I Quit My Job Today
Okay…you got me; I didn’t quit my job today. I probably won’t quit my job tomorrow, either. And at the end of tomorrow, I will walk through my front door disappointed in myself. “I didn’t quit my job today,” I’ll mutter to the happy dog jumping up at me, though it’ll be thinking aloud more than anything. I’ll admit, this sounds a little dramatic. Who actively decides they want to quit their job and then just...doesn’t?
Me. (and probably anyone else with severe anxiety)
That’s who.
I don’t have a particularly challenging job, neither mentally nor physically. I don’t have a particularly fast-paced job. I wouldn’t even go as far as to say that I hate my job (though it does have its moments, believe me.)
The pay is decent.
It’s a 5-minute drive from my house.
I have no annoying co-workers.
Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Allow me to explain the flip side of things.
The pay is decent, but that’s all it is. I have a 4-year college degree and am certainly not using it in my current situation, that’s for sure. Don’t get me wrong; I am grateful to have any income at all – I know others aren’t so lucky. I’m not complaining about the money. I’m complaining about the fact that I, myself, seem to completely lack the ability to do something better with my life. Others make it look so easy…
Even I have to admit that leaving my house 10 minutes before I need to be at work is a perk. It’s where I drive to that isn’t so nice. My “office” is located in the basement of a gas station. No, really. You pull around the gas station and walk down the stairs through the door to my dungeon. (That’s the best description for it – a dungeon.) It is cluttered and dusty and gross. There are pipes and wires sticking out everywhere. Every few days, a new leak magically appears from somewhere. It’s cold and damp despite the heater I keep at my feet & the dehumidifier kept running at all times. I’m not even granted a lunch break as a reprieve from it.
It’s true that I have no annoying co-workers, but it’s also worth mentioning that I have no co-workers at all. I work in the office of a small trucking company so of course there are other employees I deal with on a day-to-day basis but in that cold, damp basement? It’s just me. Everything is my responsibility. Permitting the trucks? Me. Billing for the houses we haul? Me. Payroll for each employee? Me. Not to mention the plethora of various little tasks also assigned to me day in and day out. It’s all me.
Now, remember I told you that my job isn’t particularly challenging. Even with everything on my plate, that holds true. None of it is hard; it’s just too much.
It’s too much knowing that no one else in the company knows how to do what I do, regardless of the fact that I had less than a week of “training.” No one else in the company seems to be able to do anything for him or herself. There’s much more to this story as I’m sure you’ve probably assumed. However, the rest of my desire to leave this job is something I’d rather not fully discuss here.
Just know that I wake up every morning and think, “this is not what I want to do with my life.”
I spend every day 9-5 getting more and more frustrated. More and more irritated by the second, but continue to push it back and bottle it up.
I come home at the end of every day, even the best of days, disappointed in myself all over again.
I go to bed every night dreading the next day.
I know that there are many people that feel like this about the jobs they have. I also know some people don’t have the luxury of just leaving jobs that they’re lucky to have in the first place. Leaving this job terrifies me. I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life, and no clue where my next source of income will come from.
So no, I didn’t quit my job today.
But what I did do is take the tiniest half step toward doing just that.
It probably wasn’t done in the most graceful of ways. My anxiety often prevents me from doing things with the dignity I’d like to.
However, much to my own shock, I did something I wasn’t sure I’d be capable of; I spoke up and said, “I don’t think this job is working out for me. Maybe you should start looking for someone else.”
And not only did I somehow manage to say it – I was heard.
I was told, “You’re doing a great job. I don’t think this job is too hard for you.”
(Never mind the fact that this same person was just being condescending about how I’m not doing my job ‘right’ – that’s a different story.)
I told her the same thing that I told you: the job is not too hard, it’s. too. much.
All said and done, it was more of an open-ended, half quit.
But that’s okay.
Because now, they know I’m unhappy. They know I don’t plan to stay.
Now, when I hand in a formal resignation, it won’t come as much of a shock as it would have before.
Leaving scares the hell out of me.
I have a wedding to save for and multiple fur-children that depend on me.
And yet,
How many times can one wake up and say, “This is not what I want to do with my life,” and then continue to do it?
Other people take charge of their own lives all the time. It’s time for me to take charge of mine.
Starting with telling you that I did not quit my job today.
I probably will not quit my job tomorrow, either.
I can’t wait for the day that I can come on here to say,
I quit my job today, and actually mean it.
I hope you’ll be as proud of me as I will be when that day comes.
For now, just know that I’m working on it.
I’m working toward creating my own happiness this year; I hope you are too.
Because we all deserve to be happy…don’t we?
Talk to you soon.
K







