I Quit My Job Without Having a New One to Start

I suppose he title should say “I Quit My Job And I Did It Without Having Another One Lined Up and I Know Everyone Is Gonna Think I’m Crazy For That But Hey I Have a Business!”

In the middle of May, I had my last day at my corporate, 9-5 job. I didn’t have another job lined up, ready for me to step into.

I regret nothing.

I Quit Over a Month Ago But Didn’t Tell Everyone

Some people knew that I quit my job over a month ago. My coworkers, for example lol. There were only two people who knew before I actually put in my notice: my boyfriend and one of my friends.

Of the people that don’t know I put in my notice (as of writing this), the vast majority of them will likely find out through the grapevine once one of them reads this post. I don’t feel like going out of my way to mention it to them, but I also don’t feel like hiding it anymore. So if they ask, I will tell them the truth.

You may be like…”Sierra, why have you been keeping this a secret?”

And well, that’s because I was afraid. It takes a lot of humility for me to fully admit that as I’ve always tried to keep it under wraps. But it’s the truth!

I’ve been afraid of judgement, of getting told I made a stupid decision, of getting told that I am just stupid entirely.

Because while I thought through my decision very thoroughly and I considered it for 6+ months before I finally made it, I know that quitting a job without having something else lined up puts people on edge.

Why I Quit My Job

So, let’s get into the reasons why I quit my job. Like I said above, it was not a blind or sudden decision. It was the culmination of a lot of different things over time, but I think they can all be categorized under the below items.

I Felt Isolated and Alone

I was a part of a team, but I stopped feeling like I was. This started completely unintentionally, as the division of work eventually shifted to where I was doing one part of my team’s overall process, and the other four people on the team were doing the other. (I realize that doesn’t make a ton of sense without context but for the sake of privacy, I won’t go into any details on my specific job or company I worked for.)

The shift in these work responsibilities made sense at the time, and I wasn’t upset about them. But eventually it turned into me feeling like I was stuck on my own island, with no one to vouch for me. And to be honest, I was the shortest tenured employee so I got stuck with the shit job that everyone was happy to take off their plate.

The first time I noticed that dynamic for real was when I got back from a four day vacation last summer, and no one had even attempted to cover my work while I was gone (despite being given the resources needed to do so.)

I knew immediately that despite me taking over work I barely understood when someone else was out of the office, that effort would not be given back to me. No one wanted to do it, so it was easy to ignore.

I should have known back then that it wouldn’t end, but I tried to let it slide off my back.

Then, we were nearing our busiest time of the year, where we typically bring on temporary employees because the workload escalates so much. I especially needed help, considering that I was the only person doing my job. But then it took months - literally months - before upper management would even approve of my team getting a temporary employee to help me (not including the weeks it took to hire someone and get them started.)

Even though I had been extremely vocal about how overwhelmed I was, giving concrete numbers and examples to show that the workload was too much, I was ignored.

They approved a temporary employee to join my team at the very last minute, to where I had borderline no time to properly train and prepare the person for what to expect. There was so little time to properly train them that they weren’t given all the tech permissions they needed to properly do the job. So there was a massive chunk of work that I wouldn’t even be able to split between the two of us anyway, leaving me still overwhelmed.

I felt abandoned.

One of my many final straws was when I took a week long vacation in April of this year. I was told straight to my face that my work would just have to go ignored while I was gone and I’d have to pick it back up after I came back.

What other way do you need to be told so blatantly that your job does not matter to other people?

Why would anyone expect me to put my best foot forward when that is the way my manager views my work? Why should I give a fuck?

Unfortunately for my employer, I do give a lot of fucks. But when I am pushed to the brink and finally done with something, I go from 100 to zero very very quick. And then I’m out completely.

I Felt Bullied

One thing to know about me is that I am very, very emotional. And for most of my life, I’ve just accepted that and it never bothered me.

But then it started to bother me at this job. Because every time I would get emotional - even when I kept it to myself - I would get teased and taunted.

I’m not an emotional person for no reason. I’m emotional because I care - a LOT. And at this point in my life, I refuse to apologize for caring about things, even when no one else does. But because I was caring so much about a job that no one else wanted to give a shit about, somehow I was the one worth bullying.

I would get upset when something went wrong, or when people asked me questions they’d asked me 1000 times before. I would get upset when I felt too overwhelmed to get all my work done and cry, but people would just tell me, “We’re not saving lives, Sierra, why are you crying?”

I’d cry because I care about my work ethic. So what if I’m not saving lives, I still want to do my job well. And if I’m so overwhelmed that things are falling through the cracks, then I immediately feel like I’m failing.

