‘Maybe today will be the day’, I thought as I walked past the railway bridge. Wrench myself over, experience 30 seconds of fear and pain… and then nothing.
Maybe today I’ll be one of those ‘idiots’ the commuters moan about. Those who would just groan at the delay then go back to their coffee.
As I trudged to work every day, it started to look much more appealing.
For about four years, I worked as a proof-reader. I started out disliking the job, but soon I hated it with a passion. I know there are people with worse jobs but keeping that in mind didn’t help me with my own situation. We were under constant deadline stress, despite publishing manuals which advised against causing burnout in employees. The management would constantly move tasks to the front of the queue and gave more work to the same amount of people. This meant we were always running behind on work, and it only got worse as more people left due to burnout.
When it wasn’t stressful, it was boring and soulless work. Every day, I came home miserable, stressed, and usually tired from not being able to sleep the night before. I looked around at my co-workers and asked myself, with the entire world at their disposal, how can they settle for this?
After griping about this to my partner and friends for several months, I decided I was going to quit – but I needed to work a bit longer to get myself into a better financial situation.
Then, the next morning, I had a stress-related seizure. If I had doubts about quitting, that got rid of them.
I shored up my finances a bit, then in March the day came. I printed out my notice and waited for an opportune moment to pull my boss to one side. Then she called us all in and announced that one of my colleagues had quit. My plans were shot.
I know what you’re thinking: I still could have quit there and then. I had that discussion with my friends when I moaned about it. But my colleagues weren’t the problem with the job. They were still people and I didn’t want to leave them in the lurch. I felt it wasn’t my place to add to any stress they might be experiencing.
I was the most experienced member of the team, so I decided to stay for a bit longer while they hired a replacement for my colleague and help with their training.
In the next two months, I had three more seizures. My relationship also fell apart very quickly. The dark nights of the soul became a lot more frequent. I needed to take a step back from all the things causing me stress. Don’t get me wrong, I did try to seek help. But most of the time, the therapy amounted to ‘If you know you’re stressed, why can’t you do anything about it?’ This isn’t helpful when part of the problem is that you feel trapped by your circumstances.
I started thinking in terms of not if I have a nervous breakdown, but when.
Enough was enough. Without a job lined up, and not much in the way of savings, I finally quit midway through April. I will treasure forever the look on my manager’s face when I handed over my notice. I gave them six weeks’ notice so that I would leave at the end of the financial year.
The day came and I still didn’t have a job lined up. But the weight came off my shoulders. Almost overnight, the suicidal thoughts stopped. I was free; with few obligations I could go anywhere, do anything. I booked a trip to Miami and am looking at going interrailing in December.
The risk paid off. Less than two months later I’d landed myself a new job. I’m three weeks in, and so far it’s going great. The people are nicer, the office is quieter, and they have more use for my creativity. Plus you have to wear a suit to the office, which makes any bloke feel a bit like James Bond.
Overall I’m much happier; I’ve even noticed that my language has changed. The words I use have become a lot more positive, and I’m less inclined to sell myself short.
If this job doesn’t turn out that great either, I know I can always walk away again. Sometimes it’s exactly what you need.