Advice on quitting my job with no backup plan

[IronFoot]

I started typing out the whole story behind this post yesterday and it was just too long. I’ve trimmed this down pretty significantly. I’ll elaborate further if anyone says I didn’t provide enough details for good advice.

 

I am a property manager. I have been in this job for close to 3 years.  I have really enjoyed building relationships with the clients I manage properties for and gaining a broad understanding of the rental market in my area. It’s been a lot of good experience.

 

A year and a half ago I reached out to my supervisor and asked to be promoted to regional manager as I felt like I was acting in that capacity ( just without the pay, the authority, or the title). She agreed with my assessment and said she thought I would make a great regional, but that those kinds of promotions are made by people above her in the chain. She passed my message along and they said they would let me know if the budget would allow that. 
 

fast forward to today: I work well over 40 hours a week for no extra pay, oversee two property managers, and consistently get asked to clean up mistakes other people make. While I don’t like this, I wouldn’t make a big deal about it as my attitude is I’m in this for the long game and feel like I will get promoted eventually if I keep going above and beyond.

 

Over the past few weeks I have had an enormous amount of problems dumped onto my plate. These problems that I have found myself in the midst of seem to be very much out of my control and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to solve them this time. If it were only one, I wouldn’t be worried as I have a good reputation within the company. My concern is that if I find myself tied to 7-9 rather significant failures in a very short time span I will exhaust my political capital and lose my job.

 

These problems range from mishaps from the maintenance coordinators, another property manager mishandling an eviction and costing a client over $13,000 in losses (I was called in to do damage control), To some very messy turnover work that I can’t bill to the past tenant because my predecessor didn’t upload a move in inspection/ property condition report.  
 

I’m not crazy about trying to defend myself about these problems if I get dragged into the fallout as it may create the appearance that I am whining, or not being accountable. During my time here I have found that just taking accountability for everything (whether it was my fault or not) tends to deescalate situations pretty easily. But again I’ve never had this much before at once.

 

My concern is that if I try to ride this out I’ll become the scapegoat for all of this, which would then lead to me being fired. I worked for another company for 7 months right out of college before starting here. This is really the bulk of my professional working experience. I don’t think this outcome would be good if it happened.

 

I have been putting in applications over the last few days at other companies. I believe it may be in my best interest strategically to put in my 2 weeks notice this week even if I don’t have another job lined up just so I can control how I exit. I have had a very large portion of the clients I work with tell me they don’t even like this company and that the only reason they have not terminated management is because of me. That is the consensus I have gotten for the last 2 years of my employment. This last few weeks has really made me think of this is sustainable. A lot of the clients I work with are great connections and I have wonderful relationships with. If them liking me is the only reason they are allowing the company I work for to manage their properties, this seems unsustainable. I could see those relationships souring if enough goes wrong.  If I quit, everything will go wrong much much faster. These clients will associate the problems with me leaving and the company being unable to provide the same level of service as opposed to them eventually blaming me.

 

Quitting without another job lined up seems very risky. I own my house and have a $1,200 mortgage. My salary is 56,950. I had some medical bills, car troubles, and family emergencies that caused me to not have as much stockpiled as I expected. I liquidated all of my stocks and most of my savings right before all of the emergencies listed above happened, to pay off my student loans entirely. It seemed like a good idea at the time but I really shouldn’t have done that.

 

at this point I have about 3,000 in savings and $12,000 in Bitcoin (I put a few thousand in back when it crashed really hard and it did pretty well- I generally wouldn’t treat this as my only investment- since I know Leo is going flame me for this lol). 

if I were to quit, I could sell most of my bitcoin and just have my mortgage paid for the next 8 or 9 months. If that’s paid off I can survive off very little. I would also be surprised if it took me that long ti find another job.

 

I’m really not satisfied with the 9-5 rat race and would rather work for myself. A period of time to actually make an attempt could be life changing. I could also transfer my real estate license to a sales office and attempt sales as well (which would fill in any job gaps on the resume). I just don’t feel prepared to do this.

 

have any of you been in a situation like this? Have you ever quit your job before you were ready with nothing else lined up? Do you have any advice on how to navigate this?  
 

I’ve also considered the possibility that I am just stressed out and being irrational about the whole thing. But I also do feel like I’m rolling the dice a little bit if I stay. I just can’t shake the feeling that it’s irresponsible to quit with nothing lined up and that if I stay something horrible is going to happen.

 

any insights you have would be appreciated! It’s very possible I’ll make a decision sometime this week (maybe even today depending on how everything is going). 

 

 

[Michael569]

I am in a somewhat similar situation with my 9-5 job. Also based in a fast-paced corporate role. 

I think the safest way to do this is to make yourself visible to LinkedIn recruiters by using the Job Seeker badge that only people with the title Recruiter can see (nore -  also recruiters in your company may be able to see this). Start connecting with recruiters in your industry, reaching out for confidential discussions. Remember they are also looking to always expand their portfolio of real estate professionals so you are doing each other a service. 

And basically, start applying for roles while keeping your current job. I assume your leave period isn't longer than 1 month which is pretty standard time for your new employee to completed 3rd party background screening after you've been hired so there is always plenty of time for that organic transition to happen. 

Of course a polished professional CV is a must. 

