An Author and A Young Woman - Chapter 8: Quitting
Chapter 8: Quitting
After she came back from Tokyo, she suddenly started feeling slightly unsatisfied with her life. She had a good life; 8 out of 10 classmates in college would envy where she got so far. But she wondered if it was a great life. She thought that maybe she had a great life, but she wondered, “Is great good enough?” She was not asking questions in terms of what she could obtain materialistically. She felt that, though she had a good life, it was too predictable. She also felt that there was not a great difference between her life and the life of a farmer in her motherland. It’s true that she made a lot more money than the farmer; in fact, this was no comparison. She would own a lot more than the farmer. She’d have a house, a car, many pieces of furniture, clothes, books, DVDs, an expensive computer, a big TV with the latest technology and what have you. The farmer would not own even one tenths of what she’d own. She’d go to watch movies, musicals, operas, go to concerts and go see many live shows like standup comedies and magic shows. The farmer would never experience any of these. But she felt that two were essentially the same in the sense that they both followed routines. She met a client, discussed his/her project, outlined the development process, its timeline and its budget, made changes in the process, got approval, worked on the project, finished it, billed it and collected the payment. It was a routine and she just repeated over and over. If and when she became a project manager, the routine might change slightly, but it would still be a routine. She might become a corporate executive one day and make millions of dollars a year, but it would still be a routine. She thought, “I came all the way to New York just to repeat routines and follow procedures. Money is good, but … shouldn’t there be more in life …?” It was a profound question, but it was also a dangerous question for her to ask. She then wondered, “Does this mean that I should just quit what I’m doing now? Then what?” She paused and said to herself, “That’s just crazy.” She just kept thinking. Brian Saunders, her boss, was away in the second half of December; his wife was from Poland and all her family members lived in Poland, so Christmas meant a lot to her. That meant that Christmas meant a lot to him as well, and this was why his Christmas vacation was longer than most, though he actually carried his laptop everywhere and worked whenever he could. But this gave her room to breeze more easily and allowed her to spend the time in the office as she liked. She was supposed to be working on a few things, but she spent a lot of time thinking about her career and future.
Rather quiet Christmas for Diva came and went. Office was closed during and after Christmas. She spent her yearend meeting friends, dining out, watching movies, reading books and taking a walk everyday. She was out of town for a week this month, so she didn’t feel like going anywhere outside of New York; she just stayed there. On New Year’s Eve, she went out with a couple of friends, but she didn’t do anything special; she preferred to spend rather uneventful New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. She wanted to take it easy and relax rather than to party hard in the last week of the year; besides, she was not much of a party girl, though she wanted to have a nice small birthday party this year.
Office opened on January 2nd; she went back to work. Her boss flew back from Poland on that day also. Work started slowly initially, but the first week turned out to be a very stressful week. The company created a rather elaborate online application for a financial institution last year and it turned out that the application had many problems. This was nothing uncommon; every new application tended to have many problems and they would be resolved in time. She did not work on the complex backend logic of the application, but she designed most of the front end interface; it was her responsibility and she had to do her part of resolve some of problems. Brian was very unhappy; he was never happy, but he seemed to be more unhappy than usual. Maybe there was a marriage problem. Maybe his wife’s parents were giving him hard time. Maybe the client, the financial institution, was making an unreasonable demand, or, maybe, he had ADHD, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder; he had very poor impulse control. Whatever reasons he had, he was out of control; he yelled, screamed and cursed at her. This was not the first time that he yelled, screamed or cursed at her, so though she felt unpleasant, she thought that it was nothing unusual. A week passed, and he was more aggravated. She could not understand exactly why because, though she understood that there were still many problems to be resolved, she was working hard. She worked for more than 50 hours a day, so she was doing her part as an employee. At the end of the second week, she felt very tired and stressed; she also felt that what he was demanding her to do was unreasonable. The third week was no better than the second week, and she suddenly started thinking about quitting her job. She thought, “This is so unreasonable. It just doesn’t make sense. What is this cursing? I can understand high demand and long hours but not these yelling, screaming and cursing. This is absurd.” She talked to her friends in New York and she also called friends out of state. Some told her to get over it and forget about it, while others told her to do whatever she felt like doing. She was distressed, aggravated and confused. And then, she made one phone call to talk to her friend in California; he was not a close friend of hers but she often felt that he was the voice of truth. He was from Brazil and he experienced a number of difficulties in his life; there was something charismatic about him, and she wanted to hear what he had to say about the matter.
