I Quit My Job — And I Don’t Regret It One Bit
On June 15th, 2022, I quit my job unexpectedly. While I was in the process of looking for a job prior to quitting, I had nothing even remotely lined up when I told HR, “I quit”. I just couldn’t risk my mental health one more moment, even for a paycheck.
Not All That Glitters Is Gold
When I first got the job, I was elated. I had been working security before for low pay and finally, I got a job that had a starting pay of 3 dollars more an hour than I had been making as a security supervisor. The orientation was lovely and everybody seemed so friendly. I honestly thought I finally found a company where I could build a career like my grandfather did (he worked 37 years at one company and even retired from it). Boy, was I wrong! What seemed like a dream come true quickly started to become a living nightmare.
While the work wasn’t the greatest fit for me, for a time, I loved my team and had a blast with my lead and supervisor. Everybody got along great and, while my department had its issues, it was manageable. That was until I (unintentionally) made the wrong person mad; the senior manager of my department. How did I make him mad? By “questioning his authority”. Let me back up a little bit.
The Request That Started It All
When I was first hired on, I worked overnights, 3–4 days a week with 12-hour shifts. This may sound like a lot but I actually liked it because then I got 3–4 days off each week and had overtime built into my schedule. It was a nice trade-off. However, this didn’t last long.
Eventually, to fix the severe understaffing we were experiencing, they were going to switch up our schedules. They wanted us all to switch to 4 10-hour shifts. No more 4 days off every other week and no more built-in overtime. Not only this but they were adding an afternoon shift into the mix where there used to be two day shifts and two night shifts(starting side of the week and ending side). Now there were two sides of the week and three shifts on each side — day, afternoon, and night. Only afternoon and night shifts were eligible for a shift differential. For whatever reason, they gave us a piece of paper and had us rank our 4 ideal shifts for the upcoming change. This turned out to be pointless since they stuck most people in their least wanted spot, myself included. I was being kicked off nights and being put on afternoons and essentially taking an involuntary double pay cut. I was furious.
My supervisor and lead were well aware of my financial issues and I was very outspoken about staying on my shift since that would lessen the pay cut I would get. I fought this and followed up constantly for months with little to no resolution. Fed up, I went to my senior manager to plead my case for saying on my shift. He told me he would look into it. Weeks went by with no response until finally, I’m heading out for the night to go on my holiday break ( we received two weeks of paid time off for Christmas and New Years), he comes up to me and says that he talked to his fellow manager and I was going to be staying on nights. I was so relieved and thanked him. As I’m walking out the front doors, I say goodbye to my supervisor and tell him my great news. He seemed confused because nobody ever told him of this new development and he had just talked with the senior manager. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but that didn’t sit right with me. Why would he tell me I was good but not tell my direct supervisor? Why would he lie to me? To pacify me so I’d stop fighting his decision.
Watson, The Game is Afoot
Over my break, I, unfortunately, contracted COVID-19 and was unable to return until after my quarantine period was over. In the next couple of weeks following my return, I was still a little ill and used up my newly earned sick time so that I wasn’t missing out on any pay.
Around this time, I used up some of my PTO as well when I ran out of sick time. I used up the rest of my PTO with my already approved request in March for my cousin’s wedding. As the first grandkid in my family to get married, this was huge and I didn’t want to miss it.
Fast forward a bit to the end of February and it’s a crossover day. Both sides of the week afternoon shifts are working together, so there are more people around than normal. My team, which consists of just myself and two other guys, is looking a bit rough. One of the guys called out because of COVID and the other guy came to work but didn’t feel well and ended up going home early during the shift. With 2/3 of my team out, they ask me how I’m feeling since the previous day, I went home early because I wasn’t feeling well and used some of my remaining PTO to cover the rest of my day. I was honest about my stomach being a bit queasy but I would be fine once I ate something on my upcoming break. They passed this on to the senior manager who asked about me and he immediately told me to go home sick. After pointing out to my lead that I didn’t have enough PTO to cover the rest of my shift and not being able to afford an unpaid sick day, I restated that I wasn’t sick and I didn’t want to go home. I then asked to talk to the Senior Managers telling me to go home, face to face so I could plead my case.
