Downsizing, reorganization, and new lean-and-mean policies haven't made your job intolerable — you are, after all, tolerating it — but you're hanging on by your fingernails.
You're so unhappy that if you could find a way to leave, you would. You've tried looking around, but economic conditions just aren't improving fast enough to have made enough of a difference.
So there you are. Stuck. For now, anyway. Monday mornings are the worst part. Except for Tuesday, and all the others. How will you ever find a way to keep sane until you can eject?
Here are some suggestions for finding ways to cope until you can find something you truly love…or something that at least doesn't hurt so much.
- Check your assessment of conditions
- Yes, economic conditions do seem bleak, but be alert to changes. Strive to be the first to recognize the opportunity to make a new start somewhere else.
- Reframe the trap as a choice
- For most of us, the feeling of being trapped makes almost any job intolerable. But are you really trapped? Or are you choosing not to quit because you don't want to be unemployed? It's not a very attractive choice, I admit, but it is definitely a choice. By deciding to stay in a job you dislike, you've taken the best choice, and you don't like it much, but you aren't trapped.
- Use the time machine
- Step into the time machine. Travel to three years from now, and look back on what you did now. You waited until you could discover the right opportunity, or at least, a "right enough" opportunity. You didn't burn bridges. For most of us, the feeling of
being trapped makes almost
any job intolerableYou didn't alienate colleagues, or your boss. You did your best to perform to your highest standard. It was difficult, but looking back on it from three years into the future, it was the right thing to do. You eventually found a job you love. - Make your job more fun
- Solve this problem: How can I make my job more fun? Music? Bring your MP3 player to work. More work you like and less work you don't? Maybe your boss can help with that. Tired of travel? Maybe you can make the travel you have more fun.
- Trouble with someone in particular?
- A boss, a rival, a co-worker, whoever it is, there's usually something you can do to make the trouble a little less troublesome. Get a coach, find a counselor. View the trouble as a chance to learn how to deal with trouble.
Most important, recognize that for now, this is the only job. It's the one you have. Almost certainly there are some good things about it. Remind yourself what those good things are, and keep them in the center of your attention. Then do great work. Top Next Issue
Love the work but not the job? Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? This ebook looks at what we can do to get more out of life at work. It helps you get moving again! Read Go For It! Sometimes It's Easier If You Run, filled with tips and techniques for putting zing into your work life. Order Now!
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
- Email Antics: II
- Nearly everyone complains that email is a time waster. Yet much of the problem results from our own
actions. Here's Part II of a little catalog of things we do that help waste our time.
- Communication Refactoring in Organizations
- Inadequate communication between units of large organizations is one factor that maintains the dysfunction
of "silo" structures in large organizations, limiting their ability to act coherently. Communication
refactoring can help large organizations to see themselves as wholes.
- Embolalia and Stuff Like That: II
- Continuing our exploration of embolalia — filler syllables, filler words, and filler phrases —
let us examine the more complex forms. Some of them are so complex that they appear to be actual content,
even when what they contain is little more than "um."
- The Power and Hazards of Anecdotes: II
- Anecdotes are powerful tools of persuasion, but with that power comes a risk that we might become persuaded
of false positions. Here is Part II of a set of examples illustrating some hazards of anecdotes.
- Disjoint Awareness: Systematics
- Organizations use some policies and processes that can cause people in collaborations to have inaccurate
understandings of what each other is doing. Performance management, politics, and resource allocation
processes can all contribute to disjoint awareness.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming January 1: The Storming Puzzle: II
- For some task-oriented work groups, Tuckman's model of small group development doesn't seem to fit. Storming seems to be absent, or Storming never ends. To learn how this illusion forms, look closely at Satir's Change Model and at what we call a task-oriented work group. Available here and by RSS on January 1.
- And on January 8: The Storming Puzzle: III
- For some task-oriented work groups, Tuckman's model of small group development seems not to fit. Storming seems to be either absent or continuous. To learn how this illusion forms, look closely at the processes that can precipitate episodes of Storming in task-oriented work groups. Available here and by RSS on January 8.
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