Have you ever experienced a sensation in the pit of your stomach that feels like a mass a lead sitting down there? It's the feeling that I get when I've done something wrong.
Yesterday, I quit the job that I had had for a total of two and a half days. It seemed like the right thing to do. But now I'm having remorse... not enough to go back to the job mind you, but I still feel bad.
Here is the situation: I have been looking for a job for the past couple of weeks and it was taking forever for people to get back to me. I finally found a job that needed help immediately, so I just took it. I started work that day... that instant actually. The guy, my now former boss, had just had a guy walk off of the job that morning because he was "afraid of heights" and now he, my former boss, was desperately in need of an extra set of hands. I showed up at just the right time.
It was a construction job. This guy and a crew of about four or five teenagers were erecting potato cellars. I had arrived at the job site, we exchanged a few words, and within ten minutes I was turning bolts.
Before turning bolts, I had accompanied my boss to the trailer where he got me some tools and explained what it was that he wanted me to do. When we arrived at the trailer, my former boss immediately turned to some kids up on the side of the building and started hollering and cussing at them. This was my first clue that I may have made a mistake in taking this job.
My former boss excused himself by informing me that this is what happens to him when he has people quit on him, but I suspected that it was a more frequent occurrence than that. After all, he was yelling at the people who hadn't quit on him.
So later on that day, I was working directly beside my former boss where I discovered that he is an extremely impatient man who is quick to anger. I've worked for people like this before. I usually just grit my teeth and bear it but I'm starting to change my views on working for people like this. After the first day, I was already thinking that I might not stick with this job. After all, I'm older now and I've come to realize that I don't really need to put up with this sort of treatment. I could be earning all the money in the world, but if I am miserable for the vast majority of my day, then it really isn't worth it to me.
I went to work the next day for a repeat performance by my former boss and was thinking even harder about quitting. Yesterday I was working with my boss again and he was really on one. He got impatient and swore at me, to which I responded, "I'm trying... I don't really need this job that bad Man." He shut up for a little while and I'd like to believe that he was making an effort to be more civil to me the rest of the day, but that effort didn't carry over to his other workers and its affects on me were barely noticeable.
In fact, later on I was working along side a couple of other people as we were raising the first section of one of the potato cellars. We had ropes with hooks in them and we were pulling on the outer edges of the semicircle of sheet metal that make up the roof as we stood atop a six or seven foot wall. One of the hooks came out and the boy who was pulling on it had to leap off of the backside of the wall to avoid injury. My former boss saw him scrambling to get back up the wall and back to his position so that we could get the roof in place. He didn't ask if he was OK, or if he had hurt himself. He only yelled at him for not keeping enough pressure on the rope. That pretty much sealed the deal for me. Aside from being impatient and in need of anger management courses, my former boss doesn't really care about the well being of his employees. This is why I am currently writing a blog post instead of heading off to work.
Here is the moral of the story... at least, this is what I think that I have learned in my life: Jobs are good because they bring money. Money is good because it brings the necessities of life as well as some unnecessary things that make our lives more enjoyable. But if for the majority of our waking lives we are stressed out, unhappy, and possibly even put in physical danger, then perhaps it is time to find a new job, even if it pays less. In other words, it's true; money doesn't buy happiness. If you aren't happy at your job, where you spend the majority of your time, then it really doesn't matter how well that job pays.
So... if this is all true, then why do I still feel like a scum bag for quiting? Let me answer my own question. This man that I worked for supports his own family by erecting potato cellars and he needs people to help him do that. My quiting just made it that much more difficult for this already overly stressed out and frustrated man to provide for his own. I just put my own happiness over the needs of this man's entire family, and I feel bad about it. Did I actually do the right thing?
-Martell
5 comments:
Your former boss is making his life more stressful by treating people the way he does. It's his choice whether or not he treats people kindly when he's under stress. No one can fix the way this man reacts to life but him, and until he does that, he's going to continue to lose good employees. Mistreatment does not breed loyalty.
Amen to this statement of yours:
"If you aren't happy at your job, where you spend the majority of your time, then it really doesn't matter how well that job pays."
The fact that you sympathize for your former boss and yet still did what is best for you is what keeps you from being a doormat. I understand why you would feel bad. I would too. This ability to look at things beyond yourself is what makes you a good person.
I don't normally comment, but I understand why you would feel bad, I ALWAYS feel bad when I quit a job even if the person was nice to me and a good boss. Perhaps to make you feel better, you could pray that your former boss will recognize that a change needs to happen and that he will be able to make that change!
I think you were right for quitting. If I was in your shoes, I would have quit too. Tracie, I agree with your comment!
You did NOT do the right thing, because you did not throw a banana cream pie at the man and yell "I QUIT!"
That's what my friends Larry, Moe, and Curly would've done...and maybe Shemp.
In other words: correct choice, poor execution. I trust that you'll do it better next time.
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