Allow me to paint a picture. When I first started my journey in my current role, I was full of wide-eyed wonder. I was a total newbie to the hospitality industry, and what I walked into was a hurricane of excitement, creativity, huge personalities, and plenty of vino. I couldn’t wrap my head around it - what was this place where I could flex my creative muscle, as well as having so much fun?
Coming from a solo in-house role (read: lonely) with a completely chaotic manager, it was a breath of fresh air. I could talk to humans from all walks of life, I had a wonderful team around me, and had seemingly found the perfect tightrope to walk between my creative inclinations & my neurotic organisational tendencies.
As time went on, my role grew & grew - I began hoarding responsibilities like Mr. Krabs’ dollars. I was growing! Learning! Upskilling! I took over multiple brands, levelled-up my title from ‘assistant’ to ‘manager’, and became the go-to gal for all kinds of weird & wonderful things. It felt amazing to be at the nucleus of this giant, crazy cell.
However, about 6 months ago, I began to feel an itch - deep, persistent, profound (bonus points if you pick the musical I’m referencing). Over the course of time, I became somewhat unsatisfied, but I couldn’t tell why. I was being paid well, I was kicking goals, I was receiving wonderful feedback, I worked with a superstar team… So what the hell was it? Was I just an impatient #millennial throwing a tantrum? Naturally, as the way things go, not being able to put my finger on what was bugging me caused a quarter-life crisis with a healthy sprinkling of spiralling. Much fun.
After a long, generous dose of soul-searching, attempts at self-care (read: spending my whole paycheck at Lush), and Medium articles on finding your purpose, it finally, FINALLY hit me - I wasn’t learning anymore. As we know, learning = growth, so no learning = no growing in my role.
I raised this with my managers a few times in monthly reviews, and over time it became clear that there wasn’t a lot of career growth for my role outside of what I had already achieved, through no fault of anyone involved.
OK - we were getting somewhere. But wait… I freaking love this job! I don’t want to go! All of my friends are here! Cue further panic, relapse crisis, soul searching, self care, yada yada (there’s a pattern here, but you’re not my therapist). Slowly but surely, I came back to the surface to breathe and came to terms with leaving.
The whole situation began to feel like a horrible breakup with a boyfriend who just wasn’t quite right - “I love you, but this isn’t what’s right for us right now.'' We’ve all been there.
Thankfully, just as the fog began to clear, I came across this article - How to Quit Your Job in 837 Easy Steps, by Jessica Powell, illustrating the mental gymnastics we go through when making the choice to leave what is decidedly a ‘dream job’. In the end, Jessica summates that “We’d do well to embrace the messiness of our process and dispassionately figure out what’s important to us on the most fundamental level, building a business plan for our life that gradually gets us from point A to point B.”
BOOM - I wasn’t alone, everything made sense, angels were singing, Morgan Freeman was reading affirmations in my head. I was cool, calm and collected. I took a huge step back, and looked at myself from the outside in - and promptly registered (with the help of a very frank reality check from my mother) that I was leaning into the melodrama of the whole situation a little too hard. Decisions are tough, but they aren’t that tough.
Being able to pinpoint that I was simply scared of the unknown made life so much easier. The first advice in all other “How to Quit’ articles that I had read preached GET ANOTHER JOB FIRST, YOU FOOL in flashing red letters, and I had apparently taken that to heart. I was using the experience of hundreds of other people to totally inform my own decisions. By acknowledging that the sun would still rise if I resigned before having every one of my ducks in a row, I felt like I could step back off the cliff and eventually, a foam pit might catch me.
So, with a heavy heart, and a few pathetic tears at my desk (shout-out to these amazing T-shirts from Ban.do), I handed in my notice and closed the chapter.
While it was all kinds of difficult and messy, the moral of my story ended up being that embracing the fear & taking the leap was key, as horrifying as it might have felt. It's ok to have a mega quarter-life crisis - it's real life! The only thing to do from there is to keep the momentum and work towards the next win that will inevitably break your fall.
That is a fabulous article Sala, with a great message. So many people don't make the move, don't step outside their comfort zone, and succumb to the fear.
Well done you. With that attitude, the foam pit will always find you when you jump.
Best wishes for your new role - whatever that may be.