I almost quit my Job.
If you stay too long at the wrong place, it begins to feel right.
I almost quit my job two weeks ago.
I was enraged.
Everything within me wanted to stand up and scream "I quit", and then gather my things for home.
I was mad but I spoke in a calm voice because I had to retain the dignity of quitting instead of the silent shame of being let out of a job.
Truth was, I had already been angry about everything concerning my job for weeks now. Almost everyone I knew had gotten better opportuned jobs and I kept asking myself why I was still here.
Why are you here Amaka? *No answer*
That day, I argued with my supervisor over a certain work that I had done and I was so mad because though I was right, I had to give him the benefit of being right because he was my supervisor.
After the quiet argument, I just couldn’t hold the anger in anymore so I got up and left the office building. I stood in the sun for a few minutes before the tears started pouring in. Sniffling and wiping away at the escaping tears, I began to pace the floor to get myself to calm down.
I hate it when the tears come when I’m angry.
I remember when I lost a verbal fight in highschool because the tears came when my anger reached its peak, and I choked at my words, allowing the tears to flow freely.
Do you know how humiliating it is to remember everything you could have said but didn’t say because the tears humbled you before your opponent? It reduces your aura big time.
Fast forward to a few days ago, I decided to do a tiny research on why I was feeling so angry, disengaged and unhappy at my Job. Turns out that I was burnt out.
I called up a friend whom I promised to call and during our conversation, I narrated my whole attitude at work in the last few weeks and my findings on being burnt out. What he said next really caught me off guard.
What are you going to do now that you know you were burnt out.
I had to think fast, so I said, “I’ll have to go back to my colleagues to let them know what was happening within that time”.
Did I mean it? At that time, yes. But then I thought about it later, I work with men and the last thing I wanted to do was to be vulnerable with my male colleagues. I’m not even vulnerable with my brother, we never really apologize for anything. If we wanted to apologise, we would do it in a half hearted way or offer peace offerings.
“I bought shawarma, you can share it with Ale”. And everything is back to normal.
Still, I had to let them understand that I was burnt out and definitely not an angry bird.
So here’s what I texted "Good evening xxxx. I just want to say that I know I’ve been quite angry and stressed with work these passed weeks. I was burnt out and I hope next week would be better."
Imagine getting this text from a colleague on a Friday night. Yup, I was bombarded with messages asking if I was okay, and if there was anything I needed to talk about.
I let them know that I’m okay but now it’s Sunday night and I’m super cringey.
What did I just do?
How am I supposed to act tomorrow morning being someone who puts on an aura of strength.
But maybe just this once I’d admit that there’s strength in vulnerability.
Till next time,
love and light.
