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I have worked at an organization for about two and a half years. I started in January ’06 as an intern. Became staff in January ’07. I am entering a PhD program (fully funded) in August, and my employer knows I am leaving August 1.
My job is pretty much the catch all job. If a department gets busy or doesn’t know how to do something, 90% of the time I am the person who fills in or figures out how to do it. I like that sort of position because it doesn’t get boring and you become somewhat invaluable.
An additional perk of the position was for all of 2007, I was not directly in a department. Therefore no one was really my direct boss other than the head boss. Everyone was (and is) higher ranked than me. However only four employees have been here longer than me, so I possess a lot of institutional memory for the place (too much actually).
Because I was under no one’s purview in 2007, I had more freedom. In this freedom, I started a very neat little project. This project has now become something the organization brags about and is producing very valuable information for the organization. I love the project, and it is the only thing that has really kept me here the last year. (Sorry for the vagueness, but don’t want to post where I work / what the project is).
However over the past year and a half, there has been new leadership in the organization. Things have become very bureaucratic (everything has to be approved by a few people and thou shall not disagree with those few people). These people are not even doing their jobs all the time (come in late, miss work, act immature). This frustrates many of my coworkers and myself. There are other annoyances as well, one that prompted this post... The organization as a whole is suffering from it. My escape is that I have this project that is nearly entirely mine, so I just put up with the garbage and make sure my thing is pristine.
There are days in which I just think to myself, why not quit now? I am going to Grad School in 2 - 3 months. This job will very unlikely affect my future jobs. I am fine in terms of a money situation (the salary would be nice to have, but I have more than enough in savings to get me through the next few months and more). I am not completely unhappy with my job. Mainly my utility comes from my project, and I sort of don’t want to lose that, and it is not at a place where I can hand it off well. But should I just enjoy the next couple of months free of responsibility and say fuck it to work? Or am I just being a whiny 20 something who needs to just stick it out for two months more in the “real world.”
My job is pretty much the catch all job. If a department gets busy or doesn’t know how to do something, 90% of the time I am the person who fills in or figures out how to do it. I like that sort of position because it doesn’t get boring and you become somewhat invaluable.
An additional perk of the position was for all of 2007, I was not directly in a department. Therefore no one was really my direct boss other than the head boss. Everyone was (and is) higher ranked than me. However only four employees have been here longer than me, so I possess a lot of institutional memory for the place (too much actually).
Because I was under no one’s purview in 2007, I had more freedom. In this freedom, I started a very neat little project. This project has now become something the organization brags about and is producing very valuable information for the organization. I love the project, and it is the only thing that has really kept me here the last year. (Sorry for the vagueness, but don’t want to post where I work / what the project is).
However over the past year and a half, there has been new leadership in the organization. Things have become very bureaucratic (everything has to be approved by a few people and thou shall not disagree with those few people). These people are not even doing their jobs all the time (come in late, miss work, act immature). This frustrates many of my coworkers and myself. There are other annoyances as well, one that prompted this post... The organization as a whole is suffering from it. My escape is that I have this project that is nearly entirely mine, so I just put up with the garbage and make sure my thing is pristine.
There are days in which I just think to myself, why not quit now? I am going to Grad School in 2 - 3 months. This job will very unlikely affect my future jobs. I am fine in terms of a money situation (the salary would be nice to have, but I have more than enough in savings to get me through the next few months and more). I am not completely unhappy with my job. Mainly my utility comes from my project, and I sort of don’t want to lose that, and it is not at a place where I can hand it off well. But should I just enjoy the next couple of months free of responsibility and say fuck it to work? Or am I just being a whiny 20 something who needs to just stick it out for two months more in the “real world.”
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