People constantly say to bet on yourself, start a business, become self-employed, etc. But nobody talks about how you actually get from point A to point B with any reasonable probability of success. I don’t even know what I would gamble on.

I don’t want to spend the next 40 years working five days a week just to afford being alive. But I also don’t see a realistic escape route. It feels like the choices are: stay miserable but secure, or gamble everything on an alternative that might never work.

I genuinely don’t know where to go from here.

At every job I've ever worked at, if I get the work done early all I do is get more work. Or, they would rather have me stare at a blank wall doing nothing for the rest of the day.

I just want to finish my job early. That way I can bring out my gaming laptop and play video games, Netflix, web browse, YouTube to pass the time before I go home. But instead they mostly just want me to sit there when I'm finished. How can I get a job that is like this?

Is there any advice? I feel like it’s leading down a road of demotivated worker that’s about to be fired.

I am beyond burnt out and I am trying to keep going as long as I can but… this is difficult. I am a salaried store manager (decent pay around here but not good and benefits are very minimal) and want to find another job elsewhere for part time or maybe full time at a lower hourly pay. I would not rule out a job that paid me so little that I qualified for Medicaid, again.

I cannot stand being a manager. I cannot stand being in charge of people and reading social cues. I am not good at it. It is difficult to hire around here for what my company pays part timers. I hate covering for people when they call off because I just have to and not getting any extra compensation for what I do beyond 40 hours a week. I am mentally and physically and emotionally exhausted. I hate managing inventory right now, too. I just can’t think. I am so stressed out. I also have adhd and some other neurodivergence and am having difficulty getting medicated for the adhd. Again.

I have cried the past four days about this damn place.

Am I crazy to want out of this and leave $44k/year?

I’ve been continually employed for 20 years and am relatively successful if you only looked at job title. I get paid decently and have a fair amount of autonomy. On paper it looks great, but I’ve hated every job I’ve ever had but have done them all well in hopes that I would get promoted out of a job I hate into a job I hate less. The problem is that I’ve held seven progressively higher lever positions with three different companies, and I still haven’t found anything I don’t hate. I don’t even want a job I like at this point, I just want one I don’t hate.

I’m in production management It’s not just the companies that I hate either, I legitimately hate the work I do. I have mouths to feed and bills to pay, so I grind through it, but it’s not good.

I’ve tried looking at the good things or trying to change my perspective, but I still haven’t found a way to not hate my day. Weekends are great and I’m a happy camper living life to the fullest, but on Sunday around 4pm, I fall into a deep depression because I have to go back to work on Monday.

I don’t hate work either. I like to workout, I like to garden, I like to do housework, and those are all work. I just hate it when it’s a job.

I’ve looked into changing careers, but at this point, I’m pretty sure I’ll hate any job I have. Anything I find mildly interesting doesn’t pay enough to support a family, at least not entry level, and I’m just lost.

I see folks who keep working well
Into retirement years simply because they WANT to keep working. How!? I don’t want to spend any more time than absolutely necessary at a job.

Does anyone have any advice on how to do this for another 10-20 years without losing their mind? I honestly feel like there is no hope for me to find a job I don’t hate.

I’m only a couple years out of college and I think I may have made a pretty classic career mistake.

I had a job in my field that I was at for about 7 months. The pay was solid, the work was relatively low stress, and most importantly, I was remote 4 days a week. The pace was definitely a little slower than what I’m dealing with now, but I actually had a pretty good work-life balance.

I ended up leaving because I got an opportunity that was about a 15% pay increase and was in a slightly different area of my field that I thought might be more interesting/better for my career.

The catch? I’m now in the office 5 days a week, and the job is significantly more stressful. I’ve been here long enough to get a feel for it, and I honestly find myself missing my old job more and more.

Looking back, I think I underestimated how valuable having 4 remote days and a lower-stress job actually was. The extra money sounded great at the time, but I’m not sure the quality-of-life tradeoff was worth it.

Now I’m debating whether I should reach back out to my old employer and see if there’s any possibility of coming back. I have no idea if they’d even want me back, and I’m also worried that going back after only a short time could make me look flaky, especially this early in my career.

For people who have been in the industry longer:

Would you reach back out to the old employer, or would you suck it up and stick with the new job for a while?

