A bad job hurts your health, your career and your family. So we created a website with information and resources you can use to find out if it’s time to quit.
You can also test yourself and see if it’s time to quit – over 16,000 people have taken the test already!
If you’re unhappy at work check it out. If someone you care about is stuck in a crappy job, share this with them.
According to research an unprecedented number of employees are planning to leave their jobs in the near future and companies are going to have to deal with this or face losing all of their best people.
In this video I share:
Global warming is an existential threat to all humanity and corporations emit the vast majority of manmade greenhouse gases.
If you currently work for a company that does not urgently strive to become carbon neutral in a very short time frame, you have two choices:
It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO or the receptionist, you have an ethical responsibility to not use your time and talents in the service of a workplace that is wrecking the planet.
If enough of us act on this, we can force more corporations to take the climate seriously, either by changing their behavior from the inside or by sapping them of critical employee talent.
You can change things – and at the very least you can make sure that your work days aren’t spent hurting our children’s futures.
Some people want you to believe that quitting is weak and for losers. They’re lying and we need to normalize leaving jobs that are not good for us.
In this video we take a deep look at what happens when you’re unhappy at work, how you can know it’s time to quit and how you can support others who need to get away from a bad job.
Content:
(00:00) 1: Frogs aren’t idiots
(01:01) 2: Introduction to quitting
(03:45) 3: How hating your job hurts you
(06:56) 4: Exposing the anti-quitting propaganda
(18:05) 5: The excuses people make for not quitting
(27:23) 6: Should you quit?
(32:47) 7: 21 perfectly valid reasons for quitting
(40:21) 8: What if you can’t quit
(46:24) 9: How to quit
(47:39) 10: Should you always find a new job first before you quit?
(49:42) 11: We should celebrate quitters
(59:22) 12: I quit!
Relationship between a bad job and poor health
A bad job makes you gain weight
Unhappy workers are less productive
Effective propaganda exploits existing biases
How Herbalife and other MLMs scam people
The No Asshole Rule – excellent book by Bob Sutton
Turing pharmaceuticals raised prices
Stories from people who quit without first finding a new jobs
Apprentice car mechanic commits suicide after being bullied
The most basic freedom is the freedom to quit
The true cost of employee turnover
Bosses try to predict who will quit
I started Woohoo Inc back in 2003 so we have been spreading happiness at work for over 16 years. Our keynotes, workshops, articles, conferences, videos and books (download them for free) have reached millions of people all over the world.
But something is wrong. For the last couple of years I have been unhappy at work and that won’t really do for someone in my business :)
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why work stopped being fun for me, but here are three reasons that have played a role:
Simply put, it’s time for me to take my own medicine. I took 6 months off (starting January 1st) to get some distance and think about my future and that helped me come to a decision: I am leaving the field and will no longer do speeches or workshops about happiness at work.
I still believe that this field is incredibly important. Workplaces and employees face huge problems, not the least of which is COVID-19, and still need inspiration and tools to create and maintain happiness at work.
Fortunately we have built a fantastic international partner network over the last 3 years who have all been trained in our methods and who are doing amazing work around the world. They are ready to step in while we’re gone.
So if you’re looking for a speaker or consultant to come in and make your organization happier and more profitable, don’t hesitate for a second to book any of them.
In Denmark, Arlette Bentzen will carry on our work – she is awesome and you should book her for a speech or workshop.
I will still be involved with Heartcount, because it is the best tool currently available for measuring employee happiness.
Apart from that, I have no idea what’s next for me. I’m waiting for inspiration to strike me. If you have any ideas or suggestion for what I would be awesome at, let me know :)
The Summer holidays are right around the corner here in the northern hemisphere and I am really excited for it. No matter how much you love your job, you should still look forward to some time off, where you can do something completely different.
But it’s important to do your vacation right. If not, you risk ruining the whole thing by doing emails at the pool or by feeling bad about the work you didn’t do before going on vacation. That’s not doing anyone any favors – not even the workplace – because time off from work is a prerequisite for happiness and productivity.
So here are our 4 best tips for having a happy vacation.
I can’t believe I even have to say this, but in many countries people don’t take the vacation time they’re entitled to. One person wrote this comment on my blog:
I’m 34 and haven’t had a real vacation since my childhood vacations with my parents. The only way I manage to take an entire week off at a time (I work in IT) is when I’m able to schedule a week or two of “unemployment” between jobs, and in those periods, spending money on a trip is not wise.
I’m tied to my email/pager even on weekends and holidays and on the scattered “vacation” days I can take. Most Americans only get 2-3 weeks of combined sick and vacation time in any case, and professionals are expected to read email and be available, even on their days “off”.
I wonder how many people are able to have a real vacation these days!
US workers typically get very little vacation time, and often don’t even take all the vacation they do get. The Japanese have a similar problem where many workers don’t take the vacation days they’re entitled because they feel they’re letting down their coworkers.
Take your vacations. And if you work for a company that refuses to understand that human beings need time off from work, quit and go work for a company that actually cares about its people.