”Hey, how are you?” said Lima, her friend.
”Little tired and distressed.”
”What’s going on?”
She started telling him what she’d been going through and asked his opinion.
”You work for a computer software company, right?”
”Yes.”
”You’re not in military.”
”No.”
”You’re not a coal miner, either.”
”No.”
”Ok, I tell you what I think.” He continued, ”This guy is a psycho. Cursing is something that military people do; if soldiers don’t obey orders, they can’t get things done. They start dying. There have to be rules and regulations for them to obey. They can’t be sitting and thinking about creativity or innovation. They simply need to give orders and obey orders. That’s probably the only place that cursing can be used, but even that is arguable. You work for a computer software company, and there is no place for cursing there. Also that’s not how people treat other people. I don’t’ know him, and I’ve never met him, but I can tell you that he’s really doing what he shouldn’t be doing. He’s hurting other people. He’s really acting inhumanely. He’s making you and others very unhappy, and that’s absolutely unnecessary. Do you agree?”
”I agree.”
”Ok, let me ask you something now. Let’s say that you keep working for this guy for another week or month. Let’s say that he’ll stop cursing at you for now. Do you think that this will be the last time he curses at you? Do you think that he’ll change? He’ll become a different person?”
”No.”
”No, he will not.”
”I think you know what to do now.”
”I think I do.”
”Anything else?”
”No.”
”Call me in a couple of days and let me know what happens.”
”Thank you.”
”Hey, not a problem. I’ll talk to you later. Ok?”
”Ok.”
”Bye now.”
”Bye.”
She put down the phone; she actually did not know much about Lima. She met him a couple of times when she was in California. She also met him right before she left California for New York, but he was more like an acquaintance, not exactly a friend. But today, she could not agree with him more; he was absolutely right. She hated thinking about what she needed to do next because she just didn’t want to lose what she had now. Just several weeks ago, shortly after her birthday party, she felt that she was on top of her game; she felt that she had all she could have at this point of her life. But she was about to lose most of those things; she felt dreadful. She suddenly felt tired and went to sleep.
Her alarm clock went off at 7:00 am as usual. She could not sleep well last night, so she just wanted to stay in bed for a while, but she kept telling her to get up. She got up ten minutes later and jumped right into shower. She spent twenty minutes in shower, took a towel and dried her body. She wrapped around her body with the towel, went to the kitchen, opened fridge, took out a bottle of orange juice, poured it full in a large glass and drank it. She sighed once, went back to her bedroom, sat for about ten minutes. She spent the next ten minutes to get dressed and do makeup. She then walked out of her apartment and took 7 Train. Her routine was no different from any other day for the most part; she just felt tired today. Also she felt that she was moving slowly.
She got off at her train station and walked toward her office; she stopped at a coffee shop on her way and got Latte and one big plain muffin, her breakfast. She reached her office building, took the elevator and went up to the 5th floor. She entered the office, walked to her desk, put her backpack and sat. She was assigned to complete a few tasks; she tried to finish at least one of them, but she couldn’t. She kept thinking about what Lima and she talked about last night. When she realized, it was noon; she had lunch with coworkers as the company ordered delivery Chinese. She ate her lunch as if it were her last supper. She went back to her desk and kept going over the dreadful thought. She worked in SOHO; that itself was a dream job to many. She wasn’t a waiter or a janitor; she had a real job and a real career. Not many could get to where she got at the age of 25. But if she stayed true to her heart, all these would be gone in a couple of days. At around 3:00 pm, she decided to write an email to Brian; she wrote:
”Brian,
I feel tired. I know that it’s rather unprofessional to write to you like this, but I feel tired. I feel tired because you keep yelling, screaming and cursing at me. I also find that the way in which you treat me and all other employees is almost violent and uncivilized, though there hasn’t been any physical violence in this office. I feel that this is not exactly a very healthy work environment given that this is a computer software company. This is a workplace that workers should be treated with a certain level of formality and decency; there is no place for cursing or other uncivilized behaviors. I’d like to leave this job.