It got to the point when I felt like people didn’t believe my emotions. I’d get told by managers that if “I’m this upset, something must be changed!” and then….nothing would change. (Ironically, some sort of plan was put into place to shift the workload around only after I put in my notice. MONTHS after I first vocalized the issues. And after I announced my departure.)

My goal was not to have people be as reactive and as emotional as me. All I wanted was for someone to understand the reasons why I was upset and attempt to do something about them. But instead I was pushed aside and ignored or told to “just get over it.”

It’s hard to get over something that feels like it’s slapped into your face every single day.

My Intelligence and Capabilities Were Stifled

It fascinated me how many ideas I would have AND actually bring to the table, be told, “wow, that’s a great idea!” and then they would….dissolve into the mist. Or even worse, they would be ignored until someone else had the same idea, and then suddenly they would be encouraged or even become a whole project.

Eventually I knew that the comments about me being “so smart and capable” were just smoke blown up my ass. And if I had less self-esteem, then maybe I would have sunk into it and not thought twice about the smoke.

But again, unfortunately for my employer, I’ve grown to actually believe in my own intelligence for the first time in my entire life. I now understand that I am capable of way, WAY more than they could ever offer me, and I refused to have that be squashed down.

I know that I deserve to be working on things that give life to what I’m capable of, give me healthy challenges, and encourage me to develop skills I am passionate about. Those things were never going to happen at that job.

My Interests Lay No Where Near What I Was Doing

This one is pretty simple, but I was working in an industry that wasn’t remotely close to my interests.

I started this job when I was in desperate need of one, and I am extremely grateful for the things I’ve learned while doing it. The industry itself has so much that could be relevant to my life overall and I intend to take what I’ve learned and expand on it in my own time.

But as a topic to be heavily involved in for 40+ hours every week? I was miserable.

This fall, I’m going back to college to pursue my bachelor’s degree in political science and psychology. I want to be more involved in public policy, social change and politics. I want to make the world a better place in big ways.

There just wasn’t ever going to be a route for me to do those things at this job. Whether I was working as the grunt I was, or promoted up to some other much higher position. The industry just didn’t give me the opportunity I wanted.

I realize I’m young, and there’s this common mindset that a job is “just a job” (more on that below) and there’s time for me to find a job I care more about. But I was completely miserable spending so much time in a topic that I really didn’t care about. I don’t believe in forcing myself to be miserable no matter the circumstances. No matter the age.

I Worried the Stress Would Literally Kill Me

This was my final straw.

A few months before I quit, I was starting to get vision issues while driving. My eyesight would get blurry, and on the worst days I would get double vision.

This started at the same time that I was only sleeping like 4-5 hours a night, so I assumed it was just due to how tired I was. I was sleeping so little due to trying to get my business off the ground outside of work hours, so I had to sacrifice a lot of time for that endeavor in order to fix my sleep schedule. But I enjoyed not dying in some fiery car wreck, so I did it.

Except that even weeks and weeks after fixing my sleep, I was still having vision issues.

One morning, I was driving to work and I spooked myself really bad because I had (what I would consider) severe double vision. I was terrified, not being able to recognize which car driving past me was the real one vs which was the doubled.

I eventually pulled safely into my parking spot at work, but I asked my boyfriend to pick me up and take me home after my day was over because I was so scared.

I searched and found out that stress can impact your vision. I wasn’t shocked at all. I was more shocked that I let myself get so stressed that I was scared to drive.

That was the day I made my decision to quit. I didn’t immediately put in my notice because I didn’t want to take any hasty action, but I knew from that moment it was game over.

There was no job on the entire planet that was going to make me risk my life just to drive to it.

It’s no secret that stress can cause all kinds of other symptoms that can then kill you, and I knew if I stayed for any length of time, I would be at risk. I couldn’t do it to myself anymore.

And it didn’t matter to me whether anyone else on the planet understood how stressed I was. I could make a case for it (isolation, teasing, etc) but I didn’t care anymore. It was time for me to be done and relieve the severe stress I was experiencing.

Thank god I did.

These Are Not Things We Should Just Accept as Facts of Life

I know I know, there’s going to be those out there that are like, “Well, Sierra, a stressful job is just a part of life! Most of us don’t care about our work either! But we get over it!”

And I can confidently tell you: I don’t care if you’ve leaned into these miserable parts of life, I refuse to do the same 🙂

Because I want to love what I do for 40+ hours a week. I want to breathe life into my passions and goals.

