No regrets

It's almost four months now since I quit my job. On and off, from various sources, I've been hearing about what has been going on at the old place since I left. The specific situation which I (and everyone else there) had been anticipating with dread has come about, and is every bit as bad as expected. At least one other person has quit, as others had already done around the time I left; still others, whose personal situations would make a period of unemployment too risky, are lying low and hoping something better will come along.

It's taken me a few months away, getting re-grounded in reality, to allow me to see just how weird that place really was. The clueless and bullying nature of much (not all) of the management, the chaos generated by constant reorganization, the toxic atmosphere of anxiety and hostility -- over the years it had come to seem almost normal. Sometimes you need to look from a distance to understand what you're really seeing.

The temp job I took (to slow the erosion of my savings during the period when circumstances prevent me from looking for a new permanent job) is simple, low-paid, boring, non-stressful, and normal. The boss there is a decent, normal, regular guy. Looking back at the "leadership" we had at the old place, I'm not 100% sure some of them were even carbon-based life forms.

So I feel confident that I made the right decision. There are more important things than how much money you can make.