Diva”
Email was short and to the point; she felt rather helpless because she was 95% certain that he would not feel much about this email. She wrote it honestly and what she wrote made perfect sense. This would essentially become her letter of resignation or he would be touched by it and suddenly transform himself. When she thought about the latter possibility, she thought, “What am I kidding?” She reread it several times and sat there until 6:30 pm. When she saw 6:30 pm on her computer, she sent the email and left the office.
She wanted to get fresh air, so she just walked along Broadway toward north. She passed Houston and just kept walking. She reached Union Square and found a couple of bars. She looked at them from outside. One had bright glassy interior. Another had dim interior; it was a sports bar, but the bar decided to keep its interior dim. There were also quite a few fashionable looking bars. She decided to walk into the dim sports bar and ordered a beer; she forgot what she ordered seconds after she ordered it, but when she got what she ordered, the beer had golden color though it was a cloudy golden color. She paid for it on the spot, took time to finish it and then walked out of the bar. She started walking toward north again, reached 42nd Street, took 7 Train and headed home.
She wanted to spend a normal weekend like reading books, watching movies and hanging out with friends. She did that, but she did not feel any excitement. Weekend just came and passed, and before she realized, it was Monday morning.
As she reached her desk, she checked her emails; that was her routine. There was an email from Brian.
”Diva,
Please take time to review what you wrote to me. I do not get blamed for my actions.
Brian”
She felt devastated; he did not get it. He did not get that he was really hurting other people; he did not get that his behavior was totally uncivilized. She wrote back:
”Brain,
I feel unfortunate that you do not understand what I tried to convey. I feel unfortunate that you failed to understand that your behavior is uncivilized and causing unnecessary stress to me. I do not feel that I should keep working here any longer. I feel very unfortunate for saying this, but I am treated unfairly and you fail to recognize it. I feel tired. It’s time that I left here.
Diva”
She sent this email because she knew that he would just brush her off if she walked to his office and tried to interrupt his work and discuss this issue. Ten minutes later, he called her into his office.
”You’re quitting?”
”Yes.”
”You know, wherever you decide to work, you don’t get treated any differently. This is a part of any work, you know?” She kept quiet; she looked slightly disgusted. He recognized that.
”What you gonna do now?”
”I don’t know.”
”Are you going into business on your own? If so, I tell you that you’ll have much harder time than this.” She thought, “Please stop lecturing me. Why do you lecture me now? You’re making you look like an idiot.” She didn’t’ say any of these. He continued, “You know, I gave you raises, I gave you bonuses and I also paid for a bunch of other expenses, right?”
”Yes.” He sighed and said, “You know, I can go on and on, but you not gonna change your mind, are you?”
”No.”
”Ok, fine. You can just clean your desk and leave now. I’ll mail you this month’s paycheck.”
”Thank you.”
”Whatever,” whispered he. She got up and left his office.
She went back to her desk and took 10 minutes to clean her desk. Her desk was relatively clean and uncluttered, so it did not take long her to clean her desk. She took her backpack and walked toward the exit. Right before she walked out of the office, she exchanged looks with Galina, the receptionist. Galina was a middle aged woman from Russia and she apparently worked for him for many years. He cursed her more than anyone; in fact, using the ‘F’ word for about three dozen times and cursing her was his daily routine. She said, “Are you leaving?”
”Yes.”
”You’ve had enough.”
”Yes.”
”Bye, and good luck.” There was a faint smile on Galina’s face and she smiled back. And then she left the office. That was her last day.
She spent the next several hours walking around the city, and shortly before 5:00 pm, she headed toward ‘75th Street Brewery.’ When she got there, it was around 5:30 pm. The bar was pretty empty; most people were just getting off work and it would be a couple of hours before customers started coming in. Kristina was sitting on a chair right next to the bar and said,
”Hey, Diva, how’s it goin’?”
”I just quit my job.”
”Congratulations!”
”Thank you.” Diva sighed and said, “I got so tired working there. It was about time that I left.”
”Good. Let me buy you a drink.”
She had two drinks; she drank very slowly, and by the time she finished her drinks, the bar was half full. Kristina was busy serving drinks, so Diva looked at her briefly and left the bar.
