HSSJ: The Signs?

For those of you who have been in HSSJs, what were the signs before it got that far, you know, maybe when it was still at the plain old J step or even the SSJ step but not quite yet an awful-I-have-to-get-out-of-here-HSSJ? Looking back, were there events or feelings you found you should have listened to sooner?

(HSSJ = Horrible Soul-Sucking Job)

I don't mean for this to sound smartass, but it may.

I think that humans need new scenery, new horizons, new--whatever--every so often. I think many people (or at least a certain kind of person) need to move to a new job every 5 - 10 years. Even if you (the generic you) are doing the same thing, you are doing it in a new environment with new people, new path to work, new other stuff. These kinds of changes help to overcome being too focused on the work environment that we may find to be unsupportive and SS. Most every work environment has degrees of dysfunction if you stay long enough for it to reveal itself.

I didn't take my own advice, I consciously stayed in my last job for a long time and it was pretty boring there for a while. Fortunately, a whole lot of dysfunction changed recently and real progress is being made, and I've got new and interesting projects. It's great!

But back to your question. It's not realistic to ignore the dysfunction of a workplace. Or maybe you (the generic again) are experiencing soul suckingness because you are bored. Again, the new environment will address that--for a while.

Still I am not answering your question to define what an HSSJ really looks like, am meandering around it. I suppose that if I go to work every day for a week, and not one project or task lights a fire of interest in me, if it is all routine stuff or problems that I've seen many times that are boring to me, I guess that would be my definition of an HSSJ. My first job was all consuming (because I was learning, but also the place was horrifically understaffed) and I thought about it day and night, I worked 50 - 60 hours/week, but it wasn't HSSJ--it was invigorating and fascinating and I loved it, taxing as it was.

If we worker bees are forced to attend work, some of it had better be interesting or else we are in the HSSJ. My parents always said that you don't go to college to get a well paying job necessarily, you go to college to get a job that will keep you engaged and interested, you can choose your work. My uncles were trademen or automobile line workers and made same or more money than my parents, but brain challanges? Not in their work.

DD (age31)surprised me recently by saying she HAD to find a new job. Last I heard she was quite happy there so I asked her what was going on. A board member had entered the scene and was "micro-managing" projects - looking over her shoulder, being critical etc. She also has little free time due to many projects which include after hours and weekend events. She has been there for six years though so probably time to move on anyway if things like that are setting her off. For me, the first signs were an aching boredom which I should have dealt with much sooner. If you let that go too long, it becomes hard to move beyond it.

It's kind of in the nature of jobs to be soul sucking (jobs suck). Horrible? An abusive boss would do it. Other reasons I'd consider leaving: job not advancing my career, commute getting annoying, job intruding way beyond it's proper 40 hours. But I expect to be fairly bored at jobs, I'd be utterly amazed if I ever wasn't.

Hmm, looking back it's hard to remember exactly. (Not my current job, which is boring, and annoying at times, but not a HSSJ). There was a gut feeling that I shouldn't be there. I was thinking about early retirement almost immediately at my first job. Now I think about early retirement primarily because of the weather, not the job.

Then there was also the dreading going to work, especially on Mondays. Eventually there was the burn out, the exhaustion, the crying at work. But that was later in the process.

Afterwards, once I was out, there were the bad dreams, the horrible feeling if I even thought about ever doing the job again, the inability to emotionally deal with things related to the job. Not to minimize other people's issues, but I did feel I was experiencing some PTSD. Not the kind from a sudden traumatic incident, but the kind that comes on slowly from years and years of dealing with terrible things. It took years to feel recovered from the job. Finally now, that I've been out 7.5 years, the dreams are minimal and I'm not triggered the way I used to be.

For me it was not the job-I actually loved it but the horrible co-worker's etc. I actually left after 3.5 years because it was killing my soul. Went to another state and did the very same job until I retired and loved it. It can be many different things for many people. The first thing I would think on sunday am when walking to my coffee pot was that the next day I would have to go to work. Ugh! You know in your gut when it is horrible!

At the organization where I previously worked, I always knew there was dysfunction but I was able to work around it for the most part. That all changed in one fateful day. I was in the middle of an extended business trip (the first one I had made away from my second child, who was then a little over a year old). I had accomplished some pretty major stuff and was actually getting ready to tell my boss I was ready to return to full-time work (I had gone part time at his suggestion when I came back from maternity leave). I'd had some really good project development meetings that day and was feeling pretty good. Then I opened my email to find a fateful message that informed the entire organization that we were having another organizational restructuring. Fine, no big deal. That was about the fourth one we'd been through at that point. EXCEPT: the restructuring meant they had created a position that would have been perfect for me, but they had already hired someone for it. WITHOUT TELLING ME THEY WERE CREATING IT! And he had no sectoral experience whatsoever. Oh, and then when I opened the new organizational chart they had created, I wasn't even on it. Me/my position had literally been left out of the new arrangement.

