Should I leave?

[angelic1]

Ok- I am in a situation here in which I don’t know what to do. I would have added onton an old post, but each case is different.

I am currently not happy at my job.

Its very stressful and we are constantly under huge time deadlines for production reasons, plus the pay is not good at all for what I am doing and how much work they expect of me, and not to mention there is only one person working here that I actually enjoy working with. (One of the people who was my “trainer” is definitely the worst of all. She gets on my computer without asking, not that I have anything on here, but she does it to look over my shoulder, she reads faxes I send out, and is just plain nosey not to mention she is always very condescending to me.)

The problem is I have only been working here for going on seven months and since a majority of what I do is not something you wouldn’t necessarily learn in school, they have spent a lot of time training me thinking I will be around for a while. They have even point blank told me that they would be upset with me if I left.

The thing is I want to begin applying for other jobs, but I would need references, which I couldn’t get from here at all, and this is my first real job, and I just know if they found out that I was looking they would fire me. Has anyone else been in this situation?

I am thinking about taking my concerns to my boss, but there isn’t much they can change to make me like it here. I guess at least they won’t be blindsided by me wanting to leave.

Any thoughts on this?