I Quit

A love letter to personal agency and volition

Two Powerful Words © by Dave Graham

I quit.

I resigned from my job today, and about the time you’ve finished reading this, I’m sure my access to email, Teams, Zoom, and other such products will have been unceremoniously removed. It’s part of the leaving process; that big “organizational bandaid” gets ripped off with nary a thought to the effects it may have on the person. After all, you’re an employee number, an expense to be rectified against a corporate P&L sheet, a “victim” of the attrition in the unspoken margins of the “Bain Way” headcount reduction programme.

There’s a specific gravity to having the agency to choose. Two days ago, I wrote about our societal agency and how people affront it using power and presence. Employment is another affront to personal agency because to live, you must work, and to work, you must live. When you’re caught in the terrible balance of this tension, you realize that your choices, your agency, and your volition are all tied up in the whims and fancies of the nameless faces on Wall Street and in Corporate HQ. Taking back your agency, your autonomy, and your personhood is a bittersweet but necessary function, and so, two words resonate louder than any other: I quit.

I considered the cost of this decision. The intricacies of obligations to my children, my spouse, the people who…