Breaking point as Quality Assurance
I've known nothing but Quality Assurance Food Safety Management for the last 8/9 years. I have been in a supervisor/manager role for the last 6... this career is not easy. There are more bad days than good, the soft skills needed for success are exhausting dealing with different personalities. Communicating with management and advocating for change while fighting the urge to say I told you so or wasn't this the reason i was concerned. But knowing you were contributing to someones safe meal and helped accomplish it and improved quality felt good.
But maybe it was covid but I am done. It's been difficult for the last few months hearing other departments criticism, negativity, "Helpful Comments", comparisons to other QA Managers that they know. I've felt mentally burnt out for months, short staffed, never ending urgent deadlines, changes being made without me knowing and having to conduct risk assessments,validate changes, carry other departments. The amount of research and time that no one sees is huge.
What else can I do if stop? I will not do HR or Environmental health & Safety in my eyes they have it worst. I dabbled in consulting and it was the most stressful period of my life but I was also working full time I'm most confident with compliance,auditing, project management,sanitation, Root causes. Been a 1 man army, and leader of a troop for departments besides QA,Maintenance,Production,Sanitation,Laboratory,EHS,purchasing for several reasons but mainly i was the only capable and reliable person. But now that I look back I was the idiot that wouldn't ask for more compensation. Where can my skills transfer too?
What is there besides quality standards, food safety, microbiology and statistics. What transferable skills do I have.
That sucks. I'm sorry you go to that point.
Best advice I can give you - think about what parts of your job you like the best. Then look for jobs with those qualities.
If you wanted to stay in the industry - look for a facility with low risk items.
Look what's out there - if something peaks your interest - apply. You never know.
Any coordinator role! Except finance (obvs)
Social work departments have coordinators (staff/programing/policy)
School board? Non profit etc etc etc
You've been trained to be able to keep multiple balls in the air at any given time, and we are all really really really good at problem solving
Sku your resume to highlight those things!!!