Forty-eight hours ago, I made a somewhat spontaneous decision to stop working for my current employers. The decision was triggered by a steady stream of shit from on high culminating in a copy-paste resignation email from the internet and an angry press of a send button. Currently I am on a train commuting to the last customer meeting I will have for them, I’ve been told I don’t need to go but I don’t want to let colleagues or customers down, so I am somewhat stubbornly doing a 4-hour return trip to Southampton while ordering a tea and KitKat I can later expense.
While the decision was eventually a snap one, its one I had thought through in great detail over the previous three to four months. I have an interview lined up for Friday and while I am good at interviews and know I come across well I am by no means guaranteed a job. I have some savings – probably enough to last 6 months, 8 at a stretch. I have been slowly managed out by an overcrowded management team and to be blunt there is not enough work. The company is reliant on a large deal that may never materialise – it has been on the books for 2 years, so I personally have my doubts anyway.
I don’t regret my decision. I spent the first 12 hours in shock – like the bungee jump I had done 4 months ago and I was in free fall. I haven’t hit the ground yet though and I am deliriously happy with my decision – it has been an unbelievably long high (similar to a Coke High – or so I’ve heard). I haven’t even stopped working yet but the stress and the phoniness of pretending to care has all but evaporated. I have never rage-quit a job before, but I don’t think I would have believed anyone who would have told me it felt this good! The “F-You” part – the semi revenge aspect to it was gone in a short hour, I am not a vengeful person but the thrill of the risk, of the unknown and the possibilities and opportunities that suddenly seem accessible to me is invigorating.
I consulted a friend before I took this knee-jerk reaction and she told me that money anxieties would overwhelm me if I quit without a new position lined up. I believed her – I have taken every step in my career based on rational financial assessment, but I did it anyway. I have found I do not worry about money anymore then I used to. I do worry about interviews where I have to say I quit without a new role -is this perceivably irrational behaviour going to make me seem irrational? What if I have a gap in employment longer than I wanted? Am I going to have to take a pay cut?
But I am tenacious, and the anxiety is not overwhelming it is motivating. I have never felt so alive. I am feeling my creativity coming back in ways I had long forgotten. I have found myself watching videos of people converting vans into motorhomes and I feel the freedom beckoning and it is intoxicating. The energy of survival is coursing through my veins and I feel my life is in my own hands. I have reached out to old colleagues who have enthused about helping me find a new role and a few have advised about allowing the universe look after me. I would never have anticipated my reaction to my own decision, but it goes to show you can find out a lot about yourself when you step outside of your comfort zone.
Come on Universe I am all yours!
