you ain't nothin' but a quitter!

by mg at 11:47 AM on May 10, 2001

Jesus. I simultaneously hate and love Jason Pettus. He has such a way of writing about exactly what I'm thinking, not only much better than I could ever write about it, but always a couple days before I end up feeling and writing it.

I've been wondering, for the past week or so, why I haven't been able to quit my job, despite the fact that I hate it so very much. And so I go read Jason's weblog-type thing yesterday, and this is what he had to say about quitters:

Me and quitting jobs have always had a weird relationship with each other. In a nutshell – I can't do it. I just find it almost impossible to voluntarily quit jobs, no matter how horrible they are or how miserable I am in them. And with God as my witness, I don't know why I'm like this.

I feel the same way. I've left a lot of jobs, but, as with how I've left most of my romantic relationships, things have ended with a whimper, rather than a bang. I've really never quit a job before. I've never gone to my employer and said "Bye now! I've put a virus on the company intranet, stole my Aeron chair and set fire to my desk. Do you still want me to give you two weeks?"

Same with relationships, I've never said, "You know, I hate you. I hate the way you breathe. I hate the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you hold your fork. I hate your stupid ass face and never want to see you or it again."

I just don’t have it in me for that kind of confrontation.

Quitting/breaking up is just too darn much trouble. I've always sort of let things slide in my relationships, until months later, I realise I haven't talked with my "girlfriend" for weeks. "I guess we are broken up now," I'd invariably think. It is the same deal with work. I'd just stop showing up. Or, keep working there even though I’d started working somewhere else.

At one point in college, I was working 3 different jobs, not because I especially needed the money, but because I couldn’t quit any of them. Eventually, I just kept cutting back my hours until they dwindled down into nothingness.

And things have seemed to work out pretty well for me so far. I don't know if my ex-girlfriends and employers would necessarily see it that way, but who cares about them. There was usually a pretty good reason that I left them in the first place.

That is kind of the point where I am at here and now. I have a pretty good reason to leave. I actually had a pretty good reason to have never started at all, but I think I confused that fluttery feeling in the pit of my stomach with hunger, rather than the nagging doubt that I could really deal with working here. In the long run, I’d probably rather have been poor and happy than middle-class and miserable.

So, I still show up every day, but my heart isn’t in it. I’ve managed to roll in late every single day for the past two weeks. I’ve managed to get into little arguments with my one main boss, even managing a couple times to wipe that stupid smirk off his face. I don’t know - when I wear that smirk, or when George W. does, it is cute and endearing; when my boss does it, I want smash him in the back of the head with my keyboard.

As the days have passed, I’ve spent an increasing amount of time checking my email, surfing the Internet, and hanging outside in the park across the street. Eventually I’ll hit the point at which I am doing more “other stuff” than I am doing actual “work.” That is, unless I can manage forcing myself to quit first.

Maybe I should meet up with Jason and we can go work in a coal mine together?