Dilemma:

I’m in one of the states with a $7.25 minimum wage. A fancy hotel pays me $18 an hour to interact with guests and (in my downtime) write these blog posts. The hospitality industry does not typically pay this high. I’ve done much harder work for a lot less money.
Why would I quit?

Top five answers on the board:

What percentage of these issues are me projecting my own problems?

I’ve left at least five other jobs based on micromanagement, hostile work environments, no supportive (or any) management, and no benefits. I’d like to point fingers and blame the luck of the draw, but the truth lies beyond such surface-level reasonings.
I’ve taken a law of averages approach to the job market. Send 100 applications a week, one job is bound to hire me by the following week. The desperate energy behind the seeker may attract desperate situations.
I’ve used improper channels. Craigslist is not where to go to find long-term employment. Apart from my current job, the jobs I have quit from the overwhelming cocktail of toxic workplace factors have been found from Indeed.

One of my college professors gave a word of advice about jobs posted on Indeed and similar sites:
“The job boards post high-turnover positions that are the hardest to fill.” In a way, I can attest. Two of the jobs I’ve been fired from came from Indeed.

Apart from layoffs, firings, and business closings, why do people quit? Career changes, disagreements with management or company culture can factor in to a person’s reasoning but my research showed something called The Great Resignation which shed insight into peoples’ motivation for quitting. I considered the medical field to be one of the final evergreen career paths, but from 2021-2023, hospitality workers, educators, and healthcare workers seemed to top the charts at leaving their jobs. I’ve worked in 2/3 of those fields, I’d have to say that tracks. Retail, fast food, sales, call centers, all temporary jobs for people seeking better opportunities with no control of their schedules.

The Great Resignation considered factors beyond traditional professional reasons. People start and lose families, Illness, injury, burnout, relocation, and a whole host of reasons can cause people to quit their jobs. In case anyone needs a reason to stay at their job, I’d speculate the majority of the working class is one unfortunate interaction with a law enforcement officer away from becoming terminally unemployable. Criminal records might supersede personal circumstances: food for thought.

From where I currently stand, I’m watching the cost of living skyrocket, while the wages stand still. We are moving steadily in a direction on a boat that cannot return to the port from once it set sail. Are we immutable capitalists slave to the bottom line? No! We are human beings. Emotions cannot be removed in their entirety from the circumstance.
I for one, miss the port from which we once set sail and I am not alone. Is it so much to demand a job where I am paid a suitable wage and treated decently? I do not expect a work environment to be comfortable, and I accept a job which I do not enjoy the work.

What I refuse to accept is a job market that isn’t paying my bills. A job market that provides benefits by way of humiliation, and punishment for anyone not smiling with freshly kicked sand on their face. I reject this job market we’re contributing to.
One cannot hate the system, without hating oneself- for the collective we, make up the system. We have the power to change the system! Yet day in and day out, our fellow shipmates continue to poke holes in the boat with no recourse! Shame on us all.

Alas, souls poorer than I will pick up right where I leave off and ride the sinking ship into the abyss. There is no glory in self-righteous martyrdom but there is no dignity in allowing the injustices to continue.

The unemployment rate is down to 4 percent by the way.
Nobody likes a quitter.