

Ask HN: Need advice on quitting a job.  - jobquitter

Hi HN,
  I am a new minted grad absolutely miserable at my new job (at a startup) where I was hopeful to do something better than what I am currently doing (which is writing one line of code in 2 months). I keep going through cycles of guilt (for wanting to quit my job), fear (will I get a job or not?) and dread (I am incredibly burnt out by the arbitrary and stochastic nature of the job market).  All my friends keep telling me to suck it up and work there and then quit only after I find a new job. I was wondering if I could get some advice to either confirm their opinions or on the other end?<p>Sorry for the scant amount of details on why I want to quit my job (more details will probably narrow down the situation and I would rather not get fired before quitting )<p>Thanks
======
acak
This may sound a bit too obvious but I'll say it anyway.

Don't quit your job without finding another one. Finding another job is tough
as it is - and your bargaining position, perceived 'employability' etc are
greatly diminished when you're applying without a current job.

You have an idea of what makes a great job. Go look for it. Believe that it
exists - and when you _really_ believe it exists, you will feel energized
about the prospect of landing the job.

So start looking for a job right now - and whenever a prospective opening
comes along, dive into it.

A lot of job seekers don't ask enough questions before taking up the job. The
interviewee asking many questions is always a good sign for any sane
interviewer. Make sure you know and like what you get into next.

After you've put your resume out there, sent emails to companies and are
waiting to hear back, do two other things to make the immediate future better.

1 - Do what you can to make life at your job more interesting. Seek out
changes and improvements to your job and for your company even if it takes
convincing someone else to 'allow' you to do it.

2 - Find habits or interests outside of work. This could be activities can be
added directly your resume (for example if your company works on Java, you
could learn to work on node.js), or even something unrelated to your career
like sky diving or visiting landmarks over the weekend (I am a programmer, and
I read up on finance to take a break)

Good luck.

~~~
jobquitter
_This may sound a bit too obvious but I'll say it anyway.

Don't quit your job without finding another one. Finding another job is tough
as it is - and your bargaining position, perceived 'employability' etc are
greatly diminished when you're applying without a current job._

This is what everyone keeps telling me :)

 _You have an idea of what makes a great job. Go look for it. Believe that it
exists - and when you really believe it exists, you will feel energized about
the prospect of landing the job._

So the sad thing is that every day I spend at this job, I get the overwhelming
feeling that this is essentially how stuff works everywhere.

 _A lot of job seekers don't ask enough questions before taking up the job.
The interviewee asking many questions is always a good sign for any sane
interviewer. Make sure you know and like what you get into next._

Hah. I wish I had done more of this. Interviews especially at startups take an
approach of dazzling young sheep with pretty bells (beer, $$$ etc) and I fell
for it.

 _After you've put your resume out there, sent emails to companies and are
waiting to hear back, do two other things to make the immediate future better.

1 - Do what you can to make life at your job more interesting. Seek out
changes and improvements to your job and for your company even if it takes
convincing someone else to 'allow' you to do it._

Yeah. This is the part that worries me. When I interned at my previous
company, I used to be so engrossed with my work that I used to spend weekends
hacking away at stuff. Now, I can't wait to get to my hobby projects (sadly
frozen right now so that I can brush up on graphs, trees and other fun stuff)

------
dabogy
Just to make the conversation a little more interesting, I will play devils
advocate here. Maybe the issue here isn't the company, but you. I personally
find it hard to believe that you can't find "something better" to do at a
startup. There are ALWAYS things to do at startups, and just because it's not
within your normal scope of work, it doesn't mean you can't work on it. If
you're completing your regular work, and you want to do something more (Ie.
coding), and it benefits the company, I hardly doubt founders would be against
it. What it sounds like to me, is that you are lacking any initiative and are
diddling your thumbs waiting for tasks to be handed to you. If that's the
case, you might be better off going to a corporate setting. Another thought
that comes to mind, maybe you aren't given coding tasks because you haven't
proven you are capable of doing them? If this is the case, then it's an
opportunity to prove em wrong. Either way, the experiences you gain at a
startup are what YOU make of it. Again, what it comes down to is initiative.
Take it!

If you do decide to leave, find a job before you quit. Your negotiating power
is much greater with a job in hand.

P.S I know nothing about you, so just take my comments for what it's worth.

~~~
jobquitter
I am not sure how to respond without giving you more context (and thereby
narrowing down my situation) but thank you for your comments.

------
rdl
Do you have any other experience (jobs from when you were in college) to be
sure this is a problem unique to the job?

If you're in the Bay Area (or maybe NYC): Once you decide to quit, you should
feel a lot better -- then take a couple days off to rest, find some worthwhile
companies to talk to, etc. You should have interviews and a job within a week,
which could be explained as "the flu".

If you're not in a hot startup job market, you either want to relocate before
looking, or find a new job first. I do not think I'd quit my job in Indiana
before having a new job in Indiana assuming I wouldn't leave Indiana. Sorry :(

~~~
jobquitter
I did an internship company and that was an incredible experience. I didn't
get asked to come back for a full time position. It could be that that job was
just awesome and this is how normal jobs are. However, coming from a person
who has made up for not being smart by working at problems a lot, it is kind
of concerning for me to see myself getting bored and ready to leave work as
soon as possible.

Yes, I am in a hot startup job market enough to get a couple of linkedin
recruiter cold calls every 3 days. Having said that, I am smart enough to know
that a non-tech recruiter identifying keywords in your resume don't
necessarily make one in high demand.

------
adziki
Have you voiced your concerns at work, would they be perceptive to increasing
your tasks that you enjoy or not? if not, then I agree with the other
commenter in that you should line up another opportunity first, unless you
have enough resources to float around for a bit.

~~~
jobquitter
Let us just say that the turn over rate is high enough that I am perfectly
clear I would be taken outside the barn and be shot the moment there is a
perception that I am not the perfect little employee.

