
On Quitting - prawn
http://lindaeliasen.com/version-history/2015/9/28/on-quitting
======
jasim
Once you ask yourself about leaving, it is only a question of when, not
whether. Sooner, the better. It is not you nor them; it is just time.

Tight-knit groups wrap themselves inside a bubble of conformance. The group's
very existence is based on a shared worldview about itself - that it is
correct. To leave is to question a choice made by everyone else. To stand out
in a crowd is physically painful - it is called the pain of independence
(Susan Cain).

For the privileged, jobs are not about the salary; money is aplenty. It is
purpose we're after. What shall you do with yourself when, for the first time
in your life, you actually get to choose how to spend your time? There was
always the parents, the schools, and the workplaces to give a rhythm to our
life and purpose to our days. It is scary the first time we confront it - when
we quit an institution without knowing where next to anchor.

Next time it'll get easier.

~~~
brianmcconnell
The biggest regrets I have in life stem from ignoring my "spider sense" about
a situation. It's often difficult to articulate what's wrong, but if you have
a vague feeling something's wrong, it most likely is.

------
jfaucett
This article reminded me in spirit of the jobs quote: "Your work is going to
fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to
do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to
love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As
with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any
great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So
keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

I'm happy the author is not giving up, we in first world societies actually
have the luxury to pursue our passions, we have wellfare systems that provide
much higher living standards than the majority of the worlds population. Given
the relatively low risks of pursuing what you love and the fact that you only
get one pass around at life, I feel everyone should live this way

------
NumberCruncher
Living where your family and friends live and being able to meet them in
person on daily/weekly basis is of a high value. Unfortunately the most of us
recognize this only after moving to a far away city or country. Leaving home
and taking a job in the "most expensive city in the country ... 2,500 miles
away from your family" is a lot like a job on an oil rig or as a mercenary.
You need the right mindset and motivation. Wanting to "not to fuck up" or to
"make mommy and daddy proud of you" or just to "work on a great product" might
be fine but in a lot of cases it ends up in burn-out. If you are tough enough
and want to make a kill (saving up the fuck-you-money within 5 years and doing
after that whatever you want) than set your price and go for it. If you are
not tough enough but you want to make a kill than find the best people of the
industy, learn from them, set your price and go for it. Otherwise staying next
to your family and friends might be the best option on the long run.

------
elecengin
A lot of the comments are very harsh. I think the underlying message is
getting lost: Sometimes when you know something is wrong, it is easy to focus
on all of the prerequisites and peripheral problems and never solve the big
problem. This type of mistake is even easier with big problems where the
difficulty gap between addressing the big problem and the related little
problems is widest.

Maybe just abruptly quitting was the only way she could see to resolve a knot
of dependencies that seemed impenetrable. If she has the resources to attack
the knot from that angle, then there is no shame in it.

~~~
xlm1717
Sounds like she has the resources to do so, given all the previous jobs she
has had. I would imagine when she is ready to get back into the workforce she
won't have trouble landing another job.

------
ryandvm
"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." -John A.
Shedd

Good for her.

Or maybe I'm just empathetic since I walk away from my full time job
tomorrow...

------
gregd
I have never been in a position to just up and quit a job without having
something else lined up. Are you all trust fund kids?

~~~
YuriNiyazov
Do you not save any money when you work? If you are not saving 10% - 15% of
your paycheck into an account where the money is immediately accessible, you
are living above your means.

~~~
mathgeek
You don't need to be single or a renter to save. You just need to make it a
priority.

I'm the sole breadwinner with a wife and two kids, and we pack away 20% out of
every paycheck. We own our home and both cars.

Do we live a garish lifestyle? Certainly not, but we travel a lot and adhere
to our budget (thank goodness for remote jobs).

~~~
mistermann
> We own our home and both cars.

Whether that is possible depends a lot on where you live - from what I can
tell, outside of a few major cities there are plenty of places in the US where
you can buy a house for <$200k in the US, good luck with that anywhere in
Canada.