Clear out any outstanding work and your email inbox. This will give you clarity and control of any tasks. This sounds boring but it’s quite satisfying to get your work organized and go on vacation with an empty inbox.
And if you know there are important tasks that you can’t get done before you leave, hand them over to a coworker in plenty of time. Make sure to hand over the task with all necessary information so it’s easy for your coworkers to take over. That also keeps them from having to disturb you on your vacation, so you’re helping both them and yourself.
Don’t bring the company mobile and don’t read work-related emails. Take a real vacation and let your brain do something completely different.
Instead, spend some time doing new things you’ve wanted to try for a long time but haven’t had time for. Go rollerskating, windsurfing, fishing or whatever strikes your fancy. Can I suggest swing dancing? It’s amazing!
Or maybe just kick off your shoes and go lie in a hammock. Stare out at the water. Have days with no plans and time for reflection.
If you have some vacation time coming up, and if you’re like most people, you will put up an autoreply email just before you leave, saying that you’re gone, when you’ll be back and who to contact if it’s urgent.
I have talked to many people who mention both of these as a source of stress and I’ve just seen too many parents on family vacations handling work emails on their phone/laptop by the pool, when they should’ve been playing with their kids.
Fortunately, there’s an alternative: Close your inbox while you’re away. This may seem like a weird idea but some workplaces are already doing it. Here’s how you can close your inbox completely on your vacation.
I’m taking all of July off and I will be doing exactly that.
For crying out loud: Take your vacation time and make it a good one.
I just saw this video posted to LinkedIn with the following caption:
Salute to this runner Rei Iida, 19, fell and fractured her leg during a relay marathon in Japan but she crawled to her partner on her keens despite broken legs to pass the baton,How many of us has this passion to win and conquer the odds ?
How incredibly dumb. To hold this up as a positive example to follow is idiotic and perpetuates toxic workplace cultures that celebrate individuals who sacrifice their health, private lives and families in pursuit of their own or the company’s goals.
I think the true hero would have been:
It also speaks to some of the most damaging myths in business namely that success can only come from suffering or that quitting is a sign of weakness. Both of these beliefs are clearly wrong and clearly bad for workers.
There’s one thing I will never understand: Why some people hate their jobs, but still stay in them for years.
We want to inspire many more people to get out of jobs that are making them unhappy, so we’ve declared March 31 to be International Quit Your Crappy Job Day and have created a web site to match at www.internationalquityourcrappyjobday.com.
Here’s our announcement:
On the site you can take a test to see if it might be time to quit and you can read a number of articles about quitting.
There are also a ton of stories from people who found the courage to quit bad jobs. This one is my favorite.
So if you are not happy at work, take a look at the site. Or if someone you know and love is stuck in a crappy job, consider sharing the site with them.
We want more people to quit, but more than that we want many more people to realize that they have that option. Because if you hate your job, but believe that you are not free to quit and get away, the situation gets much, much worse.
This is the ultimate cost of not quitting a job you hate: A British teenage apprentice car mechanic killed himself after being bullied by coworkers:
On one occasion, the young man said his colleagues had locked him in a cage at the garage by force, doused him in a flammable liquid and set fire to his clothes.
…
His father told the inquest that the evening before his death, George had been pacing around the house, saying “I have to quit, I can’t go back there” over and over again.
Having told his son not to resign from his job and that things would get better, Mr Cheese said he now realised how “ridiculous” this response was.
First of all, the workplace should be held legally responsible for letting that kind of behavior happen. The supervisor even knew about it:
George’s line manager, Simon Wright, who admitted to playing a number of pranks on George, told the inquest: “I was in the workshop when a prank was played on George and he was set on fire.
“It did not go too far. We knew where to draw the line,” he said.
“It was not bullying.”
Oh yes it was.
The main lesson to take away form this is that if someone you care about is miserable at work and wants to quit, support them.
The correct answer to “I hate my job and want to quit,” is not “You just need to tough it out, things will get better.” The correct answer is “Great idea, how can I help you in that situation.”
Quitting is not an easy choice but sometimes it is the only choice. And the price of not making that choice can be very, very high.
Too many people hate their jobs but still stay in them for years. This is what we know. This is clearly a recipe for disaster for everyone who feels stuck in an unhappy work situation.
We want to change that, so we’ve declared today, March 31, to be International Quit Your Crappy Job Day and have created a web site to match at www.internationalquityourcrappyjobday.com.
On the site you can take a test to see if it might be time to quit and you can read a number of articles about quitting.
There are also a ton of stories from people who found the courage to quit bad jobs. This one is my favorite.
We want more people to quit, but more than that we want many more people to realize that they have that option. Because if you hate your job, but believe that you are not free to quit and get away, the situation gets much, much worse.
The Chief Happiness Officer Academy is our most in-depth 3-day training where we share everything we know about creating happier workplaces. Get an in-depth background in happiness at work, hear about the latest research in the field and learn how to use this in your own business.