Ready to Transition

I could quit my job in the time a snowflake melts.

At any moment, I could walk out that front door.

I’d drop my keycard at my desk, log out of my computer, yank out the smartcard, the keyboard, the mouse, the webcam — anything connected to it — and chuck it against a wall on the other side of the floor.

Hell, I wouldn’t even be that polite. I’d yank the entire computer out of the wall socket and chuck it like Eli against the Saints in Week 8. It’s just a thin client — a flimsy, book-shaped terminal that’s closer in weight to a paperback novel than the ENIAC or some other Imitation Game-sized machine. I’d launch it right now if the audio keeps crackling like a weird version of AM radio every time I crank up Thursday or Helmet or Lupe Fiasco on Pandora.

I could leave this job today.

I could blow this popsicle stand right now on my lunch break.

Instead of heading to 7–11 across the street for more carcinogenic hot dogs and buffalo wings, I could trek back uptown toward Penn Station.

Nobody would know. They’d think construction held me up. Don’t ask me where — it’s Manhattan, something’s always in construction.

Somebody would probably think I was meeting a friend for lunch at some cheap, hipster eatery I just found.

It’s plausible.

I always show up to work with Mom’s leftovers for lunch every day. If I worked anywhere else, it would be demoralizing. Here, the fact that I walk to the microwave with home-cooked food instead of run to the rat-infested Chinese shop across the street earns me the label of “entitled, lazy weirdo” from the other techs.

If I actually had money to burn, I wouldn’t be bringing in leftovers from home. I’d hit up any cafe that had a lunch buffet and fill those plastic transparent containers with so much turkey, chicken wings, fried rice and steamed broccoli, the lid would barely stay closed. If I actually did that for a month, I’d probably be the size of a giant meatball but because I bought it, it’d be worth it.

I’m even considered weird because I’m also the only one on the floor who doesn’t watch anime on his lunch break.

I don’t get anime. I just don’t understand it.

I don’t understand how white people aren’t offended by it, specifically how they’re drawn by the Japanese with their eyes always bulging out to the size of manhole covers and their pale faces turning Target red every five minutes.

To me, Pokemon is like Amos and Andy for white people.

Speaking of Pokemon, I keep pronouncing it “Poke-Man” accidentally, which is awkward enough but the last time I did it, the male homosexual in the cubicle next to me phoned HR to try and get me fired for sexual harassment all because I made fun of his love for the Poke-Man.

I could leave this job today, pronto.

Maybe someone would know, maybe somebody wouldn’t.

Maybe it wouldn’t dawn on anybody that I was gone until a week or two later.
I wouldn’t clean out my desk; I’d leave it exactly as it is. It’s not like I keep anything personal at my desk.

Maybe a few ChapSticks I keep in a drawer for emergencies… a couple sticks of Trident… three toothpicks… an opened pack of Duracell AA’s… restaurant menus… dried up pens and highlighters… a neglected stress ball.

They’d think I just called it a day and went home sick. It’s not like they’d be wrong. If you worked all day on a floor with no windows, you’d probably feel a little nauseated yourself.

I could leave this job right now, no questions asked.

But I’m not going to… not yet.

It’s not that I don’t want to… that I don’t have the passion for it, the drive or the hunger.

It’s that there’s one last piece of the plan I still haven’t worked out yet.
If I leave now, what would I do next?

Where would I go?

I’m not just talking about darting to Penn Station and taking the next Hempstead train back home.

I mean, what would I do next for a job? Where would I work? What industry would take me in and employ me?

I’m good at my job. I know I’m good at my job; I’m too good at my job. That’s why I need to leave it behind, but the best relationship advice I ever received was “Don’t leave your old job unless you’ve got a new one waiting for you.” 
It was great advice… for my ex-girlfriend to throw back at me when we broke up.

I found myself wandering Ikea disorientated, newly marooned on a now-foreign land. Screaming “I screwed up! Forgive me! Take me back!” wouldn’t rewind time. The decision was already made. Worse, it was made for me, not by me.

I reacted to my surroundings, fate decided for me.

I swore from that point on that if my circumstances were to change, that I would be the agent who booked it. And if I were to be my own travel agent, I would choose the destination first and work backwards from there.

I could leave this job anytime I want… but I can’t right now. I’m not ready to leave.

Not without a destination mapped out.