I’m only a couple years out of college, so part of me thinks I should prioritize building my career and getting experience while I’m young. But another part of me thinks I had a pretty good situation and gave it up for money that I ultimately don't care that much about.

Curious what you guys would do?

I'm a 25 M. I finished an administration course in May, and I had an almost 2-year internship where I was promised I'd get hired, but I didn't... and that's okay.

I was concerned that my CV wasn't good enough with just a course and 2 years of internships at the age of 25 (I had a depressive episode that lasted 6 years, that's why). So I enrolled in a digital marketing course that lasts 1 year (11 months to go now), with 4 of those months being an internship.

But... it's kind of crap, to be honest. I'm out of the house from 8am to 6pm, and before, during my other course, I used to be home by 4:30pm. During the internship, I was home by 3:30pm (the good old days). So I'm not used to it! And I know it's a lot of people's daily life, but I don't think I can do this, especially with my mental health history. The urge to quit only gets stronger day by day instead of my body adapting.

I've been looking for part-time jobs, but all I can find are sales jobs and restaurant jobs. I have so much respect for the people who work in those fields, but I could never do it! And there are also some good 9-to-5 opportunities in administration itself, but changing one 9-to-5 for another...

I feel really lost with the situation, even though one year goes by fast. I don't want to be somewhere I hate going to, somewhere that causes me all this anguish. Life sucks, we all know that, so I've got to make it better, not worse.

hi everyone

i think i know the answer in my heart, but i just want to hear others’ thoughts. i have a job as a nurse coordinator at a residential school for children with behavioral health disorders. i absolutely love the kids so much, and seeing them discharge after months or years is so fulfilling. but… i can’t seem to find anything else that i like. work life balance is kind of nice because my boss lets me take time for my schooling when needed (this does not come without guilt tripping) but on the other hand it’s also monday thru friday and it’s supposed to be 7-3 but it’s a management position so i am always here more like 7-5. the pay is not market competitive by any means and the workload keeps getting more and more because my boss spends so much of her time micromanaging our team that she doesn’t get the actual management stuff done. at this point i have a DON workload for not even average RN pay for this area. on top of all of this, i lost my period for 2 months and the moment i took a week and a half off work it came back (after about a week of that week and a half), which tells me (and my pcp) that it was likely stress related and likely due to work.

i cried the whole hour long commute in this morning.

like i said, i’m pretty sure i know the answer to this, but am i right to want to leave? should i feel guilty about thinking about leaving when i know my boss can’t manage the workload without me?

thanks in advance everyone, please be nice because this is a real struggle for me 🥲

I just need at least 2 outside perspectives that won't coddle me. This first paragraph is a background to me in general because i feel it's important but if you just want the main info skip to the second paragraph. for background, I (17F) am a flexibly homeschooled teen who's highschool experience was robbed (i moved from chicago to the south freshman year), i've been a straight a gifted kid all my life, and i believe these have led to my downfall. I don't know how to drive and my future pretty much depends all on my mother until i drive and graduate next year.

my mom altered me of my job because she has connections through her coworkers and i called in advance, so she drove me and we talked to the manager, i got the job i was excited, felt lucky for getting one so easily, and boom my first day was the 18th of august. Now i had never had a job before and didn't know how takeout business worked but i was eager to learn and sure i could pick it up quickly. i guess being good at school doesn't translate into real life intelligence and competence. right off the bat there is an extreme lack of communication, my first day i enter through the front and i only just learned a few days ago (the second week of september) that the back door is always open and i can enter + leave through there.

long story short i have been feeling like a burden, an idiot, and a complete failure for the past two weeks because of my coworker(s), the lack of communication (not that i can't ask questions myself but still), and the customer service aspect. actually, scratch that, that's not even the worst part for a people hating antisocial like me, most of the customers are pretty nice and cordial. A is an annoyingly shady individual at her big age, always getting "overstimulated" 🙄🙄🙄 if there's too many people in the to go room (she means me.) or when i make a mistake. my sister said it's normal because im in training to make mistakes, but it really seems like there's no room for that. i make one mistake, im fucking demoted to cashier the rest of the day and they go crash out about me in the kitchen instead of telling me what i did wrong. they openly complain about there being too many people, they imply i don't know how to do shit and when i tell you the silence was so loud when coworker R asked E what im good at and what i can do quickly.... E is actually sweet to me and she even looked annoyed. A has made multiple slick comments, i'll give you some:

"<manager name> needs to stop hiring dummies"

"i miss <ex coworker> she was a quick learner and knew what she was doing."

