How to commit career suicide

- Walk out of your job half way through the day

- Not engage with the new work colleague beyond hello and goodbye even though you know you should make more of an effort and it's been picked up on

- Shout at your poor long suffering manager

- Start swearing when describing your role

- Make doodles on Paint instead of paying attention to important meetings

- Spend the vast majority of my working time lurking on various forums

I could go on. I've never been this bad. My boss is lovely and I know I'm a nightmare member of staff. I get 18 months into a job and just start getting bored or not enjoying it. I've been in this one for 2 and a half years which is a record for me but things are going from bad to worse.

I'm job hunting but I am only applying to things that grab me, I don't actually know what I want to do, so it's a slow, painful and frustrating process 

I feel like I'm in a black hole endlessly circling round with my life on repeat but at not quite 30 I have another 30 odd years ahead of me with this. Eugh

Parents
  • I've done quite a few of those over the years, mostly when I was much younger (apart from the pc/web-based ones as the web wasn't around back then). 

    The best one was I walked out of a job - trainee accountant - never to return (without telling anyone that I was off).  We were working 'on-site' on an audit, and I wen't out for lunch to the pub, found a bus stop and went home.   I did have to return to the office to pick up my umbrella, which was a tad embarrasing.

    Current employer is very tolerrant.  I can walk out at more or less any time I like, as I have a duplicate office at home using remote desktop connections and an office phone connected by IP there.  In fact, I'll be off in a few mins Slight smile

Reply
  • I've done quite a few of those over the years, mostly when I was much younger (apart from the pc/web-based ones as the web wasn't around back then). 

    The best one was I walked out of a job - trainee accountant - never to return (without telling anyone that I was off).  We were working 'on-site' on an audit, and I wen't out for lunch to the pub, found a bus stop and went home.   I did have to return to the office to pick up my umbrella, which was a tad embarrasing.

    Current employer is very tolerrant.  I can walk out at more or less any time I like, as I have a duplicate office at home using remote desktop connections and an office phone connected by IP there.  In fact, I'll be off in a few mins Slight smile

Children
  • Haha. isn't it occasionally fun to just implode and render yourself unemployed.

    Over the years I've done it a few times.  I grow bored easily like most of us.  Longest for me is 18 months.

    The best career suicides are the subtle ones that take people months to notice.  Adding in errors into a process purposefully, but disguising them to such an extent that they will slowly build up over a period of time before becoming very noticeable.  If you also leave these little traps to run then quit, it can be even more amusing.  Not that I've done such things in a long long time.  I once set a a large lcd display at a company reception to rick roll on a certain date and time while bored one night, then forgot about it.  Then on the day that 10 high level managers from china or japan visited the factory, the rick roll went live while they wre in reception.

    Out of your list, OP, I have walked off site a lot of times mid shift.  I told three new recruits to apply to a factory next door that was hiring because the team leaders and shift supers were more friendly and they paid slightly more than we did, while stood next to the shift manager.  I fell asleep during a HSE brief, then was awoken and the shift manager asked me if I had something better to do, I said yes, and left and went back on the shop floor and started working, then when questioned about the brief just recited the key topic points back to him and told him if he wanted an essay on such a simplistic subject I could formulate one for him.  That place literally gave me 10 disciplinaries, but I was a fast worker and had more experience and a better skillset than anyone else working there and I knew I could take the p**.  So I did.

    I'm that guy who sits at work, reads every manual and text thats left lying around, can reprogram the CAM systems to do things they probably shouldn't.  Everywhere I've ever worked I would spend breaks reading every document that was left on any desk that I could reach.  From accounting to evacuation plans and everything in between.  Assimilate, assimilate.  I even spent 9 months trying different 6 digit codes at one place so I could get a stats computer to print out reams of stats everyday at 4pm.  No one ever worked out why that computer would print out stats like how much wood had been used on that day, how many nails and screws were used.  Absolute mayhem.

    Nowadays I've outgrown it.  if I want to commit career suicide, I am about 100x more likely to grab a manager and tell him to FO and then walk.  Less drama and less energy wastage.  but still mildly satisfying.

    Or alternatively you could just choose to only take short term contracts, which is what i do now.  3-6 months max, then move on.  Due to being skilled in multiple areas and subkjects I am rarely out of work, when looking.  I also dont care so much if its a highly skilled tech job or driving a counterbalance in a factory or warehouse.  Sometimes its nice to mix it up a bit and keep life interesting.