When it comes to stressful situations, there comes a point where it is healthier to stop caring than it is to continue investing time and energy to worrying. Unfortunately, it seems that all of us have hit that point in my office. This week we learned that another of our coworkers is moving on to a new job. I will be picking up the duties she’s leaving behind during an interim period, but if our employers don’t find a replacement for the position before I find a new job myself, I won’t feel bad about leaving prematurely. This wasn’t the case two years ago when the same situation occurred then. At that time, I wanted to fight through my frustrations in order to support my fellow coworkers. Now that all of us seem to be of the same mindset, however, I just want to find a healthier work environment.

I have been looking for a new job for a couple of years now, but past searches have not been overly serious. My current job is not the first one I’ve held that has left me feeling frustrated with the working environment, and those past experiences make me nervous to jump ship now. There is no guarantee that a new job will come with a healthier atmosphere compared to where I am at this time. However, it’s been getting harder to imagine a worse place in the last few months.

I’ve become the jack-of-all-trades at my current office. My job title and associated duties have changed five times in three and a half years, and now they’ll change again for a sixth time. This may seem like it should be a good thing – I’m getting a wide range of experience this way – but the more times I’m forced to juggle new responsibilities, the less I like any of them. Even duties that I found fun in the past are becoming burdensome and off-putting. I hope to find a job as far removed from my current work as my skills and creativity will allow, but having been bounced between duties so many times means I have less experience in specific areas than most people I’d be competing against in the application process.

I’ve always leaned more toward pessimism, and it’s led me to self-defeating thought patterns in the past. Right now, it’s hard to not fall into those same patterns as I revamp my resume again and start looking at recent job postings. But I know I can’t stay where I’m at. My job is affecting my health both mentally and physically, and even though the unknown can be frightening, it’s becoming more appealing as my current work environment becomes more frustrating.

This was not the type of blog I wanted to write this week. I had hoped to find a topic more upbeat and uplifting that could continue to ride on the joy of last weekend’s Supernatural convention. But if you find yourself in a similar unhealthy work environment as what I’m facing right now, I hope you’ll find greater courage then what I’ve conjured up in the past two years and that you’ll succeed in getting out of your bad situation sooner than me. People don’t always realize how difficult it can be to walk away from unhealthy situations, especially when there are other people involved that you don’t want to leave behind. But it’s important that we all put ourselves first some time and pursue what is best for us.

Hezzie