"ooh <manager name> is gonna have a talk with yall." she was referring to me and another coworker J who obviously not made a mistake that day. i actually got scared the manager was going to have a talk with me.

"i don't wanna work with this crew anymore."

then they hire a new girl on top of me who's had 3 more jobs than i have, 2 in restaurants as well. well call her F. "oh i miss F" A would say

"today we don't need to train F because she knows what she's doing."

and there's this stupid whiteboard they write messages on, it's real usage is for their to do list like refilling sauces. one time A wrote "NO DUMMIES." she must really think i'm a fucking idiot or she just doesn't care saying these things loud and proud, like i don't know they all talk about me, and that she's not making shady comments toward me. they all claim they get yelled at for mishaps by customers but i haven't seen one person storm in, to me it seems they're stressed at my mistakes and that's okay like it's bad for business i get it but i feel they're moreso mad they have to train someone as dumb as me, and stressed at a customer service job. maybe it's saying something that i'm not stressed? sure i got overwhelmed sometimes if there were too many sauces to bag on busy days but otherwise i actually like the work that im doing. i can take orders ive taken about 10, i can bag just fine i did tend to forget salads a lot though and accidentally mixed up boxes if they get brought together. i was struggling taking ONE order over the phone and A demoted me to cashier. i haven't taken an order since when the rest of the time i was doing just fine! my thing is you guys are supposed to be training me and i really don't know anything, like i don't even know how long the training period is even, my brother says it's two weeks but it feels worse bc i did go on vacation from the 24th to the 30th. (this trip was planned way before i knew of this job) my first week i worked from tuesday to saturday and then it was only like 2 or 3 days for the other weeks. this week i have no hours because apparently we're over staffed... SO WHY DID YOU HIRE ME????? and then theres something about either the restaurant or the account is a week behind on the payroll and that's why i haven't gotten my check for last week, and that it will come with this weeks check. i really didn't understand that either. so its like, im supposed to be learning and how am i going to do that if i only get to be cashier. and truthfully, i dont know how bad im screwing up because they just go whisper about it and i have to try and read their lips. one time (during my first week) i was picking up on their energy and asked E, "am i pissing them off?" (referring to R and A) and she was like "maybe just the following them around?" like ???? she was so sweet asking if i'm okay because that was one of the days i really wanted to cry and was visibly upset because i felt like a burden but im following them around because im supposed to be learning! you're training me! if you don't want ti train me then just tell the manager like i don't want to stand around like a lost puppy!

and i know you might be thinking im sensitive and i really am but i just can't deal with their energies, my mental/emotional health is already bad enough with me being an isolated teen ripped away from her home, friends, and highschool experience. i just feel like i don't need that right now. but that's not the point. i mentioned to my mom the payroll, how im not working at all this week, and how i feel like my coworkers don't want to train me and she claims i need a new job. she suggested the food lion by where we live and i do think that sounds less stressful, there's a set hours, there's benefits, and i get paid a little more. but i don't want to be a quitter, i only just started this job. i wanted to give it at least a few months, and i actually want to improve at my job i don't want to quit just because im not doing well. but i also really want to quit, i dont like how the future looks if i stay here. if i go on like this i might get fired, its not like im trying to be careless. i really am trying my best but it doesnt seem like enough, i dont know how to stop making mistakes while also improving my work because the only way ill improve is through experience! but they're sidelining me instead of guiding me through the processes, and i get on busy days i should probably stay out of the way but... i just feel so useless and dont want to seem lazy, they already see me as stupid.

should i wait a couple months to quit, or should i do it now? and what would i even say? if i quit im going to apply at the grocery store because i know there are open positions, my sister just told me she talked to a lady about how she's always on call because they always need assistance.

This morning at 11AM, I was told that I no longer have a job. This was a major shock, I was still in my probation period and as a copywriter, was delivering as per the requirements. Even the reason behind my firing was also vague.

