Bernina, I think you have come up with a good plan. Better to leave on your terms rather than have those terms dictated to you. Sounds to me that at some point you would have been laid off anyways and this way everyone can feel better about your exit. You have preserved dignity for yourself and your boss won't have the unpleasant task of laying you off. Hard to say whether or not you could have made the entire four years or not but you will feel a big sense of relief upon leaving.Thank you so much for the book recommendation, I was able to grab the audiobook from our library and just finished, what a great listen!You are well prepared financially to give you and your family options. To help you think through your decision, I recommend reading the book "Quit" by Annie Duke. I read it while facing a career decision recently and it really helped me make the right choice for me and my family. In the short term my decision is not as financially lucrative as the other option however I believe it was still the best choice. And knowing that I worked through my decision using this framework helps when I second guess it in the middle of the night.
If you do decide to quit, give yourself 3 months to adjust, you will have a lot of emotions that will take some time to work through.
It really did help to reframe things for me. One of the biggest "aha!" moments was that by putting off making a decision, I was actively deciding to stay. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, I needed to acknowledge that and figure out if I was ok with it. And it turns out I'm not.
While I'm not quitting just yet, I have decided that early next year I will be leaving. Now I begin working on my plan, how and when I will tell my manager, and I'm consulting with a few friends in HR (not at my company) on how to best approach this and how I can best position myself to ask for severance, continuation of benefits, or anything else that they *might* provide (not holding out too much hope here but the worst they can say is no).
Thank you again, I've already found myself recommending this book to friends and co-workers.
The thing is, you are still relatively young and you are still very employable. If you decide to take a job later on, you can be picky about what you will take, while the extra money would be great you don't absolutely need it. So you have options and you won't have the prospect of a future lay-off hanging over you. My gosh, you can even take on a fun job if you would like.
What told me that is was probably time to exit is that you were starting to experience health issues from the stress. Your body was trying to tell you something. I think you will be much happier now as you have settled on a decision. Best of luck, I wish you well.
Statistics: Posted by nedsaid — Sun Sep 14, 2025 12:06 pm — Replies 137 — Views 17161