It was pretty much all downhill from there. I tried to play nice, but there were all kinds of creative antics after that point, and I ended up completely demoralized and psychologically traumatized. I had really given my heart and soul to the organization, so it was incredibly painful. It SHOULD have been my dream job, and it turned into a nightmare.

Signs I should have been more attentive to:

Psycho boss who turned on me had done it to other people. That was his pattern. He would get very close to someone, and then turn around and destroy them. I was next in line.

When psycho boss suggested I go part time, that was actually the beginning of the end. I thought he was being nice, but what really happened was he got a nearly full-time effort from me for part-time pay.

Psycho boss had a habit of misremembering the content of key conversations. I eventually learned to document every single phone call with him with a follow up email summarizing main points and action items agreed on. I also saved every communication with him.

Anything that has happened to other people can happen to you. It doesn't matter if you are the golden child today. You may be set up and turn into the "deadbeat" tomorrow. People can be incredibly devious and destructive when their own interests are at stake.

Best lesson learned: YOU DON'T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH BEING MISTREATED!!!!! There are lots of jobs out there, and sometimes the ones that don't appear to be the best fit will actually be the best for you. I have thrived in my new organization, and have some real potential for growth here. Not that it doesn't have its dysfunction, as well. But I'm a little more tolerant of it and able to stay out of the cesspools, and do some pretty great stuff when I put my mind/energy to it.

Hope your job doesn't turn out to be a SSJ or HSSJ, but if it is looking like it might then the arrival of the baby may be a good time to reevaluate and see what your other options are.

Well, there are two parts to my answer:

1) I had a really HSSJ, or so I thought. I had a low-level job as a word processor (a typist, basically) and I had taken it just for the health insurance. But then I read Stephen Covey's 7 Habits book, and the chapter on looking at and expanding you circle of influence really, really struck a chord big time. After I read that book, I left my job--but not physically--attitudinally. I had the same job, but different attitude. I went in every day with a sense of gratitude and purpose, even though a was just turning out words on a page for the "smart" people there. I pinned MLK's quote about streetsweepers* on my bulletin board. As a result of that book, I ultimately became one of those "smart" people.

2) After I had that career shift in the company as a direct result of an attitude adjustment on my part, I had several years with the company, moving up in the ranks, and loving my job. But one day the joy left. I got to the point where I felt I could be of more service if I focused on one part of my job. And I didn't really enjoy managing. And my own manager was taking away from me the parts of my job that I really loved. I tried to communicate that to him, but he told me I was in too high a position to do those things myself--I needed to delegate. So I left--although I never felt my job was horrible. The signs for leaving were: a) a recognition that I was "off track" in terms of the type of work I really loved and wanted to do, b) a boss who had diminished my ability to do that, c) an increase in the type of work I felt unsuited to do, d) long, long hours at this job and no time for more rewarding activities in my life and e) a habit of coming to work and crying at my desk (that was my key tip-off).

So I left.


*
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

For me a job became HSSJ while I was dealing with infertility, fertility treatments, and then two babies in a row. I felt I had to keep my job but really just wanted to be a full-time mom. Had a mental breakdown about 4 mts after baby number #2 and quit in the middle of the night (with a letter and my keys in the mail drop) and escaped to the farm for two weeks of letting my mom care for the babies while I laid in the fields and listened to the grass grow.

Let's see ... for me it was:

- realizing that, on balance, I'd spend as many extra hours preparing for a few days vacation as I spent on the vacation itself (while we were being urged to take vacation because it met corporate "wellness" goals and we'd lose it if we didn't take it);
- observing the hypocrisy of having to plan my work activities and budget a year in advance while priorities changed on a monthly basis (but rarely changed deadlines or budgets), and then getting rated down on my performance review for not accomplishing my written goals O.o ;
- being forced to switch from software tools that got the job done to a system three times the size that was half-baked, buggy as $&*#, poorly-documented, and which came with less support than an IKEA instruction sheet. So much for input from the people using the tool. We theorize the CIO must have been at one of the world's best country clubs when that sale was made;
- being exhorted to work ever smarter while being saddled with increasing amounts of make-work bureaucracy. The height of this was coming back early from a vacation to attend training that had been set up in my absence, sitting down in my chair just before the class started, and having my supervisor instant-message me that she needed me to budget for my next year's training and report back to her within the next two hours. My suggestion that it didn’t really matter once our byzantine budgeting system kicked in, months hence, was not well-received. So administrivia is more important than gaining skills? Riiiiight.... This was the same regime that required us to keep track of our work in three separate time-tracking systems, none of which spoke to one another and one of which wasn't used beyond the checkbox of completing that particular "TPR" report on time.

When I went in to work each morning wondering what new nonsense would present itself, my work became an HSJ. I can still remember the moment a few months later when I burned out on it completely. *shudder*