Be a Quitter!

Hi, my name is Mandy and I’m a quitter.

I quit jobs, relationships, books, subscriptions, hobbies, habits, and anything else. If something is not serving me, I will, eventually, see myself out.

This is not to say that I give up at the first sign of trouble or that I can’t see the long-game. I used to stay in bad situations much longer than I should have– but I’ve learned to assess whether a situation is growing me, or just changing me. 

I moved all the way to New Zealand to experience living outside the US and make some money to keep traveling with a working holiday visa. By the time I got there, I was so low on cash that I would’ve taken anything job-wise. After a month I finally got a lead from a word-of-mouth referral from a guy on Tinder. The world works in mysterious ways.

I actually enjoyed working at that restaurant! There weren’t enough hours and it wasn’t very well-organized, but it was just a casual job. But there was one manager who started to make things miserable. He wasn’t a bad guy, he was just the worst type of micro-manager and one day he crossed the line with an unwarranted verbal assault while he was stressed. I started looking for new jobs that night and gave one week’s notice within a fortnight.

The new job sounded like a dream. It was better pay, more hours, two guaranteed days off per week. We even got shift meals! I was so excited to work there, it seemed like a real learning opportunity from a well-run team.

I wanted to like it so badly, but working there was miserable. It was supposed to be a casual spot for after work drinks, but every day I was criticized on something new. I held wine glasses wrong. I carried trays unprofessionally.

My socks were too big. I took orders too slowly, and then too quickly. At every moment I was expected to be doing busy work, so I learned to perform tasks more slowly. To really relish the polishing of glasses. Because once they were done, I would be on the hunt for more things to do to avoid a rebuke. 

It is quite possible that I was the problem. Maybe I’m used to being a classroom teacher and basically the ruler of my own domain. I was given a framework and an expected outcome and left to teach my students how I saw fit. So maybe the constant oversight and banal, contradictory feedback was just an onslaught I am no longer conditioned to handle. 

Either way, I hated it. I made it 7 weeks before I finally turned in my notice, and I honestly think I waited too long. My dread about going every morning when I woke up and the sickening feeling of the Sunday Scaries were unbearable. 

So why was I bearing it?

Because I didn’t just want to quit with no plan.

1. I was already working as a substitute teacher where I could pick up shifts as they became available, but I hadn’t been able to take any because the restaurant was keeping me so busy. There were more shifts on offer, though not enough to work full-time.
2. I was finishing my TEFL certification to start teaching English online (this isn’t strictly necessary but I hadn’t had a lot of success without one, and it also helped in my search for in-person English teaching positions in China or Taiwan)
3. I had started the journey into remote and freelance work. In just two weeks on Upwork, I had made $90. The first client I worked for enjoyed my work so much that they offered me 2 more projects. This was very validating.
4. I began bundling and pitching my services as a virtual assistant.
5. I wanted to start writing professionally. I started working on my book about full-time travel on a budget, and I also began writing for and submitting to creative writing contests.

It took a friend saying “You didn’t move all the way to New Zealand to work at a job that you hate” to really shake me from my stupor.

I had gotten lost in the idea again that money was the most important thing. Traveling for a year on my savings had taught me that it was possible to do and to plan for. I was confident that I had the skills to do so. And it would give a sense of urgency to all the projects and income streams I was working on. 

I calculated how much money I currently had and I came up with a buffer that I did not want to go below. If I reached that amount, I would need to suck up my pride and look for another day job. 

With the buffer and 2 month’s budget pre-apportioned, that didn’t leave me a lot of money to play with. But, this wasn’t play time. I asked myself, how much was my freedom and happiness worth to me? Was it worth having to eat at home more, or not splurging on a night out at the bar?

I almost feel like I blacked out during times at the restaurants. Whole days faded away through the anxiety and resentment of having to go, a blur of meaningless movement to please people I could choose to never see again.

So I quit.

But not in a moment of anger or spite, and not just because it sucked. I spent a few weeks ruminating on it. I started planting seeds and seeing which ones grew. I mapped out my financial situation. I started planning my purchases. 

That job wasn’t growing me, it was changing me. It was making me anxious and queasy all of the time. I spent the weekends recovering from the work week and lost interest in doing much else besides being in bed. 

But I gave a 3 week notice period so that I could earn a little extra money and a few more hours towards my generous New Zealand holiday pay to give my future the best launching pad I could. 

It would be no good to quit my job and just move my anxiety and stress to money. I just needed to put in the work. And the best part? I could do a lot of it from bed. 

Or, as the weather brightened into spring, on beaches or lawn chairs in the hot sun. 

But I had to fully commit to my new life, and to do that, I had to quit.

Be a quitter.