I Quit My Job

Happy tears, sad tears, scared tears – she’s cried ’em all, folks!

Four months ago, I worked my last day at the job I’d had for nearly a decade. I had been winding down for about a month, so the day itself was pretty straightforward – I brought in coffee for my shop supervisor, got a lei from a sweet coworker and spent the day making sure I had collected anything I might need — notes from colleagues and clients, random things I had left in my desk, etc. It was also a normal day for the team, so there were normal work things to do: phone calls, escalations, and general housekeeping. We mostly went about our normal business, and I primarily tried to stay out of everyone’s way. I held it together pretty well, only getting a little teary-eyed periodically. Until 5 o’clock rolled around.

At the end of the day, I took myself for a walk around the building before heading over to the brewery where we were slated to have my going-away party. I traced the route that I’d taken nearly every day as I talked on the phone (I’m a walk-and-talker). The sun was about to set, and I turned the corner into the shop through the big (often broken – I won’t miss those calls) roll door. I expected to see most of the technicians still wrapping up their day, but I was met with silence and stillness. As I walked across the room to the command center desks, I raised my hands in a “What’s up?” gesture, chuckling at what my well-trained brain instantly categorized as a loss of productive hours. My shop supervisor smiled at me and said “They’re all waiting for you, Maddy,” and, out of nowhere, I totally lost it. The weight of the last month (and, really, years before that) hit me all at once in that moment and the next thing I knew, I was sobbing into his shoulder.

It took me a minute to pull myself together, and even then, I think I left a part of me behind in that moment. For as much as I have moved on in the last months, I still can’t quite find the words to explain how I felt right then. I remember most of the rest of the evening in vague detail, starting with my general feeling of awkwardness, even at my own party, hugging the edges of the room and growing increasingly overwhelmed as more people from the last ten years arrived to reminisce and express their best wishes. I know I gave some sort of a speech after being presented with the biggest card I’ve ever seen, and that I almost managed to not cry and only said “it has been my honor” maybe three times. I remember getting ready to leave and being suddenly faced with a gauntlet of colleagues and friends to hug and thank. Most vividly I remember the sudden silence and emptiness of walking out into the night with one of my closest friends, of dropping him off at his car and us both crying as we hugged goodbye. Driving away, in that moment, sucked. I have always hated being the one to leave far more than being the one that is left behind.

I say I left a little of myself behind in the moment I broke down in the shop, but I don’t think it was a bad thing. I think that that’s the moment I released a tension that had been building so slowly, for so long, that I almost didn’t know it was there. Despite making the decision to leave, I had zero idea how it massively it would impact me — how deeply the fibers of everything I was at that job were intertwined with who I am as a person and into how I perceived myself. I get teary and choked up thinking back on that day (and the days leading up to it), still, even months removed. I’m immeasurably proud of everything that I achieved, but even more I am proud of the people that I worked with and so very thankful for the friendships that I made.

There is so, so much more to this story — the whys and the exact hows and the nitty gritty of how I have changed significantly as a person in the last two years, but there’s no particular value in digging into it online, at least not now. Suffice to say, I do not regret having spent the time that I did, and I am simultaneously so incredibly excited for all the things that are yet to come. The weekend I decided to give my notice, a tweet from @dr.thema popped on to my Instagram, accompanied by some @emilyonlife brilliance. I’m not including it all here, but it was one of those moments where I felt like I was seeing exactly, exactly what I needed to see. “Sometimes winning looks like quitting… To leave is to live.” Just keep in mind there might be a lot of tears along the way. And yeah, I still get choked up thinking about that last day, but mostly because I’m so proud, and that’s just fine with me.