I cannot keep my job. Firstly because I’m on FMLA (unpaid medical leave) for a mystery illness and I cannot guarantee that, even if finally diagnosed, I will be recovered by the 12 week maximum allotted.
Secondly because we’ve put our daughter in online school due to severe bullying. The program she’s in now is awful and I have to help her through her English lessons (she’s in 7th grade and they’re having her read 18th century texts). We’re switching her to a new program next semester which requires a parent to be a full-time “learning coach” for their kid to keep them on track.
It’s a terrible job. I absolutely hate it. The pay is low, the job is boring, my co-workers don’t really care about my existence, and my bosses are friendly but unreasonable. The only thing I like is that I have a hybrid schedule where I can work from home for 18 hours a week. But spending the other 22 hours in the office sucks. I spend the whole time wearing noise-cancelling headphones just to get through the time there. I’ve wanted to leave this job for a good year now although I admit I wasn’t trying very hard to find another one.
But I just can’t bring myself to resign. I don’t know why. Something is stopping me like it’s the wrong thing to do. I know I will be happier even though we will be on a single income, I am doing the right thing for my daughter, and I have no idea when this medical issue will be resolved.
I was going to write the resignation letter last Friday. Every day I mean to write it and every day I just can’t do it. I know I have to do it soon. Maybe even today. But something won’t let me do it. My brain is telling me I can’t quit.
Thanks for reading my rant. I don’t know why I wrote it. I guess I needed to let it out to someone other than my wife and my boss follows me on non-anonymous social media so I can’t really talk about it there.
EDIT: I wrote the email, showed it to my wife to see what she thought and sent it. Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for a reply, but I’m shaking.
Submit it or not, getting your thoughts out on paper is a good idea.
In your notes, don’t worry about what your boss would think, do any sort of self-censoring, just be true to yourself on how you feel about the job, your situation. Would you even want to go back if your job was secured? From what you say, I doubt it.
My suggestion would be a short succinct resignation letter. If something about the job that you wanted to talk about that caused you to resign, request an exit interview (though if they don’t care about you or why you’re leaving then you won’t get one, and that’s fine).
If you have the energy despite your sickness, you might as well spend time looking around for other jobs while recovering on sick leave/short term disability. Make sure you will have a plan to survive in the corporate healthcare hellscape that is the USA.
Lastly, take a moment to evaluate what you care about most: your job, coworkers and boss, your career, your S.O. and daughter, your physical and mental health. All the job related ones should be at the bottom to all the rest.