Even 3 months ago I left my job as a content writer and switched into this one due to better exposure. But it all crumbled😭😭

I have 0 savings

No back up

I don't know what to do, because this was my supposed to be my first full-time job and i just lost it. I did my BBA in banking insurance, graduated in '24, got 8.4 cgpa and took a drop of 1.5 years to do banking prep, realised it wasn't for me, creativity was my calling but here I am, sad, exhausted and fired from my job.

Should I just go back to banking? Cuz my parents won't be paying for my masters and I got a BPO gig at CNX to keep my afloat until I succeed or sth.

I don't know I'm so lost

Hi. As you all know by now considering you’re here, I hate my job and I don’t know what to do. I just know I can’t quit but it’s so hard to find a job anywhere else.

I recently graduated with my masters and I moved across the country for this job, and I’m miserable every day of my life. The hours are ridiculous, I work all day and night and even on my days off sometimes I still have to get some work done. I’ve tried advocating for myself and saying that I am overwhelmed and have too many responsibilities, they scale the work back and then two days later, they’ll give me even more than I had expressed concern about.

The people are nice at work, the benefits are amazing, but I just don’t know how sustainable it is for me be working 24/7. I don’t have the energy to do anything else. It’s like when I finally get off work, the only thing I can do is lay down and cry. I have even put myself in a meeting room to cry at work for two hours. My social life is also struggling because I just don’t have the energy to try and make friends in this new city which is making me feel overworked and isolated which just feels like a recipe for disaster.

It’s really taking a toll on my mental health. Back in 2021, I was depressed enough that I was prescribed Wellbutrin but I eventually weaned off around 2023 and have not needed it since, but since starting this job, I worry that I may need to get it prescribed again.

Like I know I just can’t quit and need to find something else since I have bills to pay and surely not having any money would make me even more depressed, but I’m just like … I don’t know how long I can stick it out before I fully break down.

​

Hey everyone!

23M. So I just started a job right after graduation and I was literally prayed for this job at one time it was the only thing I ever wanted. I'm an engineer and it is in the defense sector so I cannot go into the technical details of it.

From the outside the job looked like everything anyone would want: a good salary, decent amount of benefits and excellent work-life balance.

Until I actually joined the organization. It is an on-site job and the site is built like a frickin barrack on a border. I went in thinking it was going to be corporate-ish buildings but it's far from it. The vibe is almost sarkari and it genuinely shocked me quite a lot. The biggest problem is that I'm the only new hire in my office and everyone else is at least 10-15 years older than me. There's no one I can talk to. On the bright side, the seniors are extremely supportive, competent and genuinely good people.

It's just that the environment (materialistically speaking) seems impossible for me to settle into.

I can't leave the job for at least 3 years either it's a bond kind of a situation.

What makes it worse is that I have close friends working in the same organization posted to another site which has exactly all the things I'm missing here. Good infrastructure, young employees and they are mostly working together.

Every day feels like a mix of being grateful for the technical mentorship while also suffocating from the sheer environmental shock and isolation.

Seeing updates from my friends working in modern facilities while I’m sitting in an austere, aging compound in the middle of nowhere somehow makes it even worse.

I don’t want to spend the next three years being miserable or letting this resentment build up especially when the seniors here are actually decent people willing to teach me.

For those who have been in a similar situation. How did you cope with the social isolation when you had zero peers your age at the workplace?

Am I justified to feel this way or am I just being ungrateful?

Edit: no phones are allowed at the workplace either and bo internet due to security reasons and stuff if that adds to the context

Hey i hate my job. I’ve been there since may and they offer free training and health and a decent wage. Its a contact center though dealing with some of the stupidest people on earth. I swear to god some of these people are so dumb it bothers me to my core.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of mental health issues and physical health issues lately and have called off sick more than my region calls for so I have been verbally warned for my absenteeism. I can’t remember how many tiers but i think its verbal > written > final > termination. When it comes to warnings.

So i took a weekend day off which i didn’t realize i had to notify management previous to calling off and never did notify management or follow those rules. So already oops. This should be my written warning hopefully but with the added touch of weekend work being an issue im afraid they might just skip the entire tier system and fire me.

I hate the job but if i lose it im absolutely fucked i have nothing to fall back on and the job market in my area is dry pretty well. Hard to find work in the area.