~~~
brianwawok
But you choose where you live. I do not live in SF, despite the nice weather,
because I am not willing to spend a million bucks for a basic house.

~~~
mhurron
> But you choose where you live

Given that it takes money to move, no, you do not always have a choice in
where to live.

~~~
Killswitch
Bullshit. Nobody forces you to live in an expensive city. Nobody makes you buy
a million dollar house. You chose your own destiny. Stop putting the blame on
others.

I lived in Chicago on a $800/mo salary for a year and a half. Yes eight
hundred dollars a month, in the city of Chicago. I had no money, but I made it
work, then I moved back home to small town Iowa and make a lot more now, and
live a better life. Nobody made me do either of those things.

~~~
mhurron
> Nobody forces you to live in an expensive city.

It takes money move, to or from any city. It's nice that you were able to make
it work, and yes, it means others could as well but you wold look like a
little less of an asshole if you would consider not everyone is in the same
situation as you were.

Were you single

Did you have kids

Did you have any medical conditions that needed care

Did you use to have a better job before

That's just a few things that are part of everyday, normal life that can make
the cost of moving and living on very little somewhat difficult.

> Nobody makes you buy a million dollar house

I don't remember saying anything close to that.

~~~
Killswitch
> Were you single

No.

> Did you have kids

Yes.

> Did you have any medical conditions that needed care

Not that I know of.

> Did you use to have a better job before

I moved to the city with a $100 loan from my step-father so I could afford gas
to do the 4 hour drive taking nothing with me but what I could fit in my car,
which took a 3rd of that $800/mo just to pay.

You know how I moved? I asked a friend, he came and helped me and packed his
truck with what I couldn't fit in my car.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

~~~
mhurron
You know that lack of empathy is a significant personality disorder.

> Did you have any medical conditions that needed care > Not that I know of.

Others do, it's often sort of important to handle them. It can also limit the
cities you can live in.

> Were you single > No.

Right here I start thinking your now being disingenuous, second income?

> car, which took a 3rd of that $800/mo

So you lived in Chicago on 528 a month and saved enough to move. You are
leaving things out. This was either 40 years ago, you were getting significant
social assistance or something.

Lets go ahead and throw out another perfectly, though unfortunate, normal
situation. You had parents to even move back in with.

Now then, I don't live in a particularly expensive city. The 'million dollar
house' you want to keep throwing around as if everyone has is almost 10 times
the cost of where I live. Yet I can still see that not every one is in the
exact same situation I am in. Moving to another city would not be something I
could do on a whim, though I've had to cover medical expenses this year that
are more than what your supposed monthly income was.

~~~
Killswitch
> The 'million dollar house' you want to keep throwing around

I mentioned it once. You're the one who keeps bringing it back up.

> Right here I start thinking your now being disingenuous, second income?

No second income. My fiance has never, and will never pay anything for me.

> So you lived in Chicago on 528 a month and saved enough to move. You are
> leaving things out. This was either 40 years ago, you were getting
> significant social assistance or something.

Oh sorry, I left out the $600/mo the startup I worked for paid the owner of
the spare bedroom I lived in. My bad. $1400/mo. And 40 years ago? I'm 30, I
moved from Chicago in March of this year.

~~~
lovich
>Oh sorry, I left out the $600/mo the startup I worked for paid the owner of
the spare bedroom I lived in. My bad. $1400/mo. And 40 years ago? I'm 30, I
moved from Chicago in March of this year.

Were your SO and kids not living with you? I cant imagine putting 3+ people
into a spare bedroom. If you guys did do that, its impressive but its
certainly not within the realm of normal in the US. If you didn't have them
with you, than saying you had 1400 a month to support yourself, your SO, and
your kid/s is not an accurate accounting of your living expenses for Chicago

------
rwhitman
A good graphic designer will get bored in pretty much any job where they're
not being thrown into drastically different creative challenges every so
often.

The comfy in-house design job for a single-product company means designing
with the same palette and UI standards, using the same brand identity over and
over and over. It's boring and creatively frustrating, particularly for anyone
who's especially talented.

This is why you often see the best creative minds drift in and out of
freelance or boutique agencies at various points in their career, having many
different clients means having many different creative challenges.

------
atsaloli
It's a lot easier to just quit when you are single. I'm lucky my wife was
supportive when I got burned out and took half a year off. I'm sole
breadwinner. Ah, youth. I'm more careful now about balance.

------
presidentender
But was there anything in particular wrong? Was there anything Dropbox should
have done differently to keep her?

I realize that some places are wrong for some people, in ways that can't be
fixed. I'm just curious whether it's possible to articulate how Dropbox was
wrong for the author.