It’s Not Me, It’s You
With permission to head to the Senior Manager’s office, I walked in and took a seat. Immediately, I politely and professionally pointed out that I wasn’t sick and couldn’t afford an unpaid sick day. This went on deaf ears as they told me that because I worked in a clean room area, I wasn’t able to work if I was feeling unwell and had to go home. I knew that this wasn’t true. Previously, when a person from my team wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t go into our main area, they had the option of helping the lead and supervisor in the office instead. It was usually an option for those who were running low on PTO. Obviously, if you were going to vomit, you had to go home, but otherwise, they’d find other things for you to do. It wasn’t uncommon, yet I was denied the same opportunity despite asking to stay and work in the supervisor's office for the day. I had spoken with my lead and supervisor prior and knew they could use help with various filing tasks, but the senior manager ignored this.
I restated why I couldn’t just go home unpaid but instead of trying to find a reasonable compromise; he mocked me. He tried to shame me by pointing out that my allotted sick time was a set amount of hours given at the start of the year and wasn’t going to be replenished for another year. While irritated about having this used against me, I politely pointed out why I used my time early on. He then pointed out that the PTO that was set aside for the wedding could be used to cover that day. I stood firm and said that I needed the days off and my direct supervisor had already approved it. I then pointed out that I didn’t want to go home because I wasn’t sick.
Maybe it was because he saw it as me “questioning his authority” but he looked me in the eye, denied my approved request, smirked, and said that I now have enough PTO time, and then told me to leave because nothing else could be done. I tried to point out that I needed the wedding time off, but he cut me off saying to go home. And in the end, the PTO didn’t show up in time and I still was forced to take an unpaid sick day and my next paycheck was cut in half. I was forced to take a loan out of my 401k to pay bills and he didn’t care. It was in that moment that I realized that he didn’t like me very much.
Walking On Eggshells
Despite my constant claims of the senior manager not liking me, nobody listened to me. They said I was being paranoid. My lead left the department and my supervisor ended up quitting after finally being fed up with the department. Which, in turn, I found out meant that the main two people protecting me from the Senior Manager were now gone.
It was a well-known fact that all the higher-ups were all best friends who went out drinking together and played golf. It was why there was a lot of favoritism going around and people like the senior manager went unchecked. If you weren’t close to the higher-ups, you had to watch your back.
We had gotten a new supervisor and for some reason, I had this gut feeling that I couldn’t shake about her. That was until I found out that she and our new lead were close friends with the Senior manager who didn’t like me. Once I found out, my fairly easy job became ten times more difficult because I was the only one constantly being watched and criticized for every little thing. Then things started escalating.
In my final couple of weeks before quitting, they were dangling a carrot in front of me to see if I would take the bait. I had been at the company for over a year and had not received a single promotion, despite my previous lead and supervisor trying for months to get my promotion approved by HR and the senior manager. It got to the point that I gave up even hoping for my promotion to happen. Then my new supervisor suddenly said she would sign the letter for my promotion over the weekend. I became suspicious. I told people that I couldn’t see it happening and I had a weird gut feeling about it all. Sure enough, things went south.
The Beginning of the End
On June 10th, I clocked out for the night and as I was walking to the front doors, the senior manager called me into his office. He told me I was part of an “incident” on the floor that night and that multiple reports were made against me being a toxic coworker and “spreading negativity” by multiple employees. He told me there had been multiple incidents like this in the past. I was very confused because I was always very nice and social with everybody on my team and in my department. I was known for joking around, being supportive, and being overly apologetic if I thought I said something wrong and offended anybody. Not to mention that I had never heard of any of these “incidents” I was supposedly a part of. It felt like he was trying to frame me.
When I left the meeting, I was very upset because it felt like I was slowly being boxed into this false narrative, likely in preparation for being fired. In fact, I tested this by rarely talking the next day and I was asked by all my coworkers if I was okay and told how odd it was that I wasn’t joking around like normal. I asked them if I was a toxic coworker and they were as confused as I was.
