Leaving a Job

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I've been at a job for just over a year now I have had trouble with the way the work is structured and the stress from the way my job functions and my company functions has built up for quite some time. My boss is a good guy and knows about my issues with aspergers and depression. I have finally realized that my job is making my depression and anxiety worse. I was attempting to stick with it and have been fighting through since January. However, all it has been for me is a fight to keep myself going and showing up. I do a good job and my boss appreciates that however, I don't think my boss is cut out to have employees. I finally made a salaried position in the beginning of march which was good I guess. However, now when my boss losses his sense of reality and drives on all of the employees doing 16+ hour days a couple of times a week and 10+ most of the rest of the days. I feel as though I'm loosing my ability to cope with anything other than work and now it has come to be that I am sometimes not even able to cope with work. I recently got back from 9 days at a trade show in DC it was the American Psychological Academy or something to that effect. It wasn't as bad as some of the past trips I have had to go on. However, I fly back Thursday of last week and am called into the office to work at 3:30pm. I think ok fine I will go in even though I'm sleeping on my feet. Then I get there and my boss is loosing it and not paying attention to anything but the project. Which from future experience I know is a problem because the project shipped the next day at 10am. This being said he was doing the same thing over and over and wanting us to stick around to test. Which really was a waste of both our time and his. He was so far gone and missing the key points of what needed to get done and getting pissed off at us for sitting around with nothing to do. I was at about my final straw. I went in Friday because I am the only one at my office who is willing to drive and pick up a large box truck. I get there on time with the truck and sit around waiting while my boss is in chaos mode trying to figure things out. Asking for rewrites of pack lists which had been set in stone over a month before. And just not trusting anyone else to get things right. Even though when he is calm he knows that I am perfectly capable of doing the tasks that needed to be done as well as the other coworkers who were in.

Ok so I dealt with it and it got done and then my boss who had told us that the truck needed to be to a warehouse by 10 is telling me to wait for him while he deals with emails and calls. This was approximately 20 till ten. I try to get a word into him that he promised the dock on the other end a time and he ignores me and continues to work. I wait a while longer and it is after the time the truck is due on a dock which takes 30-40 minutes to get to and I tell him that the truck is already late and ask if I can take the truck up now so we don't miss the transfers that need to take place no later than noon. So he finally takes 10 seconds of time to say yes go. I get up to the dock about an hour late. We then offload our truck and wait for him to arrive to tell us what needs to come back to our office for our next project. He arrives a while later and tells us to load several 1000lb + items and take them back and he would be along shortly after us. But as I am about to leave he tells me he needs to speak to me about a new project which is running concurrently with our Big show at the end of may. He shows me the gear which is not ours and told me in addition to setting up a massive show and testing in the next week and a half we had to do two. Meanwhile I am aware of the fact that I am the only employee in town for the next week and a half besides my boss. The rest are on the road. I had already accepted the fact that it was going to be a long week or more to get the Big show ready. Then he springs on me that we now have the Big show and one which judging by the amount of stuff involved might be as difficult of a set as the other. So now I feel that my boss has no perception of reality and even though he acknowledges that things need to change is unable to separate himself from his work to back up and see he has employees and manage his business I have accepted that likely this will not happen. And although I enjoy the actual work most of the time the way it is approached creates an unhealthy environment for me.

I guess I have just ranted a bit trying to figure out if anyone has suggestions for me as to how I may be able to incorporate myself into the business in a way that will not be unhealthy for me.

Because I like my boss and don't mind my coworkers but I am at wits end with the management of the situations which I am put through. Right now I'm planning on quiting and going my own way for the time being. I am going to have a conversation about how I would like to work for him but the current environment created by the way things are run is unhealthy for me so I need to stop. But would be happy to help him out with what I can if there are things which he needs that don't place me in an unhealthy environment.

I avoid any salaried position for this very reason. I need set hours and time to work on my own interests. I don't live to work, I work to live.

The biggest stressers for me at most of my jobs has been pooor orginization and lack of logic in achieving a goal. They both make me feel like tearing my hair out. Usually it is the top level of administration that appears to have no clue of actual operatiosn but maintain a rigid and unproductive structure. Lazy co-workers is my other stressor.

The economy in US sucks right now. Having an aspie sympaathetic boss is a big advantage. I have been looking for another job for months but the want adds are about half the size they were a few years ago and many jobs only want to hire part time workers(30 hours) so they can avoid paying benifits. Think twice before you make the leap. I think it's always best to try and have something in line before you quit a job but the catch 22 is that it is hard to look for and train for a new job when you are already working full time.

Best of luck.

Thanks for the words. I know I have to quit or I will get to the point where I am incapacitated by my stress and depression. I wish I could find a job then leave but the ever increasing stress and inability to leave the work at work have caused me to be unable to function at a suitable level for me to enjoy anything in my life. I have had this feeling before and worked through it and then just hit a brick wall and crashed. I have been trying to stay for along time and I realize that the brick wall is closing in rapidly. I can't afford to crash and spend the time to bring myself out of a deep hole. I have done it several times in my life. I guess I need to acknowledge the risks of leaving but at the same time I see that soon maybe even a couple of weeks from now I will crash into that wall if I don't change course. I think if I am able to change my course soon enough not to crash I can find something which likely will be graduate school and not spend 6months recovering from a head on collision with a brick wall.

