Some People Are Miserable at Work. You’d Think They’d Leave—but They Choose to Do Something Wild Instead.

Work I *Don’t* Quit Some people hate their jobs. But they solemnly refuse to leave. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus. Few people are as knee-deep in our work-related anxieties and sticky office politics as Alison Green, who has been fielding workplace questions for a decade now on her website Ask a Manager. In Direct Report, she spotlights themes from her inbox that help explain the modern workplace and how we could be navigating it better. When it’s time to resign from a job, people tend to fall into one of two camps: those who can’t wait to tell their boss they’re leaving, and those who feel tremendously guilty about quitting, as if their resignation will be a betrayal of their colleagues. If you’re in the first camp, you probably find this hard to understand; this is business, after all, and it’s normal to move on from jobs. But if you’re in the second camp … well, for people in that camp, knowing it’s reasonable to leave doesn’t necessarily make it easier to do. Judging by the emails I receive, people who feel guilty about resigning from their jobs tend to be highly conscientious, deeply invested in their work, and genuinely worried about what will happen when they’re gone. That’s not to say that every conscientious person feels guilty about resigning—they don’t!—but a strong sense of duty does seem to make people more likely to have a hard time leaving. This person who wrote to me is pretty typical: When I think about what it will be like to finally have a job offer for a role that feels like a great fit, I get so excited—but then I start to think about the inevitable “I quit” conversation with my boss and I feel guilty. Aside from my boss, I have several co-workers who might be left scrambling if I depart, even if I give ample notice. If it’s not a good fit for me, though, I should definitely try to move on, right? Or am I a total jerk for looking for a new job? If you’re not someone who struggles with quitting, you might be reading this with some confusion; when we’re trading our labor for money, either side is free to end the arrangement at any time. But people who do feel guilty over it will put off job searching and even turn down offers, staying in positions that are making them miserable because they don’t want to let their colleagues down. Sometimes they do this even when their job is toxic or underpaying them or their manager is a jackass. I work in an industry normally noted for its stability, although our location has seen 10 people in my position leave in less than two years. I am scheduled for an interview with another firm later this week and am confident it will go well and I can become number 11. We have never been at full staff as long as I’ve been here; management is unhelpful and just bad in general. We currently have six people in my position, so if I depart it is down to five, or 50 percent staffing. There have been no qualified applicants in months, so I am certain that I will not be replaced in that timeframe if I gave a standard two-week notice. My concern is not with “burning bridges” (I will never come back to this company), goodwill with management (they made this mess to start with), or even etiquette, per se. My concern lies with my co-workers. I’ve become good friends with a few of them, as we’ve been through hell together here. If I leave, my workload will fall to them. I know they’re looking elsewhere too, and in fact we have a sort of “race to be number 11,” but I can’t help but feel guilty to “win the race.” Sometimes, too, people feel guilty about leaving because of the extra work it will create for their manager—even when that same manager has chosen to leave a team understaffed: I work in a department of three. Recently my co-worker was out on maternity leave and was expected to return after five months. My manager doesn’t know how to do a lot of the tasks we do and so a lot fell on me, although my manager did try to help here and there. Well, my co-worker decided that she wasn’t going to come back at all. My manager has made some comments that seem to imply that we don’t need to hire someone else to replace her and that perhaps we can make some changes to ease some of my workload without hiring anyone else. There haven’t been any discussions yet on what those changes would be, and I’m feeling very burned out. I noticed a job opening with a different company that is very similar to what I do now. I’ve heard it’s a great place to work and I could be making at least $8-10K more per year if I were to interview and get the job. My guilt is holding me back from applying, though. If I leave, my manager will be the only one left on our team and there’s so much that he can’t do. I know he would be disappointed and upset. The thought of even telling him I’m leaving for another position fills me with dread. … It just feels like a crappy thing to do to leave him high and dry when we’re already understaffed but I also need to do what’s best for me as well. I’m really struggling with this! Resignation guilt can be particularly pronounced if you’re the