My current job features an abusive boss that make my friends' eyes pop when I tell them stories. He brought us all back to the office before it was really safe--we were managing just fine working from home, but he's one of those who likes to flex arbitrary control to feel good about himself. There have been no precautions set up in our office except for a couple bottles of hand sanitizer. Masks are optional and we haven't had a vaccine mandate. I tried to make some very reasonable compromises with him and was flat out denied each time.
His disregard for our health and safety is as arbitrary as it is repulsive. A couple weeks ago he went out of town, so I thought it was a good time to work from home, since I wouldn't be able to work with him in person anyway. Got chewed out about it, so headed off to the office, but had to turn back because I had a full-blown panic attack and collapsed on the street. I took two weeks vacation to recuperate, but the very day I returned to work all my R&R evaporated. I'm just as drained as I was before I took vacation.
We all worked our asses off during the pandemic with zero consideration or accommodation for the strain we were under. He is committed to everything going back to "normal" because the pandemic has been inconvenient for him, but it's not normal and I can't pretend that it is anymore. I've been looking for work. but here was my most recent interview:
I had an interview for a project manager position in my exceptionally HCOL city and was offered 35k, no retirement plan, partially covered health insurance (they never gave me a straight answer on how much, exactly, despite asking on three different occasions). I have 15+ years of experience, that's a right-out-of-school entry level salary at best. The CEO kept asking me what I make now (i.e, "how little can we get away with paying you"), which is illegal in my state. I politely declined to share that info. Hilariously, while we were making small talk, he remarked on having just bought a vacation home in one of the tony suburbs outside of the city where houses typically sell for around $1MM. I guess that second home was more important to him than growing his business by hiring experienced, capable workers and paying them their actual fucking market value.
When I turned the job down, I told the recruiter for this position (an old coworker/friend of mine) that, as he well knows, I'm not a flashy guy looking for megabucks to fund an opulent lifestyle. After taxes, the salary they offered would cover my rent with nothing left over.
These are the only jobs I see open right now. I hope something better comes along before I have another breakdown, because I would really prefer not to quit without a job lined up. But ideally, I would stop working entirely for a few months to try to swim out of the ocean of stress I've been drowning in.