~~~
juanbyrge
I'm curious about this too. Did she have conflicts with coworkers? Bad
management? Did her projects feel like chores?

Often if you're in an unhappy situation you can speak up and articulate what's
wrong and others will adapt.

I suppose if you're young and single you can afford to be impulsive. A pattern
of doing that repeatedly can't look too good..

~~~
tomjen3
She was there for _years_, quitting a job is not impulsive and we are not
salarymen.

You rarely get massive changes by talking to management (small changes, sure)
and if you really hate your job, small changes are rarely enough.

------
at-fates-hands
Seems like she left a LOT out of the story. She never mentioned what
specifically caused her to burn out. Maybe she felt she wasn't good enough as
a designer, maybe the work was too demanding, maybe it was too many hours.
Maybe this is another cautionary tale about being a woman in tech.

The fact she conveniently leaves out huge parts of the story makes me wonder
what the real reason was she left. As such, I can't comment other than to
point out people quit jobs all the time these days, and the way her story is
written, she hints at something, but never fills in the details - so the only
conclusion we can make is:

She quit her job and is looking for a new job.

~~~
jtheory
I got the impression she's not fully sure what happened, herself.

I'm curious to hear the next post, when she's had a bit of time to digest it.

------
mathgeek
As someone who knows they wouldn't want nor enjoy the SV lifestyle, I really
feel for the author. Not everyone wants to live in that culture, and we need
to remind ourselves that it's OK to want to life live differently from it.

~~~
hunterloftis
Yep. I lived there for a year and just didn't dig San Francisco (blasphemy, I
know!). Reading the author's experience returning home, how she felt awakened
again, really resonated with me because I had the same experience.

After one such trip home to North Carolina, my girlfriend and I - sitting in
the SFO terminal - started looking at NC houses, just to see. Three weeks
later we closed on our home.

The valley culture isn't for everyone.

------
untilHellbanned
I'll say it — this post is a vapid pile of crap. It's so over the top
dramatic, "I'd been idolizing for years". Really?

If your biggest struggles involve feeling guilty about $5 drinks you need
better things to worry about.

So now "I quit my job" is the new learn nothing, "amazing adventure" startup-y
blog post. FML.

~~~
harryh
Indeed. Most quit lit is tiresome.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/09/don...](http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/09/dont-
quit-your-day-job/404671/)

------
whatok
Reading through this thread makes me a lot happier with my current situation
but also makes me want to quit my job. I live in NYC, have enough cash to
cover several years of rent, and am debt free. I would love to take a break
but current industry strongly frowns upon gaps in employment. Current contract
forces me to take two months leave if I quit which I would think should be
enough time off. This is also going to be the first time in my life where I've
had time off and not be completely broke so I might enjoy it way too much.

------
XM49inJV49gg
Looks like Dropbox is not going public any time soon.

------
debacle
There's literally no detail to any of the logic or rationale in this story.
People like faffing about these fantasies, but the most important advice I've
ever received in my career was from my father - "Don't quit your day job."

~~~
panders
Seriously, you can't just quit your job without having any other plans laid
out beforehand. This is just incredibly dumb and irresponsible...

~~~
DarkTree
I wonder how many shining examples of - successful people who originally quit
something with nothing lined up - it will take before people stop making such
naive blanket statements such as this. Does her risk of failure increase by
just up and quitting? Oh heck yes, but does that mean it's 100% dumb and
irresponsible in every context?

You have one life to live and if you don't love what you're doing (she
doesn't) and has the skills to do something else (she probably does) and has
the guts to change her situation (she does), then in my opinion, she is making
the smart and responsible decision.

