Any advice??
I am the main breadwinner (spouse makes significantly less, dog contributes 0)… but the environment I’m currently in is so unsustainable on multiple levels and from multiple angles. I can’t quit until I have another offer that will be within a reasonable salary point. (NYC so HCOL is a factor as well.)
And at the same time, I have worked multiple all-nighters for last-minute-but-urgent (and highly important) projects. I’m supposed to be PTO today but worked until morning when I had to get ready to leave for the airport. I’ve received multiple emails while in transit (which my managers knew and had approved already) from one manager passive aggressively asking where the final projects are, even after I sent the projects’ updates to both managers this morning. This has been the pattern for the year and change I’ve been in this role. No allowance for planning ahead, just constant emergencies for which I’m somehow scolded and blamed regardless of the result.
I’ve been applying and interviewing on and off since September and it’s just not where I want it to be with any of those roles.
I don’t know how to fix it but I also don’t know how I’ll survive it. My health is already shit after doing various parts of biglaw for a decade. Taking leave will just delay the inevitable and they’ll be suspicious.
I’ve delayed having kids over and over because the money wasn’t there, the world’s burning, etc. and now I’m thinking of just getting pregnant so I can have an “out” from these assholes that they’ll accept and that won’t explode in my face. (For the record, I desperately want to be a mom and watching my sisters have kids ahead of me has broken me in other ways too, so this child would be beyond wanted…just timing).
But none of this can happen if I quit or lose the job because of this lunacy and we’re left with just my spouse’s income that’s about 60% of mine.
Just feeling stuck in the “damned if I do, damned if I don’t” of it all.
EDIT: I started as a junior paralegal then pivoted to BD and am now a BD manager but took a while to get there (shit CMOs who refuse to promote or give raises are super fun…)