Don’t wanna go back to work

Let’s see if I can do this without it becoming a novel…

I’ve not been career-driven in my life, and that may be catching up to me. I’m 36 now and working at a small restaurant as an admin assistant and server/bartender. I’ve been at this job, with variations to my schedule and position, for about 4 years - the longest I’ve worked anywhere.

In the last year and a half I’ve had many devastations, losses, battles, and a breakup after a 10-year relationship. I just got back from visiting family, in hopes it would help me bounce back from this recent breakup and give me a zest for my life. It proved fruitful in many ways, except that I’m realizing that I think I’d rather work anywhere else than this place right now. But I’ll explain why I’m reluctant to quit.

Again, I’ve been there about four years, and in that time I’ve been granted a lot of flexibility. When I feel burnt out from serving, they will take me off the sever schedule and allow me to focus on admin work. I’ve taken many weeks-long trips to address or recover from the events of the last year and a half. And I do feel supported emotionally for the most part. So I guess I feel guilty at the thought of leaving. Especially for the admin work - I don’t know if my boss can handle doing all of it on her own, and I’m certain she won’t make the effort to hire and train a replacement. I’ve considered keeping this position only if she’ll allow me to work remotely.

I still have other trips planned, so I could use their flexibility. I don’t like the thought of starting a new job and telling them right off the bat that I take a lot of time off and in fact will need several weeks off in the summer.

I don’t want to be in the building because I’m tired of the people in other aspects:

The FOH manager is toxic and says bad things about everyone and everything. She overworks herself constantly (won’t hire more people and insists on scheduling herself alone on days she knows we’ll be busy) and then we end up picking up slack when her body fails on her (which is the level she often takes it to). Yet she’s very helpful and generous in other ways, and she does help keep the place afloat.

The owner is burnt out to the max, but keeps pushing anyway at 70+ years of age. She’s a terrible judge of character and does not handle conflict well. This affects the people we have in the kitchen and the people she’s hired to manage them. She’s terrible with money, despite having a background as an accountant. Everything is an act of desperation. I feel so bad for her, but she doesn’t let anyone help her enough and she barely takes care of hers own mental/emotional well being.

I think our customers are some of the best that I’ve experienced, generally speaking. But much of the time I can’t stand the bar flies. They’re decent people but they’re annoying and show up every day, sometimes for a long time. It wears on me.

I can’t handle having a life with these people. I never feel like my days off are enough to recover. Maybe I need a stay-cation and instead of going on a trip, just simply not work for a couple of weeks, and hopefully I reset to a point where I WANT to be back there to work.

This is sort of a rant but I could use some advice if anyone has any. I’d love to get started on learning how to figure out what I want from a job. What questions to ask myself, maybe. Thanks for sticking around this long! 🥰