I am tired of working and having to deal with people. In the past, I’ve mainly worked in food service jobs but now I currently have one desk job on campus and another job where I work as a cashier. Both jobs require me to talk/deal with customers often which is of course fine. The only thing is I find it very draining having to deal with people sometimes especially since some customers can be rude at times. Of my two jobs, I very much prefer the campus job since it doesn’t require any physical labor and just has to deal with people for the most part. But when it comes to my cashier job I absolutely hate it with my whole heart, since it basically has a combination of both physical labor and emotional labor, with having to work 5-7 hours shifts, standing up the whole time, with having the expectations of giving a smile and happy attitude with each and every customer, while also having to deal with some customers complaining about something every 20-30 minutes. By the end of the shift, I’m always so drained and tired, my feet and back hurt and all I wanna do is just go to bed and sleep.
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I Quit.
Why do we work ourselves the way that we do? Do I actually want to do my job or am I there due simply to societal expectation? How many jobs do I need to juggle to make a decent wage? Why am I told to work myself to death in order to “succeed”?
Last week I quit a job for the first time ever. Sure, I’ve held many different jobs in the past, but I’ve always simply “moved on”, outgrown it, graduated; I’ve never just quit so suddenly. However, my work environment had become so toxic and taxing on my mental health, I had to leave. This was a really empowering experience if I’m being honest, but it has left me anxiously wondering and stressing. I haven’t been properly unemployed since I was about fourteen. Even though I’m a full time student now and my mental health has been suffering, I still am finding myself anxious about not having any income for an indefinite period. Though I know logically that I need the break and I will be okay if I take some time off, I feel anxious and somehow as though I am failing.
This has led me to do a lot of reflecting. I feel such frustration at this system and society we have created for ourselves. Living as a full time student balancing classes, extracurriculars, and a social life is enough of a full time job by itself. Yet we live in a world where not having a consistent income is both damning and regarded as a disappointment. Why do we push ourselves to the breaking point every day, expecting the utmost effort and engagement no matter what? I can only dream of how much more productive and healthy we would all be if we simply prioritized our mental health and undertook a balanced, reasonable schedule. How long until I run out of gas money? When do I have time for job applications? Am I failing because I’m not employed while my friends are? What if we stepped back? What if we broke the cycle? What if we chose to prioritize ourselves instead of this toxic loop of waking, working, spending, sleeping, and repeating? Not to mention that emotional labor is interwoven between physical demands, in our jobs and lives. It is always simply expected. Don’t break down, don’t show weakness or frustration or exhaustion or anger. Be pleasant, be professional.
What if we had universal healthcare? What if bills weren’t such a stressor? What if the cost of living didn’t grow exponentially faster than the average salary?
How long until I’m too exhausted to function in this world anymore, until I have to quit?
Through the ashes of heartbreak… I rise with triumph.
Not long after I turned 18, I came home from class one day to find that my mom was home early from work.
I walked in the door to find that she had several bags packed in the kitchen. I asked her what was going on and I got this response:
“Honey, I got fired today. I knew there was a risk of this for a while now, but I didn’t want to worry you. I’m just going to stay at Sean’s house for a week to clear my head. I’ll be back in a week with a plan okay?”
Sean was her boyfriend that lived on the water somewhere near the Eastern Shore. He had cheated on her and broken her heart before, so I wasn’t a fan of him at all, but after watching several boyfriends leave or break her heart, and after watching her struggle constantly with online dating, who was I to stop her from being with him?
Growing up, my mom was constantly dating, and she was very open about it. My whole life had been taking care of her, because it was never in her head that she was supposed to live alone. Sure, she was incredibly strong, but she was also incredibly confused and depressed. She grew up wanting a husband and kids, and while she got the kids, she never got her perfect husband, and my sister and I had to constantly live with her disappointment. My mom went to stay with Sean, and never came back. I got a text message from her that she got married, and she made a life for herself. Since I was 18 I was technically an adult, so technically she did nothing wrong, but you don’t realize just how young you still are when you’re 18 years old.
I didn’t no how to cope with such an enormous empty feeling, so I replaced it with what I learned to do: have a lot of sex.
I went from sleeping with one person, my first love, to several people, in a span of months. It was awful. I had some really great guy friends, and when they showed interest in me, I automatically assumed I needed to sleep with them in order to receive love from them. I’d wake up in the morning feeling filthy, wrong, and quite frankly very unfamiliar with myself. Who was this person that suddenly slept with every man that moved? This wasn’t me! I put these guys before everything, including school and work, and it all came back to haunt me soon enough.
One I ruined my GPA, had no job, and lost nearly all of my guyfriends fro obtaining quite a reputation and getting heartbroken from nearly all of them, I hit rock bottom, and felt the emptiness all over again. None of this was solving any of my problems, but actually just severely avoiding them. I had to find out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.
I’ve spent this past few years really finding myself, and who I want to be. Sex is faaaarrr in the back of my mind (unless I’m watching a scene of Lord of the Rings with Aragorn), and I’ve dedicated my time to a fresh start. I transferred to UMBC, turned to therapy and acupuncture, started playing the banjo, and have been working as a barista for nearly two years.
I didn’t tell you my story to get sympathy, or to show off who I am today. I just wanted to share the difficult lesson I learned. Sex does not promote your self-esteem, and it doesn’t solve problems. Also, it’s really, really, really okay to hit rock bottom sometimes. As Kurt Vonnegut said: “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center”
Unruly Bodies 