Getting the hell out of corporate america

DeVryGuy

Okay, so this might be a little too office space, but it pretty much sums up how I feel right now. Basically I've decided that working for a big company is way too soul-crushing to want to continue with it at all any more.

Background: I work for one of the Top 5 Insurance comapanies in America as a QA Tester. I wanted to be a developer, however during my extended 2-year internship with the company I did testing, and no one wanted to give someone with testing experience any development work. I was hired on full-time a year and a half ago and have been shifted around to various testing jobs since.

Each job they've shifted me to has sucked just a little more than the one before it. I started with a big desk, good people and while the work was hard and soemtimes stressful, I always stayed busy and was pretty happy with where I was. Now I don't have a desk at all, I've been shoved in a team room where I have a space at a table with a bunch of other folks and don't even have a drawer to call my own.

The kicker came this last week when they told me they wanted to shift me to another project because the one I was in was out of money and they needed to trim some folk off (of course, they referred to this as a "great opportunity for me to grow professionally). To put it simply, they are shoving me into a role that I'm not prepared for, have no experience or training in, and more importantly am not that interested in doing. However, they told me that if I don't take it I'll probably be out on my ass in a couple weeks. (This was just before they told me I got the highest possible rating on my performance last year, which is nigh-unheard of in this company)

So at this point I'm asking myself why I should even put up with it anymore, and the answer is, of course, my ability to pay the bills if I would quit. I have sizable student loans and credit card debt which snowballed through reckless spending a few years back and I haven't really been able to get rid of even with a decent salary.

Any advice on getting out from under the corporate machine and not having to sell everything I own and declare bankruptsy?

Jimmy King

I've been there myself, more or less. None of the jumping around, but stuck in a shit job where I wasn't happy, was rarely being given work that used my skills or developed them further, and was going nowhere.

My advice is to take the shit job they offered for now, get your resume out on monster, and call up the local head hunters to see what they can find for you. It took a good 6-9 months for me to find what I wanted but I eventually got a job I was very happy with as a Perl developer in a small company that had far less of the corporate bullshit to deal with.

Employers understand that sometimes you just aren't happy with your current job and aren't going to look down on you for looking for work while keeping the old job (the new employers you would be interviewing with that is, not your current employers, keep it a secret from them) as long as you can explain why you want out of the old job in a way that sounds reasonable. I've found that they're generally willing to work with you as far as interview times so that you can get your interviews done without your current employer knowing (a short interview during lunch or an early evening or weekend interview, etc).

If you're in the Richmond, Va area (an off chance, but a surprising number of people here are) I can even give you some good contacts to start working with.

CyberJackal

I can tell you that it's not too late to get into development. I got a computer science degree, but couldn't find a development job straight out of college. So, out of desperation, I finally accepted a position with the government. I then spent about 2 years there NOT doing development. Or anything remotely technical for that matter. But I decided I had enough of that, so I went out and found something more my style.

So, like I said, it's not too late. Might want to keep the current job to pay the bills though.

drinkinstout

I was in a similar position - I would say suck it up, stick with it and pay down your bills all the while looking for something better. when you find a better opportunity, go for it but do not leave your current job without a new one in the bag.

Thanatos

First off, take the job.

You need to pay the bills, especially if you're sitting on a bunch of credit card debt. Start cutting expenses, if you can. Get rid of the stuff you can live without, if you haven't already.

While you're working for your current company, you need to start looking for a different job. Frankly, it doesn't sound like you're really sick of working for a corporation; it sounds like you're sick of the job they have you doing. Start searching Monster, classifieds, etc. See if there's anything that grabs your interest at all.