Well, you know better then I how close you are to the edge. I have acted impulsively,(after having thought about quiting for a few years,lol)and then been very stressed with trying to find a job. However, if you have the savings to have time to look...it certainly beats a psychotic break(been there, not fun). I am pretty sure if I didn't have this place to come "vent" on, I would have quit my current job and I don't have a money cushion, since the pay sucks....so that would be worse for me.


Have you considered where else you would like to work or what kind of work you would prefer doing? I have so many As related limitations that this is always a huge decission for me. Whatever you decide...I wish you luck in your search.

broben05, it's kind of late so this will be a quick (= not well thought out) and somewhat brief response, but I empathize (strange word for an Aspie to use!) with you completely. Twice before I have quit well-paying jobs and taken lengthy time-outs because I was so stressed-out and/or so frustrated that I was afraid I would seriously lose it. Like krex said, for me the biggest problems were poor organization and lack of logic, along with incompetent managers and toxic co-workers. Actually, I have just quit my current job because of similar problems; I would have liked to have found a new job before quitting, but things were so bad that I was continually depressed, sleep-deprived and emotionally exhausted from dealing with it all, to the point that I had no energy whatsoever to conduct a job hunt. Now that I've left, I feel as though a great weight has been lifted off me; I am much more relaxed and happy, and feeling quite positive that I will soon be able to find a position suitable for me.

Not that I am encouraging you to quit your job. I was wondering if you think it would do any good if you met with your boss and had a real heart-to-heart conversation about things, even maybe letting him know that you are considering quitting over the situation. I am not a very confrontational person myself (except when I get really mad!! !), so it may not be an easy thing for you to do, but if nobody has ever talked to him directly about the problems, he might be totally clueless about the true extent of the devastation he is wreaking upon his employees, even though he "acknowledges that things need to change". The work hours and conditions are unacceptable for just about anyone, not just an Aspie, besides which I think his management style is counterproductive; if he truly wants his business to succeed, he needs to change his approach drastically. Who knows, he might be receptive to some straightforward, honest feedback, and be willing to discuss and work things out with his employees for the better.

I guess I'm saying that perhaps it might be good to at least try to talk to him about how you feel (another strange word for an Aspie), rather than just quitting and then endure a different set of stressors as you search for a new job. Talking might be rather difficult, and there's no guarantee that it will actually improve things (it didn't in my most recent situation), but at least you could say that you did all you could to try and deal with the problem instead of looking like just a quitter.

One other point comes to mind: it sounds like your boss has a difficult time delegating tasks to others, i.e., is a bit of a control freak and insists on doing nearly everything himself. Maybe he should consider setting up a second-in-command position to assume some of his responsibilities. Perhaps even someone like yourself? but be sure you get a prestigious title and a good raise to go with the position.

So you are salaried, working 60 hours per week? My guess is that doesn't come out to much per hour. It doesn't sound like losing that job is a big deal. Do you have any vacation days coming? Would an hourly rate as an office temp, pizza deliverer or almost anything hourly be a better deal? Get a new job while you still have your old job even if it's not exactly what you are looking for.

well I had a discussion with my boss. He understood the reasons I felt that I needed to leave. He asked me to take a bit of time off and consider things. He told me that I was welcome back at any point I wished. And to keep in touch. He went as far as telling me as I was handing him my business credit card to keep it. I was shocked by this but I insisted that I was not comfortable with that and he took it and put it away for later down the road. He also encouraged me to keep my set of keys to our office and that I was welcome back to work whenever I felt up for it. Even if it was a couple of days in a week or whatever I felt comfortable with. I'm very glad that my boss understood the reality of what he was putting everyone in the company through and the reality of what problems it was posing for me.

I'm happy with the outcome although I'm not totally surprised how he went about things I know I would have trouble finding a boss with quite that type of understanding and ways of dealing with employees.

I guess I should qualify that he also told me he was somewhat upset to lose me because I was about the only one on staff at the level I am who was both bright enough to set up and design the various components we needed to produce. As well as not being above doing the physical labor that was often needed.

I fell a bit better about things now that I avoided taking my well being to the point of failure or breaking. I'm taking a bit of time to regroup and figure out what I can do next. It is reassuring that I have one real job to go back to if I need as well as the prospect of detailing cars again since the weather is getting nicer. I am glad I lasted as long as I have at that job It helped me grow and understand a bit better what I need to be successful and also made me realize that if I am able to get my foot in the door I am able to bring myself to being a good and needed employee.

broben05, sounds like the chat with the boss went really well for you -- that's great! Also glad you're feeling a bit better about things and now have some time to rest and think things over.

It's good that your boss was understanding and accommodating for you, and that he understood what his craziness was doing to you and all the other employees. Ummm ... but I have to ask: did you get the idea that he was actually going to change anything?

Finally, it's REALLY good that your work experience there has given you some good, positive lessons, the most important of which is that you are indeed a "good and needed employee", as evidenced by your boss's excellent comments about your aptitude and dedication. That's definitely something you can build on for the future, and should give you confidence in your next job search.

And FWIW, I think your decision not to keep the business credit card was wise.