Thanks for the kind words guys. I'm reading each and every one of your replies, and I can see some of you getting enraged on my behalf, hahaha.

To clarify, I'm not leaving just so my bully gets the last laugh. I simply want nothing to do with them and to know that they event exist in my life at the moment is upsetting. In fact, I'd confront them if I can but I don't wanna risk making a scene.

hksgmy understands where I'm coming from. I would say the presence of bully was what kickstarted the thought of daring to resign in 2 short weeks. There are many other factors at play too, though if I had to pick a second factor, I'd fault client-facing being another putoff. Great role, but I'd rather be managing my own team than stakeholders . Alas, we can't have it all. The largest concern I have here is my job hunting prospects after resignation.

I am however, quite fundamentally a solo-ist, and enjoy the simple pleasures of working by myself.

But to the million dollar question - How bad is the market, I'm seeing lots of people agreeing that the market is absolutely shite at the moment? I took an 18% paycut and am worried the next job, if I get one in due time, is another 10 - 20% paycut, which is ugh.

Few reasons. The decision to switch roles stemmed from a difficult time in locating any opportunities remotely suitable to what I do. The market pay for the role I'm looking at is significantly lower than what I received previously. After months of trying and still nothing promising, I made the tough call to explore roles outside my expertise. Then came this role which was recommended by a recruiter.

Perhaps in a combination of how everyone kept telling me that times are bad and wanting to be employed within my  timeline, I accepted the job offer that I currently have in order to make full use of my time. In terms of a sizable paycut, I later learned from an employer that the recruiter and the management were in cahoots on this (something along the lines of bumping the salary package during job advertisement, but be honest that the amount they offered was lower.) I was also "prepped" by my recruiter to not ask about salary packages as it was a dealbreaker for the management. All in all, I was gullible and fell for it, and when it came time to speak up, did not clarify.

I'm not too worried about being asked the question, I've been approached by several recruiters and approached several myself and I have been upfront that I am dealing with a bully in my current organization and am actively seeking out due to the psychological trauma it causes me.

To provide more context on the bullying, I only learned that the bully was working in my current organization after signing the offer, as I received a message from them days after.