Career vs happiness

[Mcvj]

My friend and I work in the same company, I work in the HR department (not a blessing)

She works at an assistant level and earns a basic wage. Her department is doing very well at the moment and she's been told by her director that she needs to forget her culture of turning up at 9, leaving at 5:30 and taking an hour for lunch.
The whole company is under pressure at the moment and there is no prospect of bonuses at Christmas (as is normal), and she wont receive a pay rise for the extra work that she will be doing.
She wants to return to a manual job for the same amount of money, and for something that she won't be stressing about when she gets at home at night.
I don't know whether I'd be offering the right advice to stick it out - she does seem pretty unhappy and because of the stress even her workmates aren't being supportive.
What do you guys think?

[Mrs Y]

Personally, I'd be advising her to do what would suit her best and make her happy. You spend too much of your time at work to be doing something that you hate. At the end of the day, only she can decide what to do; as a friend your job is just to support her through her decision and whatever stress goes along with it.

For what it's worth, if I was being treated like that by a company I'd probably be looking elsewhere too. Wish her the best of luck!

[Lil O'lady]

Rather ironic considering HR deal with contracts. I'd say, if she can find other work, move job. Life's too short to tolerate horrors like these.