What you are describing is a situation ripe for a change. Your appeal for promotion was rejected, you feel frustrated and unfulfilled. Get out of there. Those people are not worth your time. Your clients will be fine and the company will move on. 

It may take some time but there are better jobs out there and while I'm not familiar with the market it appears to me that you could do better than 57K as a real estate manager. If you, say, went for a directorship roles which would revolve around 80-120K you might feel more fulfilled and not necessarily more busy as it seems you are already doing work above your pay grade anyway. 

Good luck! 

Edited June 3 by Michael569

[IronFoot]

1 hour ago, Michael569 said:

I am in a somewhat similar situation with my 9-5 job. Also based in a fast-paced corporate role. 

I think the safest way to do this is to make yourself visible to LinkedIn recruiters by using the Job Seeker badge that only people with the title Recruiter can see (nore -  also recruiters in your company may be able to see this). Start connecting with recruiters in your industry, reaching out for confidential discussions. Remember they are also looking to always expand their portfolio of real estate professionals so you are doing each other a service. 

And basically, start applying for roles while keeping your current job. I assume your leave period isn't longer than 1 month which is pretty standard time for your new employee to completed 3rd party background screening after you've been hired so there is always plenty of time for that organic transition to happen. 

Of course a polished professional CV is a must. 

What you are describing is a situation ripe for a change. Your appeal for promotion was rejected, you feel frustrated and unfulfilled. Get out of there. Those people are not worth your time. Your clients will be fine and the company will move on. 

It may take some time but there are better jobs out there and while I'm not familiar with the market it appears to me that you could do better than 57K as a real estate manager. If you, say, went for a directorship roles which would revolve around 80-120K you might feel more fulfilled and not necessarily more busy as it seems you are already doing work above your pay grade anyway. 

Good luck! 

 Thanks for all of this advice! I have never made a CV before as I’ve only ever used Resumes and Cover letters. Do you have any pointers for crafting a good CV? I can also do some research later when I get off work. Also, would you care if I sent you my resume to look over? I think it’s pretty good since I ran it through Claude AI a few times, but having an actual person with professional experience look over it would be awesome.

 

Also, you don’t think that waiting and potentially being terminated if everything goes wrong this week is a real risk worth worrying about?

 

I did have an employer reach out to me today from an application I put in on Saturday to schedule an interview this week. So this may not be as big a problem as I think.

[Michael569]

1 hour ago, IronFoot said:

Do you have any pointers for crafting a good CV

They are very similar with some mild differences. AI can probably help you distinguish

1 hour ago, IronFoot said:

Also, would you care if I sent you my resume to look over?

I'm going to say no, sorry. I'm not a recruiter and not an expert on building a CV. Not by any stretch. I had other people who are more experts in that help me build mine. Whatever feedback I'd give you, might not be relevant. 

1 hour ago, IronFoot said:

Also, you don’t think that waiting and potentially being terminated if everything goes wrong this week is a real risk worth worrying about?

If you think there is a termination risk, even more the motivation to look outwards. Unless your termination comes with a sweet redundancy bonus like 6 months salary in which case it might be worth it. You'd have to consult your employment agreement. 

1 hour ago, IronFoot said:

I did have an employer reach out to me today from an application I put in on Saturday to schedule an interview this week. So this may not be as big a problem as I think.

[soos_mite_ah]

8 hours ago, IronFoot said:

Thanks for all of this advice! I have never made a CV before as I’ve only ever used Resumes and Cover letters.

CVs and resumes are more or less the same thing. A lot of other countries say CV while in the U.S. we use the word resume. But I do believe the slight difference is that CVs put more of an emphasis on the education section whle resumes focus more on years of experience. It's a cultural difference from one part of the world to another if you ask me. 

[Lyubov]

Good luck to you. I don’t have any practical advice. I would say a situation like this is a good opportunity to look at your beliefs and also build a strong relationship with yourself. Call on that innate inner wisdom that is there. Doesn’t even have to be a big thing. Just ten minutes a day talking to yourself about what you may fear, and letting go of any lies like you won’t be able to cope or get through this. 

[Fabio]

@IronFoot Its a lot of info to process and consider after one read but It sounds like there's is cons to staying and to quitting and that you care about your reputation going south if you stay or leave and that you are done with this work either way. So in a sense, there isn't a wrong decision as far as your jobs standing goes since you don't want to work there anyway. If you have time to apply for jobs while working there , then that is the safest option since you still have an income. Like when a man initiates a break up, its always the most exciting before hand with the new freedom. But when the reality sinks in a couple weeks later, it can kinda suck if they don't have a replacement of sorts. Have you done the life purpose course? Maybe there's something you've learned that you'd enjoy going towards working at. 

 

Ultimately, if you can afford to do so and are motivated to find a new job within a couple months, it sounds like you can afford quitting, but that's your choice.  Selling Bitcoin before or around $100k USD isn't a bad decision as it has already made quite a rise. I doubt it will go over $200k this cycle, basically a 2.5x from here and could easily crash before $200k down 80% from the highs like before. Anyway. You understand your situation better than anyone, its just nice to have people validate your ideas I'm sure. So IMO, it sounds like unless your staying in the same narrow space of the industry, then either option would be fine; and then again.. I think people in the industry understand the cons of the job and would accept you as an experienced candidate for a similar job if you've been an otherwise good worker if something happens if you stay longer while you find another job. But up to you.