Freelancing Day 1
Quitting Day
This morning I had three meetings: standup, RAID!, and the meeting with one of our company’s VP’s where I’d put in my two weeks. The meeting right before that meeting — RAID! — was a great meeting.
My boss and I started the meeting — which was supposed to be about Risks, Issues, Dependencies and Opportunities (ROID…? ORID? ODIR.) — talking about the best and worst holiday traditions. His was July 4th. Because fireworks were the worst. It was a hot take, and it’s safe to say that it gave me a bit of a wobble.
After that, everybody else joined the meeting, and it was productive (mostly), and we all made random jokes here and there about totally not-worked-related things (e.x. how Target and other stores should employ grandma’s to stand outside and shame shoplifters). It was a blast.
So when — after this pure serotonin boost — I had to jump right to the next meeting to say goodbye (forever?) to all those people I just talked to. I needed a minute. I said “Sorry! Running late!” and gave myself a tight-five to figure my shit out.
You probably should be sure sure and not just “sure” before quitting.
Sigh.
Then, I got back online, I joined the meeting, and I quit.
The VP, broke the news to me, that my mentor had already told him, and really, I was grateful that I didn’t have to pull that awful ice-breaker “heyyy so, I decided…” line out of noplace.
Immediately after telling the VP-man, I had some serious feelings of loss. I was sad to be leaving all these people that I really enjoyed working with.
I had to remind myself that my average day-to-day wasn’t something that energized me or made me want to get up and get going. That it wasn’t something that I looked forward to. That I didn’t get pumped at the idea of going to work. That just because I was leaving this job didn’t mean that I wouldn’t ever connect with my coworkers. That I would make new relationships along the freelance road.
Then I got really scared that I wouldn’t be productive.
What if I’m simply not disciplined enough to get myself to do the amount of work necessary to sustain myself.
In other words, what if, at the end of the day, I was a lazy piece of shit.
This was a terrifying thought, especially since I was unproductive for most of the week, both in my freelance work and my job-job work. Work wise, I didn’t do good. But lucky for me, I was employed, so that meant that I got paid regardless.
Freelance? If you’re a piece of shit, they’ll find you. And they won’t pay you. And they won’t rehire you. Or… I guess if you’re a piece of shit, they’ll never pick you up in the first place. And then you’ll just be there. Shitty-like. And you won’t get work, and you won’t have friends, and you’ll end up just #left, #allAlone in your apartment with no work, no money, and no friends.
Scary.
Of course, I didn’t end my day there, just wondering if I was a literal fece.
I called my dad back.
I told a friend living in Seattle who I promised I would tell when I put in my two weeks.
And I told another friend just for kicks.
Then I ran around a bunch, played frisbee with my club team in Chicago, and sweated a lot. And most of my fears of being a literal fece went away. Of course I am a little fece. I mean, I am a fece in at least a small way, but knowing that I am not, all in all, a complete piece of shit was solace enough. At least for day one.
