Should I quit my job?

• I’ve had my current job for 9 months. At first, I thought it was my dream job, but now I dread going in every day. I just got a new job offer and I need help sorting out my thoughts and deciding what to do. There are three main problems: I am overworked, my boss is completely unavailable, and my job is already in a high stress field dealing with angry and/or rude people, which to some extent is inherent and unavoidable. I would talk about it with my boss, except my boss is completely unavailable. And I mean completely. I really can’t overstate how true this is. When I first started, I knew he would be the type of boss who didn’t want to micromanage anything. I thought that was great. But now it’s like he’s not even managing anything. I probably haven’t talked to him in 3 months. He ignores my emails. He is constantly traveling and out of the office. I also have about 5 other various bosses above him, some of whom are very responsive and some of whom ignore me even more than he does. I catch flak sometimes if something is late or there’s a mix up, or whatever. But if I cut out my immediate boss and go straight to them, he gets very anxious (mostly due to his image, I think), so he always wants me not to reply and to fill him in on anything before I talk to the “big bosses.” The problem is there is really no one else who knows what I do who I can go to. There is no HR and our office manager is new and doesn't really understand what I do anyway. I tried to tell my boss I was thinking of quitting two days ago. I walked to his office, asked if he had time to talk, and he said no. Then when he was rushing out the door to lunch he poked his head in my office and asked what I wanted to talk about. Since I couldn’t very well say it in front of the whole office, I just muttered, “Just wanted to know how hiring third person was going.” To which he replied “it’s at the top of my list.” Now he’s out of town until Monday. There are two people who do my job: me and a lady who works from home. My boss has been saying he will hire a third person for about 3 months now. A month ago he put an ad up online. He then showed me the resumes and asked for feedback. He then did two interviews about two weeks ago. I never heard anything after that. Either they did not take the job, or he didn’t offer it. The ad has not gone back up. He mentioned he didn’t get a “gut feeling” about anyone. The problem is, we desperately needed someone to be hired two months ago. Anyone. And even when we get them, they will not know what they're doing and I will have to train them. When I first started, the lady who "trained" me barely taught me anything and my boss kept her on for two months just to train me because he certainly didn't have time to. I basically trained myself. I would say it still took about 3 months to really get the job down. It’s a fairly small professional office and there is only me, the lady who shares my job but works remotely, an office manager, a receptionist, and a secretary. That’s it for support staff, and the rest of the office is professionals. I replaced someone who was there for 8 years. Our office manager who was there for 10 years just got a new job and the new office manager is clearly struggling to catch up and learn everything. (I also think the previous office manager handled hiring and the new one has no clue how, which means it’s terrible timing for finding a new person.) The secretary and person who work remotely both want to retire in a year to two years, and the receptionist wants to quit in a few months. The receptionist currently does all of my paperwork I can farm out to her and she is great, but there’s nothing else she can do without actually doing my job. When she leaves, I will drown. She shaves off at least 2 days of work from me currently, and before she started helping, I did all of it myself. The workload has objectively been crazy. This year we are getting double the incoming work as last year- literally. I have seen the charts. It was my extreme misfortune to start the job by coincidence almost exactly when the amount of work doubled. This, I think, has caused my boss to assume “I will get faster in a few months” or “we just hired someone, so we can wait a little longer” or even “maybe it’s just her.” But the thing is, it's really not just me. I really actually am much faster, more organized and more efficient than the other lady who works remotely and shares my job, plus I have more responsibility as I work at the office and have to help answer the phone, go to conferences, etc. I am already taking on more than my fair share of the work load because she pulls rank and complains a lot, so I take about 2/3 of the incoming work. She complains to me because she can't reach our boss either. To be fair, she is pretty nice and I think she is genuinely overworked. So am I. So is my boss. Something has to give. A few weeks ago after a particularly horrible day in which I was screamed at for something that was not my fault (not by my boss, but by a client) I snapped and cried after work. A few days later, I applied to a position in a slightly different area of my field that is lower stress. I didn’t really expect to hear back, but I did. They sound enthusiastic and like they really want me for the job. I have an interview tomorrow, and I really wouldn’t be surprised if they offer me the job more or less immediately. There are maybe 3 or 4 good openings in my field in a month- and this is a really good one- it was not a split second "I'll take anything" decision- it really is a lucky stroke. The icing on the cake is that my printer has been out of toner for a month because I go through paper so fast and the new office manager hasn’t ordered any yet. I would order it myself, but it’s about $200 I am not sure the office will reimburse me. The blinking red light on the printer is like a metaphor for everything: just burnt out. Not getting reinforcements any time soon. On the other hand, I get a really good salary and benefits. My boss will almost certainly try to offer me a raise if I make motions to leave. I like who I work with. Despite it all, my boss is actually a genuinely good person. I still believe in the necessity of what I do. My office is ethical and respectable. It’s a very nice office downtown. None of these things are likely to be true at my new job, which will probably have slightly lower pay, possibly slightly less benefits, not as fancy, etc. The position I am in now is completely unique and there are probably about 5-10 in the US. I will never get another job like this. It's that unique. I am also very sure my boss with feel like a failure, and worry a LOT about his image if I leave now after less than a year. (He worried when my predecessor left, and she was there 8 years) I think if I say, "it's not you, it's just I don't feel I can handle this job." (True, because I am becoming more and more unmotivated) that might help the blow to his pride. Even if not strictly true. I also have no idea how he's going to take it. He might laugh it off, he might blame me, he might blow up, he might freak out, he might threaten, he might try to cover it up. No clue. My boyfriend thinks its okay to quit but I need to give a month’s notice. My mom thinks I should stay and stick it out with my boss. Both of them told me to talk to him. It’s basically impossible to talk to him. It took a lot of courage to even walk down to his office and now he’s out of town until Monday. When I started this job, I really wanted to be a star. I thought I would never burn out and get grumpy and that I would never leave. Or if I had to leave, would leave on great terms. But I'm just floundering. I'm constantly stressed. It's affecting my friendships, relationships. I want to do the right thing. What is it?

• Answer:

  I would not, never, ever discuss a possible departure until you have a signed job offer in hand. I think the discussions about improving work conditions have been asked and answered. Focus entirely on nailing the job interview. If you are offered a job, and you want to take it, take it. Give zero F's about whether you're letting anyone down at your current, crappy, job or how anyone there will take it. Good luck.