Apparently Quitting Also Means They Stop Paying You

I’ve discovered one major flaw in my fun-employment plan.

Apparently, when you quit your job, they stop paying you.

I realize this is information I probably should have considered before resigning, but I was very focused on the freedom part. I imagined all the things I would finally have time to do. I’d write. I’d build my speaking business. I’d create. I’d become wildly successful.

Instead, I got a tattoo.

I wanted the tattoo to mark this strange season of my life. I quit a stable job without another job waiting for me. I chose myself and the things I’d been saying I wanted to do for years. That felt worthy of permanently etching something into my body.

It was only after I paid for it that I remembered I was currently celebrating my complete lack of personal funding.

Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about: I really think people who quit their jobs should get severance.

Think about it. I saved them all the trouble of firing me. There was no performance improvement plan, awkward HR meeting, or security escort. I handled the entire separation myself. That kind of initiative used to be exactly what they paid me for.

And then it took two men to replace me.

I don’t want to get hung up on the math here, but I do feel there may be some back pay owed.

What I didn't expect about this transition was how hard it would be to transfer all that ambition into a self-directed career. Give me a deadline, a team, a giant event, or a problem nobody else knows how to solve, and I am ALL IN.

But take away the deadline, the boss, the paycheck, and the people waiting for me to deliver, and suddenly I can spend three weeks rehabilitating a betta fish.

I thought my drive came entirely from within. I’m realizing how much of it came from being needed.

When someone needed something from me, I knew exactly what success looked like: solve the problem, finish the project, run the event, meet the deadline.

Now I’m the one deciding what matters.

That is significantly harder.

Somewhere underneath all of this, I’m starting to notice the question that keeps following me around:

If I’m not being productive, am I failing?

I don't have the answer yet.

But I do have a tattoo, a comedy show, and—against all odds—a fish that is still alive.

— Sheila