This I know for sure...

In a few days I'll have been at my current day job for one year. The year has flown by and I like my job just as much today as I did when I first started. I know a year doesn't seem like that long, but wow, what a difference this job has made.

At the previous company I worked for, I had a manager who was verbally abusive. She wasn't just abusive to me, but to everyone and anyone in the company including the company owner. More than once, she called him an expletive who was an idiot who wouldn't be able to run the company without her. She had (has) an explosive temper and you never knew what would set her off. She would even slam her keyboard on the desk if the computer wasn't doing what she wanted it to do or if it was taking longer to follow a command than she thought it should. (It's a small business consisting of 6 employees and one intern while I was there. The owner was in and out of the office daily going on appointments and whatnot so the office manager really set the tone of the office. )

Needless to say, I was stressed out and anxiety ridden because I never knew what kind of mood she would be in or what would set her off. I suffered from insomnia, rarely sleeping more than 3 hours a night, had constant headaches, and hated, hated having to walk into that office and deal with her on a daily basis. I finally decided that despite the great pay and really short commute, I needed to find another position. My health wasn't worth it.

I have a much longer commute and make a tiny bit less than I was, but I'm so much happier. I have no job related stress to speak of. I have friendly co-workers and everyone is great to work with. And no one has temper tantrums. Now I sleep through the night, have only the rare headache now and then, and haven't felt anxious since I walked out of that old office on my last day and breathed a huge sigh of relief.