I had a job at the post office. I’d completed the training and they were going to throw me out into the full route. Deep Water. The thing was, I HATED it, and I was terrible at it. Took me five hours to do a three-hour mini-route. So I resigned yesterday. :smack:
Now it's 6:30 am. I'm in a near panic mode because my birthday is coming up and I made such a stupid fucking move. Everyone always says "Don't quit a job till you have a new one," but I did. I know most of the posts that follow this will be "Yes, you did a insanely stupid thing, and you should be ashamed," and I deserve it. I just needed to vent between pulling out my hair and calculating how close I am to the nearest bridge (Sorta-semi-kidding). I'd say I need some reassurance, but that's a lie. I know there's little to be had in this situation. :(:(:(
Hell, I'm now an unemployed guy with an ENGLISH DEGREE. That right there should tell you all you need to know about my ability to make good choices for my long-term happiness.
And yes, I realize that there are folks with bigger problems out there, especially in the wake of the tragedy in Boston. Now I feel like an even bigger jerk and very self-centered for posting about my choice.
You did what you did. It happened. Can’t do anything about it now, stop beating yourself up. Learn from your mistakes and be a better person. There will be another opportunity, make a promise to yourself not to mess that one up. It’s all you can do.
Some stupid choices are the kind where, when you look back on your life thirty years from now, you think “I really f’ed up my life by doing that. I wish I hadn’t…”
This, I’m pretty sure, is not one of those things. Assuming it’s a “stupid choice” at all, it’s the kind you can recover from, and it may even be a blessing in disguise depending on where you go from here. Don’t sweat it. There’s no reason you can’t go on to better things.
It’s a little too early, I should think, to decide if this is folly or not. If the planets align and the next opportunity to come your way should turn out to be the next awesome thing in your world, well then this bold action will appear as sheer sparkling brilliance.
All you have to do is make it so, it seems to me. I congratulate you on recognizing that you were ill suited to that job, and acting on it. Shows both self awareness and an unwillingness to waste everybody’s time. You didn’t waste a couple of months/years trying to make it work, you boldly acted. I say well done!
Frame this experience and your job search in the most positive light, always, don’t let anyone bring you down. And boldly move forward to whatever is next, confident that the universe didn’t want you at the post office anyway!
(Also, I know someone who is today a veritable pillar in the publishing community, having risen into the thin air of the profession. Also took heaps from all and sundry for their English degree. Not any more, of course. I’m just saying, don’t listen to that crap, just be immune!)
Good Luck to you I think you’re on the right path!
It might have been a mistake, but it’s the kind of mistake you can recover from.
Getting sent to prison for 20 years, having a baby with a crazy person, getting hooked on heroin - those are stupid choices that can really screw you up. Quitting a job prematurely? Eh, you live and learn. Maybe it will free you to find something you’re more comfortable with.
Yeah, I’m feeling less frantic now (oddly after a cuppa joe) than I was when I started this thread. It’s partly the economic “doomy doom of dooms” news that I seem to hear 24-7 that fed my self-flagellation, I think. Your replies have helped me get more settled.
And it’s only a block to the nearest bridge, in case you were curious!
I’ve quit a job I hated without a new job to go to before. Yes, it can be rough for a while but it’s not the end of the world- and it could turn out to be one of the best things you ever did. Your next job could be great, and you wouldn’t have found it if you hadn’t quit your old job.
That’s what happened to me; I’ve been at my current job 12 years, I make decent money and have good benefits. I never would have found it if I hadn’t quit the job I hated.
Whenever I start to panic about this sort of thing (which can be fairly often), I remember something my dad once told me when I turned to him in a fairly frantic state: “It’s only money. We’ll figure it out.”
Yes, money is important. Yes, the stress of not making it and not having it is real and horrible - believe me, I know. But, in the end, it’s only money. There are more important things in life, and there’s not a great correlation between happiness and either employment or money in the bank.
It’s a job you hated before training was done? Screw it. Working at it until you found something new was only going to make you miserable and sick. Now, don’t wallow, get up of your backside and start looking for something you do want to do.
I’ll be the last one to say that you should work in a job you hate, but it sounds like maybe you gave up on it a bit early. By that, I mean that it doesn’t sound at all unlikely that they threw you out into the deep water with the 3 hr mini route knowing full well that you’d take 5 hours (or more) to do it your first time.
Personally, I wouldn’t bail on a job until after training’s done and I tried it “live” for a while, unless training pointed out that there were moral or ethical aspects that I couldn’t live with, or physical requirements that I couldn’t do.
.. or get you fired. It’s a lot easier to explain to a potential new employer in an interview that you quickly figured out that you were not a good fit and so you left, than it is to try to explain away getting shitcanned.
So inappropriate.