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Cootie Girl: How to quit your job and love every minute of it.
11.14.2002
A true story.
It was May 2001 and I had been working for the same publishing company for 7 and 1/2 years. Yes, this was my first job out of college and the only reason I took the job was because I could wear jeans to work. While at this company, I had worked my way through 4 different departments and about 10 different bosses. Towards the end, I almost had a Directors title for a weekly magazine. I was 100% vested in my 401K, I had some money in the savings and I was taking a computer course. Sounds like I was on top of the world but in fact I was very very unhappy. The one thing that bugged me the most was the fact that the company had 2 other titles (one monthly the other biweekly) with people doing the EXACT same job I was yet, both had offices and got paid more than I did. In addition, my boss really had no understanding of what my department did and what we dealt with on a daily basis. Most of the time we were overlooked and underappreciated. I know whine whine whine I am sure it is like that at most jobs, but you would think that after 7 years I would have earned some respect. Am I wrong?
My original plan was to wait until September when I would have finished the computer course to quit the job and hop on a plane to Australia and hang out for 3 months. This plan would have worked too if it wasn't for those meddling kids (and by that I mean "the man"). I was the head of a department of 3 people and I was training my staff to handle everything ultimately preparing them for my departure and they knew it.
It was the beginning of May (on a Wednesday) when my boss called me into her office and told me that they were evaluating each department and if I could lose a person in my department who would it be. We were already running on empty working on a weekly magazine we never have downtime so this was my chance I could get them to lay me off and be free and happy again. Instead, I got a whole speech about how they weren't letting go of management because we are so important and blah blah blah.
First thing Friday my boss tells me that they were laying off my assistant manager. My response was "OK well then I think I am going to have to quit." My boss didn't believe me and asked that I think about it and we will discuss this next week. I walked out of her office and went straight down to HR to complain however, HR was too busy with all of the exit interviews to talk to me. I left the building and sat across the street because I didn't know how to deal with the situation. About a half hour later my department found me and we proceeded to get high, go shopping for makeup and sit at the downstairs bar for the rest of the day drinking and bitching about how f*cked up the company was. No work got done on that day and my boss didn't even notice I was gone.
That Monday morning the HR department called me to see if I was ok and if I wanted to talk about what happened. My boss however avoided me for about 4 days, seriously walked past my desk every day and not a word. Ironically, my yearly review was that Tuesday so I decided not to quit just to see what my boss' plan was for the department and me. Tuesday's appointment got pushed to Wednesday and ultimately pushed to Thursday afternoon. When I finally got to sit down with her, the first thing she asks if I am ok with what happened the pervious week. I had to laugh. (NO, I AM NOT OK DUMBASS!) After about 5 minutes of her telling me how great I am, she makes a comment like "how would you like to take on some more work so we can try and get you some more money." I totally felt like shit and said right then and there "You know what? I don't think I want any more responsibilities. I am going to have to quit. I am very unhappy here." And that was it. The review was over with one call to HR and I was sent on my way. They never even tried to get me to stay which really annoyed me about the whole situation. I know I am a damn good employee and they just let me walk right out that door. It was the best thing that ever happened to me and I have never looked back.