I don’t believe that our lives are meant to be this miserable simply because that’s what we’ve been doing for so long. So I’m changing it.

What I Have to Gain By Quitting

Despite the fact that I quit my job without another lined up - trust me, I applied to new jobs for months, and I kept getting a big ‘ole zero response to my applications - I felt so fucking relieved and excited and hopeful about my future. Don’t get me wrong, not having a completely steady income is scary in its own way, but much less scary than nearly dying in a car accident because of stress!

There were all sorts of things to be gained.

My Stress Symptoms Disappeared Immediately

It’s funny because after my last day, I immediately noticed how much better I felt. It’s insane how much stress can impact you physically, but I now have a better understanding of it being on the other side.

During the last few months at my job, I was getting headaches and migraines 3-4 times every single week. I went so far as to spend over $1k on a brain MRI to make sure I didn’t have something scary going on with my health. (My doctor did recommend an MRI to check things, I didn’t just decide on my own to get one, lol.)

It’s been over a month since I quit, and I’ve had maybe 3-4 headaches total.

I’m no longer feeling insanely tired at the end of the day without having done anything. During work, I would come home and just feel like a zombie, to where I literally didn’t have the energy to get off the couch to even make something for dinner. I slept all the time because the exhaustion felt completely inescapable. (Oh, the number of post-work couch naps!)

Don’t get me wrong - I still have days now where I feel tired and low-energy. There’s way more that goes into that than just stress, I know, but it was funny how the severity immediately went down after I quit and that stressor went away.

It’s also very interesting how my historically intense chronic pain has basically disappeared. There’s tons of studies out there (like this one!) that show how stress impacts muscle pain and fatigue, even more so when you already have chronic health issues.

I’ve had a decade+ long history with chronic pain, and I’ve done a lot to help it outside of relieving stress. But after I quit, the pain levels went down even more.

And now without my headaches and major fatigue, I can spend more time exercising and training my body for even more improvement. So not only did the stress symptoms disappear rather quickly, it’s given me a route to change my health around for the better. Win-win, baby.

I Can Now Run My Business

This is currently my favorite benefit to quitting my job.

I’ve been able to dedicate literally all the time in the world to running my business and growing it.

And I won’t lie to you - this has been hard. It’s hard to grow a business in the first place, and in my experience it’s even harder to do it when you have the flexibility of your time because you can subconsciously put yourself at a disadvantage. (i.e. procrastination.)

However, knowing that I have, should I so choose, 12 hours in my day to work on my business feels so freeing. Or knowing that I can film videos during the day when the daylight is good, and I don’t have to wait until the weekend to do so. Knowing that if I need to take a break in the middle of the day, I can. (As an example, just yesterday I stopped working and did a workout because I felt tired and wanted an energy boost. That would have never happened at my 9-5. Instead, I would have picked up even more caffeine.)

But even more importantly than all of that, I now get to pursue my passion during working hours, and that feels pretty damn good.

I’ll Get to Focus On My Education

The freedom for my education might be my most favorite overall gain from all of them, because I’ve been working toward being able to go back to school for 3+ years.

I want my education to be my absolute top priority come this fall, and being able to do that without worrying about fitting it around a strict work schedule is awesome. I’ll still be running my business, but since I run it myself I can work on that whenever.

I went to the transfer student orientation for my college in April, before I had even put in my notice at work, and scheduled my classes for the middle of the day. There was a beautiful sort of freedom in that, knowing that I didn’t have to limit my class options to fit around work.

There’s More Work to Find That Will Fit My Schedule

God forbid, running my business doesn’t pay me enough of a salary to pay my bills, there’s a million other jobs out there that aren’t a corporate 9-5 and are more flexible with a college schedule.

There’s serving tables, working at a library, freelancing…all kinds of things!

And the good news is I qualified for federal work study this coming year and I’ve already started applying to jobs to fulfill that! So no, it’s not a full salary by any means, but it gives me another stream of cash.

I never would have been able to be flexible the way these jobs are if I had stayed at my old one. And worse, if I for whatever reason needed to grow my income more, I wouldn’t have been able to because I wouldn’t have had the time. I wouldn’t have been able to manage a work study job on top of it all.

But now, I can focus on growing my bookstore and scale it, so when school starts, my schedule won’t get in the way and my income will grow as I need it to.

So, That’s Why I Quit My 9-5 Job Without Another One Lined Up

I realize it’s crazy, my decision to quit without having another job lined up. But I also feel extremely passionate about what I can do with my choices, and I can’t wait to pursue them.