Slightly Undone

I just quit my job. Not my real job, but my new early morning job. 4:00 -7:30 a.m.

It just wasn’t working out, which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it. Let’s start by saying I didn’t make it through today, my third day. I should have made it through the spring term (25 more weekdays of working) or even given two weeks notice and muddled through that, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even make it through this morning. And that irritates me that I was in a position where I had to make such a decision- to quit my job without notice. It goes on my record for seven years.

I liked the people. They were funny, even at such an early hour. The lead student supervisor –I liked her too. We’d started calling her E-Dawg and everything. And I got to work with M-Lite, which is how I ended up working there in the first place. I’m going to be honest and say I felt pressured into working there. “It’ll be fun. It’s our last summer together. We can do it.”

I apparently cannot do it. Mostly the decision was made based on how I felt getting up this morning, which was like crap. I’ve slept a grand total 9 hours in the last three days. And each of those days feels like two days because I’d get up at 3:32, go to work from 4:00-7:30, and then come home and try to sleep between 8:00 and 10:30. Try. Then I’d get up and shower and go to my real job from 12:00 to 4:30, after which I’d try to sleep without ever actually managing to. Is it really only Thursday?

So in the middle of our shift I left and found my boss in her office where she was talking to E-Dawg and I said I wanted to talk to her about quitting. Her demeanor was rather cold after that. She reminded me it would go on my record. I said I felt I wasn’t adjusting. She told me to drop my keys and punch out. I did and went to find M-Lite before I left so she’d know I’d gone through with it.

The thing is, I’ve never quit a job before. The job I’m at now I’ve had for 20 months. To the day, now that I look at a calendar. I was hired September 17th 2005. And I’ve stuck with it for my entire BYU career. The job I had in high school? Almost four years. Every day after school December 2001 – August 2005. Even during the summer months - I stayed.

I stayed because I couldn’t quit. I felt I had an obligation to fulfill and because I cared about the people I worked with and for. And some of those factors even applied to this new job, but made no difference in the end. It’s wrong to quit a job without notice and to leave your own sister in the lurch and to let down your employer. That’s what part of me said anyway. The rest of me is sleep deprived. I actually thought I might pass out today while we were cleaning classrooms. I felt queasy in a way that only comes from getting up early. It’s that empty stomach toothpaste feeling. (That’s what I’ve always called it, and I have no better way of explaining how it feels –I’ve tried before without success, so that’s all you get.) And I’m sure that part of it was guilt too. And a sense of helplessness.

So all these things mingled together and it ended with me quitting this morning at 5:28. I exited the building after consulting with someone about whether or not I had to use an after hours exit or just the regular exit. You’re sure the silent alarm won’t sound?

I stepped out into the early morning that was still a blue merle, birds calling through the air as I took my leave. I got a little ways from the building and started crying. I even sobbed some on the way home, and cried more still when I’d made it to my living room, for all the reasons I’ve already mentioned combined with the knowledge that an entire custodial crew was sure to be thinking ill of me. She couldn’t make it three days.

And I try to say that it doesn’t matter. I don’t even know those people –why should I care? In a week they won’t even remember me. Except there was the coldness in the way my boss spoke to me, and the fact that I left M-Lite behind, and the fact that as I left, E-Dawg told me (in a good way) that she’d always remember my name. And now I’m crying again and hoping it’s all a matter of sleep deprivation and not a symptom of a larger something.