My dissatisfaction with my paid job is vast. I won’t go into details about the job itself because I’m still employed, and because what I do doesn’t matter as much as what I was dealing with. And that I stopped being able to deal with it.
My colleagues and I didn’t stop working at the beginning of the pandemic. Work lessened for a couple of weeks, while we tried to figure out how to do it in a new way, and then it picked up again, and then it picked up a lot and then it didn’t stop picking up, and while it was picking up, everything about how we did business was in constant flux.
The chaos continued and intensified and one day I realized I was but a flake trapped in a snowglobe being shaken and hurled across the room by a truculent toddler. By then I was in charge of other flakes and in trying to guide them I was essentially trying to lessen a natural disaster, control an act of God. Could I stop the glass from shattering and the water going everywhere? No. But could I keep things operational so that things would be OK once we landed?
Also no. But I really tried for a while.
In August I visited my in-laws in Ontario. My father-in-law, who has since, I’m heartbroken to report, passed away, listened to me talk about work. He was sympathetic, because he used to work in a similar environment. Then he said, “you know this is the job. You can either choose to do it, or choose to not do it. But don’t choose to do it and then complain about it.”
I wasn’t offended by this. He was right. I’ve been with my employer for 20 years (as of 10 days ago!) minus 8 years of baby/parental leave. I know what’s expected of me and what I can reasonably expect of them. And I can either do the work, or not do it.
So I said, you’re right! And decided to quit.
But then I thought about it a bit longer. In October I was sent to a mandatory 3 day training where I doodled and tried to focus on the trainer as she read from a powerpoint presentation (we used to do this all the time! Sit in rooms with other people and not be able to look at something else without people noticing! In person stuff is wild, dudes.) Through a fog of boredom I heard the trainer mention the kinds of leave without pay available to employees. My ears perked up. Twelve months? Off? Just, OFF?
Without pay, though. And only once in my career.
But, OFF?
After talking it over with my other half, the guy with the glasses, the one, the only: Saint Aardvark , I put in the paperwork for a 12 month leave without pay to start in April 2024. A self-guided sabbatical. A hiatus.
The time between then and yesterday, my last day of work, moved sometimes slowly and sometimes – this last week! – SO FAST, as time does. I counted down the days, using Excel at first because the numbers were so high, and then using my fingers near the end. And now I’m counting again, up from one.
365 days to figure out what else this flake can / will / wants to do.