I’ve been working as a cashier at an auto-parts store over the summer. The job, frankly, sucked. The customers were pissy and impatient. The managment was disorganized, and wierd. My co-workers were all ex-cons that were shocked at the idea of a college student working amongst them. The hours were long. The commute distant. The pay low.
The sad thing is, even working forty hours a week, I literally could barely pay my rent (six hundred a month to share a shack in this god-forsaken expensive town). I’ve been completely miserable, with no real benefit except to have someplace to sleep for a few hours between shifts. Well, you know what? I got sick of being miserable. I called up my manager and said I wasn’t coming to work today, or ever again.
Think about it. Working crap jobs like this is essentially selling your soul for cash. I’ve got no energy after work. I havn’t had a creative thought in months. My social networks are falling apart. My body is getting out of shape and hurts all the time. I do nothing, think nothing, all day, except for making money for somebody else. I think my soul is worth a bit more than two hundred bucks a week.
And I’m not gonna do it, esepcially not just because that is what we are “supposed” to do. Fuck it. I’ll find some other way. I dont care. I’d rather have my soul than money. Who needs to pay rent? Who needs to eat? This world already has too much damn stuff anyway. We all work forty hour weeks so we buy all this stuff so we can go to work so we can buy stuff so we can go to work so we can buy stuff…it’s stupid. And I’m out of that whole scene.
Well, on the one hand, you are to be congratulated on quitting a job that you hate. Life’s too short to put up with being miserable 8 hours a day, but…how are you going to live? Sure, it’s fun to have a petulant rant, but one must face reality, and part of reality is you have to pay your bills.
What gobear said. Congratulations on having the guts to leave what was obviously an unhappy working situation. But… just because that job sucked is no reason to get “out of that whole scene,” by which I assume you mean the scene of working long hours for someone else.
Work sucks. Rent sucks. But, I’ve found a job I like well enough, working with people I like. It pays enough to pay the rent and a bit more, and enables me to do the things I love when I’m not working. I do know how an 8 hour work day can wear you down, but have you considered finding a job that isn’t retail/customer service (which, IMO, are awful, stressful jobs with little gratitude or satisfaction)? I just don’t want to see you without a place to stay next month when rent is due.
There are many sacrifices we all need to make in our lives, and some things do come with a price. That doesn’t mean that you need to surrender your soul for financial stability. Get a better job, because you do need to pay rent, and you do need to eat. Stuff, who needs it, but food, that’s another story.
This is why college towns are awful to rent in. I share a small house with two other people. Our rent is $1500 a month plus utilities. Our “city” has about 38,000 people in it.
I would be hard pressed to find a 1 bedroom apartment in this or the surrounding towns that isn’t tennament quality for less than $500-600 plus utilities.
My mom recently sold our house and moved into the “city” and her rent now is almost twice what her mortgage and property tax were before. She’s got an apartment that’s one of three in what used to be a one family home.
You didn’t mention abuse, shorted pay checks, or other deliberate acts of injury, so I’m not quite sure how reclaiming your soul justifies leaving some guy in the lurch for help on no notice.
It would also be interesting to see these two statements reconciled:
Yeah, I feel bad about the whole quitting-without-notice thing, but the current trend towards at-will employment cuts both way. If they want to be able to fire me at any time for any reason, I oughta be able to take advantage of being able to quit any time.
Besides, I was highly replaceable. I’m going on vacation in a couple days, and they didn’t even have to do much to cover me. There are many many people working there that can easily do my job, and while it is nice for them to have a dedicated cashier around, they can do without perfectly okay until they find a new one.
And forty hours a week is a long time when there is an hour commute on each end and an hour unpaid lunch in the middle. Forty hours a week is too much to work anyway. In plenty of other countries they make due with shorter work weeks, and the whole country doesn’t explode.
I’m really doubting this work thing on a whole, however. I’ve worked in two offices, as a carpenter, as a clerk and as a cashier, and I have hated every moment on each of those jobs. Hopefully at some point I’ll graduate and be able to get a real job that I actually can stand- but as a film major, I’m not holding my breath.
Look, if you’re in a job where the working conditions suck, you are miserable, not happy and the pay is low… You’re under no obligations to stick around, unless you signed a contract.
Let them go fuck themselves with a high pressure oil gun with a loose trigger.
You’re out of a job you hate! Yay.
tomndebb: Well he could have said what you quoted, but you did take it out of context so who knows what he means. He could have been working 4 10 hour days, say tuesday, thrusday, saturday, monday… that’d be 40 hrs a week but a really shitty week.
And I do believe the OP said he was in college… To me that means in another month or so he’ll be back in college and maybe not having to work this job since his loans/scholarships/whatever will start paying for classes/room/board.
But ya know I see some of you already made your minds up about what his situation is…
tom, I’ve lived in Santa Cruz, and let me tell you, the job market there is so bad, they should have no trouble at all finding someone to fill her slot.
It’s unbelievably beautiful, but also god-awful expensive and really hard to find work. I got really lucky to find a decent job I liked when I lived there.
But on the bright side, Sven, at least you won’t freeze to death sleeping outside. (And you’ll have plenty of company.)
CRorex, you might notice that I hardly busted even’s chops. I have no problem with anyone escaping a job they hate.
Having actually been a retail manager, (one who periodically had employees quit without notice–and who then had to pick up their hours, plus spending extra time looking to find replacements) and as one who has driven up to two hours each way while still trying to be home enough to prepare meals and help kids with homework, I found myself less sympathetic to the manner in which the resignation was proferred and I was curious as to the nature of the “long” hours. (At any job I have had, I would have loved to have worked four 10-hour days. To present a “bad” situation, you should have suggested six 6-hour days and a 4-hour day.)
It is always fine to couch the terms of such discussions so that the evil corporations are the ones affected. However, I notice that the people hurt by such actions are generally one’s fellow workers while the great mindless, money-grubbing corporation rolls on, unconcerned.
Now, having expressed my sentiments, I am quite willing to accept even sven’s perspective on the matter and fully accept the response I received from even.
You, on the other hand, seem to have seriously overreacted to my rather mild questions.
It was responding to about 1/3rd of the people who posted to this thread.
We have no idea what the whole story is, so until we get the rest of the information lets not be judgemental and try to be supportive?
Ya know the OP hated their job, they finally worked up the courage to quit, I’m all for supporting them.
I don’t, in general like to see people jumping to conclusions, especially over something that was a hard decision for someone.
(And you’ll have plenty of company.)