hello from the other side

candid thoughts on quitting my full-time job

Today was my last day of work. We could use the word “resigning” but that’s just a formal way of saying quitting. I want to tell it like it is.

My first in-person day of this job, I had long hair past my shoulders, with brassy highlights from my quarantine bleach job. I slept in braids the night before so they would be wavy. I also laid out my outfit the night before: a white Apiece Apart blouse, navy Jesse Kamm sailor pants, beige Rachel Comey platform clogs. It was a job that made sense for that point in time.

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I entered the elevator and clicked on the Floor 12 button, my Baggu cloud tote sagging with the weight of a laptop, two laptop chargers and my employee ID badge.

The IT guy takes my items but furrows his brow at the second laptop charger I handed him. This charger isn’t ours. It looks like a charger for a ring light or something.

Oh. Sorry, yeah that’s mine.

So I guess that was the end. It hit me as I got in the elevator without my ID badge that this was a one-way ride. No return ticket.

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I consider myself among a growing group of people who balance a full-time job with freelance social media work/content creation/brand consulting “on the side.” But I think “on the side” suggests it takes less time, which isn’t necessarily true. It’s just less predictable. Of course, the balancing act looks a little different for everyone but for me it’s a Frankenstein schedule of very different things stitched together by however much willpower and focus I have on a given day.

I got used to a cadence: brand calls during lunch breaks, blogging at night in bed. I am not saying this is what you should do, but it’s what I needed to learn how to navigate freelance work at my pace and on my terms. Ultimately, I decided I was ready to quit my full-time job