when it's time to quit and when it's time to suck it up
I worked at a Mexican restaurant in Northern Virginia for a month- barely a month- and it became the first thing I ever quit. Sure, in high school I stopped playing certain sports and dropped out of certain activities to join new ones, but I never had to sit down with someone, a person of authority, and tell them I was quitting.
I got the job last summer right when I came home from my sophomore year, and while the commute from Silver Spring to Rosslyn was nearly unbearable, I needed the money. I figured I would work at this restaurant until I found another waitressing job or an internship.
I don’t want to bash this restaurant but holy hell it was an awful place to work. Greedy management, lack of staff training, and twelve-hour shifts with no promise of a break at a place that didn’t get a ton of business anyway. I can’t even blame the waiting staff for being so exhausted and inattentive because the corporate managers were constantly stopping by to reprimand the waiters for not pushing more expensive items on the menu.
Despite the fact that I dreaded working every shift and was miserable after every work-day, I was still so hesitant to quit.
I needed to make money that summer. I mean I didn't need to put a roof over my head, I was living with my parents. I just wanted to feel stable, and while I wasn’t saving money for any reason in particular, I knew the more money I had to my name, the more tangible representation I would have of the work I’ve accomplished.
Another reason I was so hesitant to leave was that, as previously stated, I had never quit anything before. I was overwhelmed with thoughts of “It’ll get better, you’re just in a new environment!” and “You’re being a baby, you have to suck it up and work. Everyone else does.”
I was starting to worry if I hated working there, or if I just hated working. Had I really been so sheltered that I didn’t know what having a bad job was like? I’ve been fortunate enough to have great experiences working in the service industry, and while this wasn’t one of them, I considered that maybe I was just being picky and that it wasn’t really that bad.
Maybe my job wasn’t that awful, I was just awful at my job.
One day at work, management told all the waiters that they wouldn’t be getting their tips in cash at the end of their shifts anymore. Their tips would be put on their bi-weekly check and taxed like crazy. Amidst groans from my coworkers, I realized this would severely impact my pay as a waitress, and my final paycheck ended up being hundreds of dollars less than if the company kept with their alleged protocol for tips.
Suddenly it was so easy for me to quit. I had isolated the variable that was guilting me into staying: money. Without the argument that I could make good money working there, I had no excuse to stay, and I realized that leaving was the right choice all along.
I gave them a week’s notice, and because I’m a people-pleaser and I don’t like confrontation, I told my manager it was because I had found another waitressing job closer to where I live. This was a straight-up lie. I couldn’t find another job, but I figured I could afford to live without a paycheck for a few weeks (again, I was living at home.)
I drove home from Rosslyn around midnight after my last shift, and I’ve never blasted music louder. It was sweet freedom.
A few weeks later I started a part-time internship at an association in Reston. While the commute was just as bad and you could call it your average 9-5 office job, I enjoyed myself. People cared about me! They invited me to lunch! They were passionate about their jobs!
* * *
Coping with a job or an obligation you don’t love is tough. It’s a Catch-22: You need a job and an income to survive (and in some cases, feel accomplished), and on the other, you still want to be happy.
I found that for me personally, just identifying the independent variable and realizing that it wasn’t worth my general happiness was enough to get me to start the conversation.
I also realized that I was online shopping a lot during the month I was working at the restaurant. I was spending money on things that made me feel good, which is a classic vicious cycle. After getting hooked on having a $6 coffee or a Glossier pick-me-up every week, you start to think that quitting would be a bad idea because you really need this money... so that you can keep buying expensive stuff... to keep killing the pain you feel from working at your terrible job.
This cycle has also applied to me when I’m bored, feeling inadequate, or within a crappy relationship. Enough with the unnecessary spending, Caroline! Cut that sh*t out!
We probably face the choice between giving it up and sucking it up every day, because sometimes things that suck are things that are actually really important to us. Being in an extracurricular club, getting a good workout in, working a certain job.
It would be extremely privileged and annoying of me to stop here and say:
If you’re not happy all the time, just quit your day job! 9-5 jobs are for corporate sell-outs! You don’t need money, just live off the bounty of Mother Earth like the smol bean that you are. Never do anything that makes you work hard or even somewhat inconveniences you!
Like, no.
Work hard! Be miserable sometimes if it means that the end result makes you happy and fulfills you in some way. September to May I’m a full time student, I work off-campus, and I’m involved in organizations on campus BUT, I feel fulfilled when I’m busy. If it’s ever too much for me though, I have to take a step back and evaluate what result I’m working towards.
A lot of times we choose the result we can hold in our hands: money, a better body, a product.
Happiness isn’t tangible, but it’s important that it isn’t. Tangible products are fleeting, and it’s not sustainable for well-being. If you’re spending your entire day chasing tangibility, it’s time to start looking for an out.
I don’t look back on quitting that Mexican restaurant and say, “Damn, I wish I had just stuck with it”, because the only thing that quitting changed was the amount of money I had in my pocket.
If something is worth sucking it up when times get hard, you’ll be able to carry that experience with you, because it will have satisfied you.