A right or wrong time to go?
I work for a small company/charity as their IT Systems Manager, and I've been here for just over 2 1/2 years. My job is varied and broad, effectively encompassing anything that has a keyboard. Primarily though I'm employed to maintain a system that holds the records of my employer's members. The system is accessed by my employer, and other people outside of the organisation.
I have had absolutely no guidance from the top, so I sat down for a week looking at all the various systems we had and devised a plan of action to modernise what we have, consolidate the systems making it easier to maintain, and provide a better user experience to the users. My CEO at the time let me go along with it, and so that's what I've done - on my own - since I started.
About 9 months ago I was (finally) allowed to recruit an assistant, and he's been alright to be honest. But I literally had to stamp my feet and whail alot to get the extra help. Up until then, I was supposed to look after the IT both externally and internally, build the new systems, and provide tech support to the people in the office as well as those external users who use the bespoke systems we have.
Because of all this, and the scope of work (which other parts of the organisation decided needed doing - without consulting me) the project has dragged. It was meant to be released in January this year, but has now been pushed back to September this year.
Now, all through this time, my love of the work and the people I work with have degraded to the point where on Bank Holiday Monday I dreaded going back to work. I thought there was so many other things I could do, get some enjoyment out of what I do, than go back to the place and chip away at this project that I've had no support with. This feeling was further compounded this morning when I received 30 emails in my inbox, 15 of which were spam, and the rest were emails moaning how such a system didn't work or that another system needed to do something else. Mix in to this a change of CEO who last week brought in two IT guys from their old work to "review" our systems and the IT plan that we have. All of this I could have provided them with, but they didn't ask me and they got someone else in to do it.
So right now, on the afternoon of Tuesday, I'm sat here with my Thunderbird turned off, my phone calls on divert, wondering whether it's time for me to call it a day. I feel I should, as I don't know how I'm supposed to stick around until September to see this project finished - which is essentially my baby. I thought the same back in December last year but was convinced to stay around.
Really the only thing keeping me here is the project I'm working on. For pure pride than anything else I want to see out what I started. But the other half of me is concerned that this project I put out will be lambasted, hated, effectively useless, making my working life more of a hell than it is already. I'm still incredibly fucked off over my new CEO's actions as well. But ultimately, I don't want to let the people I work with (the ones I get on with anyway) down by leaving before the job is completed.
While this is a rant, I don't know, but I'm hoping someone reading this who has a few more years experience than me can offer some guidance as to whether now is the right time to go or should I just finish the project then exit, stage left? Or stage right, I'm not really fussed in the direction.