Go Ahead, Quit Your Job. Then What?
Someone needs to want something from you
they’re not going to let you
sit at a front table
at some cafe in Europe
in the mid-afternoon sun.- Charles Bukowski, Relentless as the Tarantula
When I told the last boss I ever had that I was quitting, he just nodded
He knew it was coming. In his own way, he was partly responsible for it. So was Brexit. So was my father. So were twenty-odd years of skimpy paycheques, strained muscles, and stress-induced eyelid twitches. The trouble with chasing the tributaries of the present back through the watery past is that you never really know when to stop.
I know. You’re here for story. So am I. We all are, the way the dark soil at the bottom of the pot is there for those bright white angel hair roots to dance through.
It would be a better story if he were a tyrant. Some preening asshole who demanded I show up on Saturdays without pay and slipped a finger into my wife’s asshole through her tight dress at the Christmas party.
But all I have is the truth. I have to make that grow roots instead.
He was a good guy. Still is, most likely. Running a nonprofit, channeling the money I helped him make…