After a one-day weekend because of mandatory overtime, I returned to work and, after training the entire day, I was once again called into the senior manager’s office at the end of my shift. This time, my supervisor was with me in the room when I was being accused of falsifying my training records and disappearing the entire day. I was told that all my coworkers, the senior manager, and the supervisor had tried looking for me the entire day and couldn’t find me. I was in the designated training room on the computer, which was located right next to the main hallway and had windows to look in. I saw a couple of my coworkers during the day when walking to and from the training room from the bathrooms and during my breaks and waved to them. None seemed to be looking for me. For the entire day, anytime the door of the training room opened, I glanced over to see if it was somebody from my team. I saw nobody. I also had my phone on me and never received a text message from my supervisor saying she needed me.
The senior manager smirked and mocked me for not being able to explain a random passage from a random training. I explained as best I could but it wasn’t enough. It felt like the cards were being stacked against me and he once again stated that I had been reported for disappearing during the workday the previous week, despite me knowing that my teammates could testify otherwise, since I was working by their side the entire week.
Then the time I knew was coming finally came. The senior manager smiled as he told me he needed to confiscate my badge to get into the building. As I gave it to him, he said he would talk with HR and discuss if I should come back to work the next day. I was then told to go grab my things from my locker and was escorted out of the building by my silent supervisor. The next day I received a text message from my supervisor telling me not to return to work.
Communication is Key
After stress crying from the whole situation, I sent my teammates a text saying that I was fired and that I wished them all well and told them how much I loved working with them. They were as confused about my firing as I was. They also told me that despite the claims made, nobody ever went looking for me.
The next day I was called by HR. She informed me that I was not fired but instead suspended with pay, pending investigation. She also went on to ask me why I thought I was fired and why I filed an unemployment claim. I pointed out that nobody communicated to me about a suspension and so I assumed I was fired and acted accordingly.
She then asked me about what I did during the day that I was accused of disappearing on. I walked her through my entire day in detail and was told that it didn’t add up to my timesheet and training times logged. This is what the senior manager said as well so I wasn’t surprised. I told her once more that I have told her exactly what I did and nothing more. I also stated that I was never looked for nor contacted the entire day. She then thanked me and said that her final verdict should be ready the next day after the investigation finished and would let me know what was going to happen next. I was also told not to talk to anybody about everything said while the investigation was going on which I agreed to.
An Uncertain Future
I awoke the next day to a missed call from HR. It was the moment of truth and after giving it a lot of thought, I was nervous. For the first time in my life, I was hoping that I fired because the thought of returning made me feel sick to my stomach. The constant anxiety of what I was going to be accused of and mocked for next was exhausting. It was making it difficult to do my job which would make things worse and give the senior manager more ammo to use against me later. It was too much!
As the phone rang, I thought there was no way that I was going to be able to come back. I was essentially being called a liar by the senior manager, my supervisor, and HR when I told them what I did on the day I “disappeared”. I just wanted to hear that I was being let go so that I had a clear end date for my resume and future job applications. That didn’t happen.
Much to my surprised dismay, I was told I could return to work later that day but would have to have a long chat about not taking excessive breaks and a lot of other things that never happened. I also would likely be written up which would mean that, as per their policy, with being suspended and written up, I wouldn’t be eligible for the promotion I was already past due to receive for a whole year.
It was at that moment that my heart sank. I knew I needed a job because I could financially handle not having a job, no matter how hellish it was. Yet I knew that the very thought of going back was going to give me a panic attack. The target on my back would be huge and I was already on the verge of a mental breakdown from all the stress before. I couldn’t do it. In an instant, I said what I’ve dreamt of saying for months; “I resign.”
The Moral of the Story?
So here I am, unemployed and broke but while the uncertainty of my future with finding a job is anxiety-inducing, I don’t regret quitting. I knew quitting was going to kill any chance I had at getting unemployment while I search for a job but I was proud of myself. For the first time in my life, I chose to preserve my mental health over a toxic job just because it offered a paycheck. After all, jobs come and go but your mental health is always here and needs to be cared for. Do what’s good for you.