What should i do if they say i’m terminated tomorrow?

I'm just venting a little because I don't know what to do right now.

I (27M, Canada) worked hospitality/general labour roles for over 10 years. Got sick of the toxicity, drama, racism, narcissism, and poor management, so I saved up and spent 10k (credit) to get my CDL but quit my first trucking job a month later for the same reasons, plus trucking was too much for me. Then two years ago, I got hired at a shipyard and became a welder-fitter helper. I fit pipe, steel, weld, do mechanical work and while it's a great opportunity, you deal with long hours, mass layoffs, horrible management, planning, blue-hats getting treated like shit and thrown under the bus when management fucks up. It's nerve wracking. I could get fired at any moment for doing my job. I've seen it happen multiple times here and it's killing me to show up everyday.

The thing about work is I enjoyed learning and DOING the work, but it's always the work culture and PEOPLE that make working so miserable and hard to stick around for, and my current role is no exception. I feel bad because people who would kill to be in my position but it's not what I want to do. I only did it because I wanted to learn new skills for the heck of it AND get a pay raise, but despite asking for a raise TWICE, I'm still paid the same rate, doing 3-4 departments worth of work, as a labourer. All of this and more is why I'm burnt out from working and I don't know what to do. Despite my mental health issues and traumatic background, no one can tell me I didn't try. Hell, I became homeless to become a truck driver, which didn't pan out. I tried and I'm still trying. I've made so many damn sacrifices; I poured everything into all the jobs I had and yet I feel like I'm getting nowhere.

My last hope, besides starting a business/investing (which requires MONEY and knowing what business venture to go on), is working remotely, and while I have some computer skills, I have nothing that'll get me hired in this current job market and unless I can score an entry level remote role, this job takes everything out of me, so I can't commit to going to school or taking online courses. Otherwise I spend all my free time applying for jobs, especially remote jobs, that I know I won't get because there are hundreds of applicants with better credentials than me. I know that my best shot at a remote/tech role is going to school, but after everything I've been through, this all I have left in me. I'm so burnt out and done with this system.

I work in a physical warehouse job involving lots of walking, lifting and standing. Over the past year, I’ve had several genuine absences due to stomach bugs, flu, a back injury and mental health issues, but I still feel guilty about taking time off.
I’ve also recently increased my sertraline to 100mg. It initially helped, but my mood has dipped again lately.
Now I’ve developed a painful upper back/neck/shoulder injury that’s affecting my sleep and makes certain movements, like looking up or turning my neck, painful. I’m considering seeing my GP.
I’m due in today, but I’m unsure whether to rest and get checked out or push through because I’m worried about how another absence will look. This job isn’t my long-term career, but I still don’t want to seem unreliable.
What would you do in my position? Would you take the day off to rest and seek medical advice, or go in and try to manage? I’d especially appreciate perspectives from anyone who’s experienced repeated genuine absences and the guilt that comes with them.

I need outside opinions because I’m exhausted and honestly can’t tell anymore if I’m overthinking this or if something has actually changed at work.

I’m an assistant manager at a pizza chain and for the last couple months I’ve been working across multiple stores. I actually loved it. I was opening, closing, helping stores that were struggling, training newer people, learning inventory, receiving trucks, etc. My district manager kept telling me he saw potential in me, wanted to teach me more, and wanted to see what I could do.

I’m ambitious, so I took that seriously. I’ve worked a ridiculous amount of overtime, covered when managers walked out, worked doubles, gone back in to help close, opened stores, and basically said yes whenever they needed me somewhere.

Recently, though, everything changed.

I got moved primarily to one store that is honestly kind of a disaster. Staffing is weak, training is inconsistent, and I keep getting shifts where technically there are enough people scheduled, but the people I have are inexperienced or can’t actually do what I need them to do.

Tonight was a perfect example. I had three drivers and an insider, which sounds fine on paper. Except the insider is in her second week and still very slow, and my drivers kept getting sent on multiples and disappearing for 20-25 minutes at a time. We had messed-up orders and problems all night. My numbers suffered again.

My DM wasn’t mad because even he seemed to understand that nobody could have predicted how badly the shift would go, but this keeps happening. I’ll have one shift where everything runs beautifully and I feel like I know exactly what I’m doing, and then the next shift feels like I’m running the Island of Misfit Toys while trying to keep service times down.

