After six months in my current job, I realise I’ve made a mistake. I left my previous job because I told myself I was bored. Looking back, I didn’t realise how good I had it.

This new role is not what I signed up for. It’s unstimulating and meaningless. Worse still, I find some of my colleagues’ behaviour bizarre, my manager to be self-important and incompetent, and so many of the processes and policies of the organisation silly. But worst of all, I feel lonely. I don’t get on with anyone and feel sidelined.

I can’t resign – not currently, anyway – so what’s my next best option?

Having someone to share your frustration, astonishment and dissatisfaction with is a reliable way of coping with the people and systems that vex you.Credit: Fairfax

Sorry to hear you’ve fallen into the classic grass-is-always-greener trap and now face a knotty problem. I think within your own question, you might have inadvertently stepped towards a possible answer.

Before I go on, though, I should say, in our email conversation you mentioned that although you feel out of place and not particularly respected in this new job, neither your peers nor your supervisor’s behaviour constitutes abuse or discrimination. To state the obvious, if they did, my advice would be entirely different.

You observed that the lack of stimulation, odd colleagues, disagreeable boss and facile policies are eclipsed by your loneliness. That makes a lot of sense to me – and not only because feeling isolated at work is often horrible in and of itself.

Venting can be therapeutic, but you have to be careful how you do it.

It’s also because having someone to share your frustration, astonishment and dissatisfaction with is – at least in my experience – a reliable way of coping with the people and systems that vex you.

I’m lucky that I’ve never encountered such an obviously bad workplace as yours. But I have certainly been baffled, worn down and even made miserable by elements within a job or work environment. And in every case, the thing that helped most was someone to vent to.

QOSHE - I don’t like my new job, but I can’t resign. What should I do? - Jonathan Rivett
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I don’t like my new job, but I can’t resign. What should I do?

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22.02.2024

After six months in my current job, I realise I’ve made a mistake. I left my previous job because I told myself I was bored. Looking back, I didn’t realise how good I had it.

This new role is not what I signed up for. It’s unstimulating and meaningless. Worse still, I find some of my colleagues’ behaviour bizarre, my manager to be self-important and incompetent, and so many of the processes and policies of the organisation silly. But worst of all, I feel lonely. I don’t get on with anyone and feel........

© The Sydney Morning Herald


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