Should I leave my job?
How long would you stay at an agency that hired you with a 1/2k pay rise from you last role (60k ish) but sold it as you being a director and potentially becoming partner in a couple of years - when 2 years have passed and you’ve had the smallest pay increase and only been awarded your bonus twice in the first year.
You’re passionate about and aiming to grow your department and you’re heading it up - youve told them that in order to grow the department and win more business you need more support - you worked 8 campaigns alone last year and now 12 campaigns are across 2 of you - you’re trying to order a junior person but it’s taking a long time and you genuinely haven’t taken a holiday this year because you feel awful leaving your senior campaign manager alone for a week… she’s had two holidays but you’re fine because you’re used to it.
Essentially your stress is so normal now it’s become your normal state of mind, you’re getting weird symptoms like the feeling of crawling on your skin and all of you loved ones are commenting on how distant you are.
This is a long winded way of saying you joined and agency to launch and run a whole department with the promise of expansion; pay rises and bonuses - and now, at 40, you’re stating to feel like the piss is being taken out of you and you could walk into another social media / digital director role and be paid ALOT MORE. Maybe you should take a risk and start up on your own?…because again, you might be stressed but you’d be financially comfortable enough to say “sorry I’ve been a rubbish and distracted partner, but I’m taking you to Bali for two weeks”