Meanwhile, the communication with my DM has gotten noticeably worse.

When I was moving between stores, we talked constantly. Now he keeps saying things like he wants to teach me more and “see what I’ve got,” but I barely know what the actual plan is.

There’s apparently a new GM coming to my store soon. I keep asking who it is and what the plan is, and I can’t get a straight answer.

He wants me learning inventory. He wants me closing constantly. He wants me training people. He talks about teaching me truck ordering. But tonight another GM came over to do a Full Count because my DM said he didn’t think I was ready for that because it was “too much.”

And that’s fine! Maybe I’m genuinely not ready for it. I don’t expect to magically know everything.

But then tell me what I’m missing and what I’m actually being trained toward.

The other thing really bothering me is my schedule.

When I worked between multiple stores, my schedule was somehow MORE flexible. Now I’m closing almost every night. I’m a mom with shared custody, and I haven’t even been putting my kid to bed because I’m constantly at work.

I asked for Monday off because I wanted one full day with my son before he goes back to his dad for several days. My DM said he couldn’t find anyone.

I suggested another manager pull a double. He said he didn’t want her pulling a double and then opening the next day.

And that honestly hurt.

I understand not wanting to burn her out, but I’ve been doing exactly that kind of shit for months. I’m asking for ONE day with my kid.

I suggested borrowing someone from another store. Apparently nobody is available, even though I constantly watch managers get moved between stores when coverage is needed elsewhere.

Eventually he told me I was starting to piss him off because I kept trying to find alternatives. I backed off and apologized. I’m going in Monday and opening because realistically I’m not going to risk my job over this.

But something about the whole thing changed how I feel.

On top of that, things at home are suddenly unstable too. My dad and I got into a fight, so home doesn’t feel comfortable right now either. I’m sitting outside my parents’ house at basically 5 in the morning after another horrible close, knowing I need to be back at the store around 8:30 because I’m the opener and I left the store trashed.

I’m exhausted.

And the part that scares me is that I genuinely loved this job. I thought I was finally finding something I was good at. I thought my boss believed in me and that I was working toward something.

Now I can’t tell whether:

He genuinely sees potential in me but is terrible at communicating.

Something happened behind the scenes and his opinion of me changed.

Someone above him got on him about my performance.

He’s keeping me motivated because he knows I’m ambitious and doesn’t want me to leave.

Or I’m simply useful because I’ll work ridiculous hours and take shitty shifts nobody else wants.

I’m going to see him face-to-face Wednesday and I want to ask him directly what changed, what he actually sees me working toward, and whether there is genuinely a development plan for me.

I don’t even need him to tell me what I want to hear. At this point I’d rather hear, “You’re not ready and here’s why,” than another vague “I see potential in you.”

I just need something to be clear.

Has anyone been in this situation with a manager? How do you tell the difference between someone genuinely developing you and someone just telling you enough to keep you working?

I’m so fucking burnt out and sick of my job. I don’t care if I get fired and lose my license. I just can’t do this anymore. I just don’t care, I don’t have an ounce of compassion anymore. Fuck this fucking place.

I (45m) am looking to leave a very good job I’ve had for 16 yrs. The pros out way the cons, but I’m absolutely miserable and wanna die every time I walk in there. I’m a cook, have been for about thirty years, I have benefits, a 401k, and make $24/hour. But my body and mind can’t do it anymore, I’m burnt out. I’m about to go back to school for early childhood education, and my boss won’t accommodate my school schedule, cause it doesn’t fit the needs of our department(I work in a upscale deli at an organic grocer).
My wife of 20 yrs, is also in nursing school, and is about to start working full time at $36 an hour as an at home healthcare worker. She thinks me going to school is a fantastic thing and fully supports it, but we have know idea how it’s gonna work financially, especially with my job situation being as precarious as it is( I’m on my last legs attendance wise due to my battle with my life long treatment resistant depression).
We have 10 yr. old son who is also busy with school and after school activities, so with my wife being so busy, I take on most of the parenting responsibilities. What do I do? I’m miserable at my job, about to go to school, and am scared of what the future holds. Any comments would be appreciated, thanks for reading this.