10 Lessons to Take Away From a Bad Job

The difference between a mistake and a failure is whether you can learn something from the experience. From this point of view, my most recent job was a mistake because I have learned more than I ever thought possible. The following skills may not be bullets for my résumé, but they were necessary, tangible, and worth my time to learn. I have plucked these lessons from the depths of career despair, and would like to share them in the hopes that you can learn from my mistakes.

1. You can handle interacting with difficult people

Coworkers are like family. You don’t get to choose them, you may not like them, but you’re stuck with them anyway. This is the perfect opportunity to learn how to work with people who are unpleasant or just different than you. Some interactions will go better than others, but the important thing is that you’re getting valuable practice without jeopardizing family ties or friendships that are important to you.

2. You can survive a disaster

On the days when it feels like everything is going wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it, know that you’re probably right. There isn’t anything you can do about it, and this is your opportunity to learn patience and acceptance.  No matter what happens, you will survive the day and you will be a wiser person for it. If all else fails, just remember that you’re getting paid.

3. You don’t have to have a dramatic exit

Letting everyone know exactly what you think might be tempting, but it’s not worth it. They probably have an idea as to how you feel, and making an ass out of yourself isn’t going to change your office’s problems. If you have a legitimate complaint, use the proper channels. Otherwise, accept that you’re leaving this place behind and moving on to greener pastures. Save yourself the embarrassment and quit with a bit of class.

4. Maybe, just maybe, you’re partially to blame

Don’t get me wrong, there’s an excellent chance that you’re a genius and every problem you’ve ever had was someone else’s fault. However, let’s entertain Occam’s razor for a moment and accept that perhaps the simplest answer is that you could’ve handled some situations differently. Somewhere between what you should’ve done and what you actually did lies the potential for growth.

5. You can recognize a lost cause

One day you realized that you were in a bad job. What happened next makes all the difference. It may have taken longer than you had hoped, but now you know a lost cause when you see one. You don’t have to drag it out for an extra 18 months next time. Quit while you’re ahead.

6. When it comes to benefits, you know what matters

Through the course of your employment, you’ve probably learned something about your priorities. Maybe a casual dress code means more to you than a stock option, or a decent medical plan is worth giving up the option for flextime. Whatever it happens to be, you’ve learned what to look for at the next job.

7. You know what it takes to be a great employee

Before you start over in a new office, take some time to reflect on your past experiences. Think about the things your colleagues have done to both annoy and impress you. Learn from them so that you can be the coworker everyone else wants to have around.

8. Money really doesn’t buy happiness

It doesn’t matter how much money you have in the bank if you spend 8-10 hours every day hating your life. Consider more than just the salary when selecting your next job. There’s no sense in getting a larger paycheck if you’re just going to blow it all on therapy and liquor.

9. You’ve expanded your network

Hopefully you’ve made at least some friends in your office. Not only have you expanded your social circle, you also added to your network of professional contacts. Just one more reason to make sure you leave behind a positive impression.

10. There’s more to life than work

Nothing means more to you than your free time if you’re stuck in a bad job. Think about the people and activities that brought you joy outside of work. Your bad job has just taught you what really matters to you. For me, that was the most important lesson I could’ve taken away from here.

Let's ROWE!

1:15. Skim an article about productivity. 1:17. Space out for awhile. 1:32. Refill coffee cup. 1:34. Check for new emails. Still 1:34. This is my typical afternoon as a clock-watcher. I don’t plan to watch the clock, I just can’t help myself. There’s nothing like being bored out of your mind and knowing that you can’t leave yet to drag time to a standstill.

Perhaps it’s because of my clock-watching habit that I’m so intrigued by the idea of a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE). ROWE is a concept created by two Best Buy Human Resource managers, Judy Thompson and Cali Ressler. Instead of working a set number of hours per week, work is based on results. You are free to do your work whenever and wherever you want, as long as you get your work done. It’s such a simple concept on the surface, but it has the power to revolutionize the way we look at business.

Clock-watching aside, consider how a ROWE would impact your personal life. There would be no need to flex your hours in order to pick up your kid from school. You wouldn’t have to waste a precious vacation day waiting for the repairman. If you friend was visiting, you could meet her for lunch and not have to rush. Just imagine not having to set your alarm, sit in traffic, and slip in late through the side door.

But wait, if your boss can’t see you how will he know you’re working? Wouldn’t productivity plummet as these irresponsible slackers spend their days sleeping in and shopping? As it turns out, the truth was quite the opposite. Productivity sky-rocketed 35% under Thompson and Ressler’s scheme, while employee turnovers dropped 90% (Lee 34).

As impressive as they are, these results are hardly surprising to me. As my afternoon demonstrates, the fact that I’m physically at work does not mean that I’m doing work. Instead, I’m finding ways to alleviate my boredom and pass the time. However, even if I was swamped with work I would be more focused on the task at hand if I wasn’t worrying about personal errands. With a ROWE, I would have the flexibility to get my work done and get the cat to vet on time.

Requiring employees to sit under the watchful eye of the boss does nothing to foster trust and cooperation. If anything, it creates a passive-aggressive environment of presenteeism and guilt, where each employee rebels in his or her own way. Some feel a twinge of happy revenge after sneaking out early, while others maintain that the first one in and the last one out is the winner, regardless of the impact on their personal lives. Generationally, the stereotypes persist. “Some boomers felt they’d been forced to choose between work and life during their careers. So everyone else should, too” (Conlin 65).

ROWE isn’t just an extension of flextime, which Thompson and Ressler refer to as a “con game” and a “total joke.” They feel that the problem with flextime is that it heaps “needless bureaucracy on managers instead of addressing the real issue: how to work more efficiently in an era of transcontinental teams and multiple time zones” (Conlin 63).

With flextime, you’re expected to make up your hours to ensure you still get a full 40 hours each week. Flextime results in the same amount of clock-watching, with the added bonus of feeling stigmatized because you were “lucky” enough to work a modified schedule. No matter how you slice it, 40 hours is 40 hours. In the spirit of complete honesty, I think Kelley Butler, the Editor-in-Chief of Benefit News, said it best:

“Traditional work hours benefit companies more than they do the employees…if employers really want to keep valued workers, it is time to make a change” (7).

Thompson and Ressler found a way to make that change and in fact, their plan worked so well that they have since branched out as private consultants and created CultureRX, a Best Buy subsidiary designed to help other companies set up a ROWE. They also published the book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It to further explain their idea (Westcott 31).

A ROWE might not work for everyone, but then again, isn’t that the point? We don’t all have to follow the same path, and work in the same way. As employees reexamine their priorities and the millennial generation takes to the work place, I can clearly see the benefits of this alternative. It’s time to change the way we look at work and finally stop watching that clock.


Butler, Kelley M. “Time to ROWE with the Flow.” Employee Benefit News Mar. 2007: 7. Web.

Conlin, Michelle. “Smashing the Clock.” BusinessWeek 4013 (2006): 60-68. Web.

Lee, James H. “Hard at Work in the Jobless Future.” The Futurist 46.2 (2012): 32-35. Web.

Westcott, Scott. “Beyond Flextime: Trashing the Workweek.” Inc 30.8 (2008): 30-31. Web.