I’m also a boss — I run a team of 20ish writers and editors at the sports magazine Deadspin — and my major takeaway from early interactions with the workfriend@nytimes.com inbox is that everyone hates bosses. They micromanage, they sabotage your career prospects, they lay you off, they talk too loud. Let’s see whether 13 weeks of answering your questions makes me feel smug that I don’t do any of those things or paranoid about all the reasons my employees surely hate me!

To get to your question: I’m pretty sure the only things I have ever earnestly described as perfect are my pug’s face and a plate of oysters on a 72-degree day in Seattle. So, no, I don’t think any situation in which a corporation controls your day-to-day life can ever be truly ideal. (I do think a hiring manager saying as much in a job interview is a terrible recruiting strategy and quite possibly a red flag, but let’s set that aside for now.)

But nor do you have to settle for a job that makes you miserable just because you’ll never find one that fulfills every dream. Threatening to quit every time you suffer a minor indignity is overkill, but if you’re truly suffering for 40 hours a week, you have my full blessing to bail. Assuming you got some severance, getting laid off from a job in which you felt stuck and uninspired seems like a stroke of luck. And while any new commitment requires a leap of faith, any job that feels like your true calling is one worth trying.

Some people will always have an easier time in the work force because of luck and timing and bosses’ prejudices, and your job will always let you down sometimes. But don’t let the world’s inherent unfairness and the boomers’ destruction of the economic system break you of your desire to have a moderately enjoyable work life. Just promise me you’ll consider getting a dog, or a dozen ice-cold kumamotos .

Sometimes There Is No Hidden Message

I recently started a new job in a new field. As I approach the three-month mark, I know the how’s-it-going conversation is coming, and I find that I’m really not liking the job. The hours are not a good fit, and the territory involves more early-morning long drives than they let on. I am also interacting with high schoolers daily, and I’m beginning to really dislike that aspect of the job.