I Quit My Job

Today was my last day as a manager. Strangely enough, though, today has been one of the happier days I've had since I started this part of my career. As it turns out, I am not much of a people person. Surprise! Well, it's not so much that I hate people, but more like afraid of them. I guess that might not be the best word for it, either. I just struggle with small talk.

There is so little time to accomplish everything on my goal list, and when someone starts talking about the same tired tropes like weather or road closures, I get so uncomfortable. There are a lot of smart people who say that you should "master the art of small talk," but then, there are others, like Doug Stanhope, who say that it's much better to skip past that and get right to the good stuff. Now, it's not always possible to know how strange you can get with a stranger or an acquaintance, but so much of our lives is dominated by watered-down conversation that goes nowhere and accomplishes little, and it feels wasteful to do so.

How was your day? Fine, good, okay, etc. Those are all acceptable answers. But how can you respond to someone, who, when passing by, says, "How ya doin'?" "Terrible, I stepped in a puddle of water on my way in, and I am slowly going broke due to my monthly student loans, and my soul is being crushed because I can't find a job in my field!" That might be an exaggeration, and definitely not my life, but it's just fascinating and odd to me how people can go through their day getting asked how they are doing and not ever really being able to properly answer.

Well, I'm getting off topic. I am going to the fair in a few minutes, and I've had too nice of a day to let imaginary small talk ruin it.

I quit my job as a department manager to take another position in the same company, technically a step down, into the back end operations, where I will learn "everything there is to know about the department." That was the idea when my manager noticed that I wasn't very happy in my position. He took extra care to find something that could be available to me (although I did take a pay cut) that was away from customers, and steady. Monday through Friday, 7am to 4pm. Pretty nice. I am very grateful.

So, I will have a steady sleep schedule, and I plan on losing weight and wearing nicer clothes, and really working to accomplish a lot of the things I have set aside. More on that later, though. To the fair!

Tainted: Am I Being a Good Person?

There's no easy way to start an article in which you're going to tell the world that you don't think you are a good person. When you wake up every morning and cringe at the thought of something you accidentally said or did, and wonder if the memory you have with that person will have tainted their view of you forever. You wonder if everything you do has some kind of irreparable consequence, by which you cannot escape and will always be labeled. 

And so, you feel like you'd rather have some kind of terminal disease just because living feels too complicated because you think that your existence has become too tainted by the mistakes you have made.

You don't want to be known by the things you've accidentally done to others, but it comes to be eventually that those moments are the way people really do remember you, as you retreat in shame and make those memories a much larger piece of the pie chart graph of connections between the two of you. The idea of talking to this person is marred by the fear that their reception of you is tainted by your actions. And even if you think about how self-centered people are, and how you wouldn't let others be represented by the mistakes they have made, you worry that others still will.

Being this exact kind of person, I find myself in a very painful situation with my life. I have burned bridges, thrown stones, and ignored friendships past the point of repair, simply because I am continually ashamed of my actions/inactions and cannot bring myself to experience reality as it exists, and not the way it seems to in my mind.

Moving to a new place always quells my anxiety for a while. It allows me to be a new person, to start over with people who do not know my mistakes. They see me as this person I would always like to be: uncompromising, quietly peaceful, and kind. Maybe funny, too. I always want people to laugh.

But then, I make a mistake. It haunts me. I remember every mistake from before kindergarten to yesterday, and they completely take over my life. I recall being at my brother's birthday party when I was 6 and he was 4, and he got a Playstation from my grandparents. I, having just learned the value of money, was excited to tell him to take care of it because it cost "some amount of dollars." And the whole room (and at that time, my whole world) laughed at me. I still feel shame from those (practically meaningless) encounters.

Why? I don't know, Maybe I need to speak to a therapist. But for now, every mistake goes right back to my head, filling up this internal quota I hope I never reach. Every mistake I make comes across to me as a failure, and one that can never be fixed, since there's no way to go back in time and right the wrongs.

They say "time heals all wounds" but I have yet to experience the healing of my past indiscretions. Maybe it's not time that heals, but the person. Maybe the person is supposed to somehow let go of their mistakes, or accept them and move on, but I have no idea how to do that. It's very easy to tell someone to let go, but it's hard to be the one who has to do it.

A Very Real Explanation of My Work Life

I find it incredibly difficult to suspend my sense of disbelief, even for a moment. Completely gone are the days when I could imagine myself away from my life, into a new one, where I could be happy and calm. I used to think that it was because I didn't need to anymore, but now, I feel unhappy with myself, and I'm stuck in this reality. This feeling is made worse by the knowledge that I have done so well for myself, at least in the eyes of others.

My formal education ended when I quit college, and the respect I got from my family also quelled. I felt ashamed, although I kept telling myself that I didn't care what my family thought of me. They never really had my back to begin with, anyway. I was going to use my intelligence to move up in the world, and college wasn't really a necessity for me. So I went back to work, and the story bloomed from there. I met someone who shared my love of travel and photography, and he would help me transition into someone better, someone who didn't starve herself to feel attractive, and someone who created her own validity.

Complications held us to Indiana for three extra years than I wanted, and I began to feel miserable. I stopped writing and exercising, and started wallowing in my own misery. And I still must be digging myself out, because I shouldn't be miserable anymore. I got myself out of Indiana. I did it. My hard work throughout the past three years has put my in this apartment I can afford, surrounded by things I can walk to, parks, shops, nature, restaurants, etc.

I have gained a lot of weight. I have squandered my opportunities, and I am ashamed of myself. But where do I go from here? My job is in retail, albeit a manager (though I never really wanted it in the first place), so I can continue to try to excel there, or I can work on my creative pursuits and eventually pull myself out of retail. Everyone always tells me what a great job I'm doing there, but I don't have much motivation to keep customers happy when they are complete assholes to me collectively. I was told that I'm naive, but maybe I don't like being treated like scum for terrible reasons. At least, if I'm going to be treated that way, it should be more deserved, and not because I sold out of a refrigerator they want.

My ideal job would probably at this point be part-journalist, part-comedian, part-podcast host. Oh, yeah, very reliable, very easy-to-obtain. But I've found that I'm much happier working toward practically unrealistic goals rather than mindlessly working in a retail job with little end-goal besides making more money. Money is great, but when you don't have happiness alongside it, what can you really do with it?

Everyone keeps telling me that management is great for my resume. That I am making such great decisions, that I should definitely keep trying to move up into the company, and that I will make a great this or a great that. But my mind is telling me that I am unhappy with management, and that I just don't function well when I have to tell other people what to do. I really don't want more responsibility, and I have been doing this to further my own interests at home, not to move up in a corporation that really only likes me at my absolute best, and probably not really even at that point. People say I should stick it out so that I can have something important to put on my resume if I want to move out of retail eventually.

I never wanted to be in retail. I am not making a big deal out of this. I am a very introverted person, and every day, I feel like I need to come home to a quiet room to decompress for the night, and every day that I'm off, I would now rather spend it indoors on my couch than out in public, as I have grown to absolutely hate people because of my job. That is not healthy. I've been doing this for long enough that I know it won't be any better, even if I say it will be, because my creativity eventually drains back out and I am left ragged and miserable.

So, I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I continue working in my management position, with erratic hours, good pay, and potential to move up? Or do I take a potential pay cut, downgrade in position, but steady M-F hours that will also allow me to get away from horrible customers and focus on my personal life more? Because those are the options I'm faced with. On Wednesday, I have to go back into work, where they are more than ready to accommodate me, and make a very big decision.