I’m leaving HR.
I’ve been in HR for about 7 years, and I’m currently an HR Manager at a food manufacturing facility.
Honestly… I hate it. I’m a department of one, but most days I feel like a firefighter putting out everyone else’s fires and the official complaint department.
Everything is reactive, and I spend an embarrassing amount of time dealing with grown men acting like children. By the time I get home, I’m mentally drained and feel like I have no patience or energy left for my own kids.
One of the things I was most excited about when I took this job was the opportunity to make improvements. I came in with a lot of ideas and have made some positive changes over the past year, which I’m really proud of. But it’s hard to create meaningful change when every day is spent reacting to the next emergency. It feels like as soon as I start making progress on a project, another fire pops up that pulls me away. There just isn’t enough time to be proactive, and that’s probably been the most frustrating part of the job.
A little backstory: I’ve only been at this job for about a year. Before this, I worked for the federal government and absolutely loved it. I worked from home four days a week, had great coworkers, and actually enjoyed going to work. Then the return-to-office mandate happened, followed by a RIF notice, so I started looking elsewhere. I ended up taking my current job because I needed something quickly, and the pay was where I needed it to be. During the interview they told me they’d gone through four HR managers in two years. Huge red flag that I convinced myself wasn’t a big deal. Turns out… it was.
The thing that’s making this so hard is that I really threw myself into this job. I wanted to make a difference, and I think I have in some ways. But so many of the improvements and projects I was excited to work on kept getting pushed aside because I was constantly pulled away to deal with the next “emergency.” It felt like I could never get ahead.
Now I’m struggling with the guilt of leaving because I feel like they’ve come to rely on me so much. I know, logically, the company will be fine without me, but emotionally that’s a much harder thing to believe.
Here’s where life gets interesting. My family started an auto repair shop, and the long-term plan has always been for me to join the business eventually. We thought that would be sometime next year, but the shop has grown much faster than expected. They’re ready to hire a Service Advisor to handle customers and the day-to-day administrative side, and it just makes sense for me to step into that role now.
The admin side doesn’t worry me. What makes me nervous is that I’ve never been a service advisor before. Everyone keeps telling me it’s something you learn with experience, get comfortable with the software, learn the repair process, and communicate with customers. I’m a people person and I pick things up quickly, so I know I can do it… I’m just nervous to make such a big career change.
I think what I’m really looking for is some encouragement.
Have you ever left a job that made you feel guilty for leaving? How did you get past it? Or has anyone made a big career change and been glad they did?