manager of a team that relies on you to insulate them from dysfunction elsewhere in the company: Due to a variety of corporate-level decisions, my job has gotten harder to enjoy as my team has become more and more unhappy with the retail side of the company (pay, hours, staffing, etc.). Because of that, my employees have been moving into more back office positions, promotions that I have helped develop them for and supported. This has caused some severe staffing issues on my team and, due to the limited support from management and the company as a whole, my health has declined from the stress. I have needed to start taking anxiety medication to prevent panic attacks. I even looked at what I would need to do to qualify for medical leave due to stress and anxiety. I thought I could work through it and come out the other side, but I don’t think I can. I am just so burned out. However, I feel so guilty over possibly leaving. With all of the staffing changes, if I left too, the stability in my location would be harmed, and the team that’s left would suffer (albeit temporarily). … Friends and family keep telling me I don’t owe my team my health, and I need to look out for myself. But these are people I have emotionally invested myself in—I have sacrificed my time, energy, and health for them, and the idea of leaving them is wracking me with guilt. People are turning down better-paying jobs to stay on my team! How do I convince myself I’m not as important to these people as I think I am? How do I tell them I am leaving, when/if I find a new job? Will the guilt go away? It’s also very common to feel like it might be OK to leave in theory, but right now just isn’t the right time to go: I’ve been at my job for a number of years now. I have been working primarily on the company’s largest client. While it can be rewarding work, I have been stressed out so much due to the workload and have had a few panic attacks, ulcers, and now high blood pressure. I would really like to leave my job and pursue other opportunities in order to lessen my stress and feel better about my skills. I know I have the ability to do good work, but working on this client has killed my confidence and self-esteem. I have a few interviews coming up, but I just found out that my boss is sick. Is it terrible of me to think about leaving at such a time? There are other partners of the company that will step up, but I have a lot of specific knowledge on the client. I feel guilty for wanting to leave, but I have been miserable for the past couple of years. But there’s rarely, if ever, a perfect time to leave a job. An employee’s departure will always pose inconveniences: a new project is heating up, or an existing one needs to be seen through to the finish line, or someone else just left so your team is short-staffed, or your boss is going through a rough time. If you wait until nobody needs you and nothing is unfinished, you could be waiting for years. And an inconvenient resignation just isn’t the end of the world for an employer; it’s a very routine part of doing business, and your team will figure out how to move forward. In fact, the vast majority of the time, once people do push through their resistance and actually leave, the guilt dissipates quickly and they end up wondering why they stayed so long: I’d poured my heart and soul into an organization for 12 years—managed staff and budgets and tried to be the barrier against the sexist and political lack of support from higher up. I felt so much guilt at the prospect of leaving that I cried every night for a month. I didn’t want to leave my staff out there without the support they needed. At the same time, they didn’t understand what the job was doing to my mental (and, eventually physical) health. My health took an almost immediate turn for the better once I left. I was eating better, sleeping, and felt more energized than I had in years. I realized that the amount of stress I was under was actually physically hurting me more than I’d realized—and I thought I knew what it was doing to me. I still hear from my former employees, who mostly are just realizing why I felt I needed to leave. They don’t hate me, and I have found that no matter how invested I was in the success of that organization, I have not felt the guilt at walking away that I went into the change thinking I’d feel. I feel healthier. So if you find yourself wanting to leave your job, don’t let guilt stop you! Moving on from a job, even at a difficult time for your company or your team, is a very, very normal part of being employed, and your company will find its way forward without you. Your manager and your co-workers may have a few days of panic, and then they will adjust and carry on (and really, if they can’t figure it out how to carry on, that would be a sign of serious structural problems that you staying wouldn’t fix anyway). Your obligations when you’re leaving are to give a reasonable amount of notice (in most fields, that means two weeks), help transition your work, and behave professionally during your notice period. That’s truly it. No panic attacks or health sacrifices required. Labor Relationships Workplace Direct Report Jobs