What to Do When You Hate Your Job

We've all had bad days at the office; a phone call from an unnecessarily rude customer, an exasperating meeting with your boss, one idiotic comment too many from a co-worker that has you reaching for a stapler to throw at their head.
But sometimes every day is ‘one of those days', and you finally realise that you hate your job. You may have many reasons to stay; financial security, pension schemes, friends, free membership to the gym, but all these material concerns have to be weighed against the most important thing: your happiness. You will spend a good chunk of your life at work, and if it's making you so miserable that you dread Monday morning coming around, and it affects your personal life, then it may be in your best interest to quit.
But before you get tempted to stand up at your desk, announce ‘So long, losers!' before making your dramatic exit (as I was every single day at my last job), you need to plan. The ideal situation is to have another job lined up ready and waiting for when you hand your notice in, rather than relying on the uncertainties of working for a temping agency. Just imagine how much more satisfying it is to walk out of your old job and straight into new one!
So, if you've made the decision to leave, here are some tips to help you find a new job and stay sane whilst you're doing it.
To temp or not to temp? The previously mentioned temping agencies are not recommended if you need the financial security of a regular job. However, they can also hook you up with temp-to-perm, or permanent jobs. Sign up with as many as you can, and they can do some leg-work for you. After all, it's their job to match the ideal job with the perfect candidate - which is you!
Not Qualified? Make your company pay! If you have a chosen alternative career path but you're lacking the qualifications, try evening classes. If the skills you'll learn happen to be relevant to your current position, find out if your company will fund the training; they don't need to know that you'll be doing it with a view to using your new found skills elsewhere.
Going mad? If you need some breathing space to stay sane before you find your next job, go for any internal vacancies that you have a chance of getting. This will help especially if your problem is due to a specific person on your team, or the tedium of the same routine every day. Talk to your HR department about the possibility of a secondment. It might be just the change you need, and any interviews for the new post may prove to be valuable practice for getting the job you really want further down the line.
Don't Feel Guilty: You might have some great friends that you work with but you just can't stand the other aspects of your job. You may feel like you're leaving them in the lurch, especially if they are dissatisfied with their job as well. Remember, they don't have to live with how you feel, but you do. And they are just as entitled to quit as well - as a friend, you wouldn't stop them if they were miserable, and neither should they stop you.
Apply for everything. But first, decide the minimum salary you need, the furthest you want to travel to work and the field you want to work in. Buy the local paper, look online, go to the job centre, and go to all the employment agencies. Then apply for any and all that appeal to you. Save time by writing a cover letter template for sending with your CV that you can tweak for individual jobs. You may get an interview and then realise it's not really what you want, but it will still be excellent interview practice for you. But be wary of...

Misleading job adverts. Adverts seeking immediate starts and great opportunities whilst being unspecific about what the job actually entails (other than ‘a fantastic career in marketing!!!') may well sound perfect, but could be a huge disappointment. More often than not they are advertising for ‘human marketing', better known as door to door sales. This may be just what you're looking for, but if it's not, don't waste your time. If they can't lay their cards on the table before the interview about what's entailed, it's probably because they realise that if you knew, you wouldn't bother turning up.
Keep Trying! It may seem to you that you're applying for everything under the sun, and you're not even getting a response back to say ‘thanks, but no thanks.' Still keep trying! If you don't apply, you won't have any chance of getting the job you want. Be philosophical about it; there is a perfect job out there for you. If you don't get the one that you thought at the time was ideal, chalk it up as being ‘meant to be' and the company's loss, not yours.
Above all, stay positive. Even taking the first step of looking for another job can relieve you of some tension; going from a passive position to taking control of your employment situation and going out there to do something about it will give you a tremendous boost. Now you can go into work, and look at your colleagues and think to yourself ‘In six months time I'll be somewhere different learning new skills and meeting new people - you'll all still be here!'