New Year's Gambit

I quit my retail job today. I did so because I was told I could no longer use any time on the clock to do personal work. 

So I quit. 

I'm 47. This wasn't a rage quit as much of a statement that being paid $13 an hour is simply not enough to control everything I do for every 60 minute increment. I felt the people I was working for did not respect me, and I quit. 

I worked really hard for them, even in a place with shifting communications and increasing workloads. A couple of weeks ago, I learned I would be responsible for refilling propane cannisters. That is not a skill set I've ever had in my life, and I wasn't really given much training except the owner gently berating me for not knowing how to do it right away.

I didn't quit then. I held it in. I needed that $13 an hour. 

But the email that said we needed to concentrate on the job fully so no one got COVID caused me to issue my two weeks. The rest of my shifts are covered. I turned in my keys. 

For five months, they've let me stay on top of correspondence, occasionally do some of writing when it was slow. And it's slow, a lot. The email felt like a slap in the face, and I stood up for myself.

And finally, finally, finally I feel like I'm back to taking control of who it is and what I want to be. I was spending a lot of time agonizing about things I might have done wrong. There were notes all of the time about things I didn't do right, and a general sense that management was there to scrutinize everything, and to find fault.

So I left. 

As I was leaving work, the same man in the red shirt was getting off work at the same time as me. This time he walked past with no incident, and I drove away ready to begin a new chapter of my life.