Things you should do before quitting a job

To provide some context, lets just say Mr.Brown is fresh out of college and frustrated with a misfit job at a well reputed MNC which is almost paying in the top 5% which an average college passout engineer is paid in a certain region of India according to the company’s Glassdoor estimations though everyone signs a confidentiality agreement.

However life may seem fancy after school/college, there are always some hidden facts and facets of the life-after. Someone might have warned us of the rat race and politics up ahead in whichever place you join or dealing with real life problems for college was just for analysing simulations and solving pseudo First World Problems.

You solved a real problem, mate!

Jumping into a job is tough. Happy realisations kick in when you realise you don’t have time for even planning those trips with friends(Goa being the equivalent of the game of Monopoly of broken friendships and …stuff.)over whatsapp groups for you are scared to check messages from your boss asking you for overtime when all you want to do is go home and catch up on the latest episode of Sherlock Season 3 you had downloaded in college while the world decrypts the symbolisms of Season 4.

So Mr.Brown wakes up one day, boards the bus to office. Sits on his highly dysfunctional ergonomically designed office chair which is an essential piece of furniture , especially in this age of sedentary lifestyles with adjustable seat height, back tension, head rest support, and more; a chair that has your back,always and decides to press Send on the resignation draft he writes everyday when he comes in to the office.

Now Mr.Brown’s tipping point may have been the fact that his colleague/arch nemesis sitting in the next cubicle spoiled the season finale alongwith some 2–3 other shows he hadn’t caught up on, the onus lies with the recruiter as well as the placement heads.

So before quitting the job, Mr. Brown decides to do these simple things which he should have done before pressing that button.

1. Talk with co-workers/mentors at the firm : Sometimes with all the negative vibes and undue pressures, we tend to see things in the worng way and make up stories in our heads that the best thing might be to leave the cursed place before going bonkers. Having/identifying good mentors is really important wherever you go. If you can’t find good ones then either you didn’t try hard or the place is wretched(which was the case in Mr.Brown’s intergalactic MNC)
2. Look for other roles in the firm which might excite him : When you are in a company which employs 1000s of people, they are bound to have some good roles/some maintenance roles/ some boring roles. If the current role isn’t exciting you enough, look for those roles which excite you irrespective of the experience and knowledge you need to get into them in the beginning. Try to build up the knowledge and skills so that that group can fit you in.(Mr.Brown was rejected downright, Creativity in a firm is a myth. What everyone wants in the name of creativity is clearing exams and experience under the belt)
3. Ask the recruiter if they can put them in those role : The person who has hired you saw something in you to give you a position in the firm. Ask him for help when you feel you are being a misfit in the role you have been put in (Mr. Brown was randomly assigned as is the case with each fresher for the corporate follows the Sink or Swim policy instead of Talent at Right Place policy.)
4. Take a day off and finished the goddamn season of Sherlock! -A distraction always helps calm the mind.(Though there is nothing calm about Sherlock. Watch National Geography’s documentary on the Art of War in nature, you fool!)
5. Call friends and plan and book those tickets to the weekend getaway you have been planning since college (Mr. Brown supposedly called 4–5 of them but we know he Whatsapp’ed them because “Ping me” is the jingo of the corporate and “Call me” is for the desperate ones.Those messages are still seen with 2 blue ticks and no replies)
6. Watch this video and blame bad parenting and short attention span social media has driven into us for not being “tolerable” enough to hold on to the job (This video is so bad that its actually good for the guy who made it because it made him an internet sensation)

Now if you move past all the items on this “6 things to do before quitting you job” anti listicle (BuzzFeed please pick this up, I need a job!wubba lubba dub dub!) , it is evident that there are many factors that cause the press of the Enter key.

A bad team, a non-replying management makes one question everything they signed up for. You try to cope with stuff (As that Sinek fellow mentioned in the video, people do try to cope in their own way you fool. You need to stop being the all mighty “decoder”).

Eventually, its nobody’s fault. Mr.Brown read all those bad reviews and word of mouth warnings while he interned and still went to join and go through 5 months of living hell ( Sorry Green Arrow, it could be finished in 5 months as well. 5 years is too much!)

The one thing Mr.Brown could have done is not joined the company at all.

Not attend college at all.

Not take up science as his core subject in school at all.

We always think that leaving a job or anything we do is a negative thing. Everything should be given a second chance and eventually works out. Not when you give it 6 more chances and still end up miserable. Its okay to quit. Its okay to try and fail. People come and go. Those facts I mentioned nobody tells you about in school/college are very simple. Nobody will help you in the future unless you have something to offer them in return. Friendships fade away, people have their own problems to fix. To find motivation in the wrong place just because you can’t pursue your dream because you need the money or forcefully want to have that “Stable career” portrayed in the society is again the herd mentality at work.

Agreed having a job at the end of the day gives you purpose to get up next day and streamlines your duties for the coming quarter/year. But then why doesn’t nobody think that startups also fail, phones of bigger conglomerate also blast and become an internet meme only because the herd mentality predominantly dominates the world.

Its good to be afraid. Its good to come out of that rat race and trying to find the purpose of tracks laid out by nature in the world. A job is not the end of the world and so stop expecting replies from job recruiters on whose Linkedin post you write “Interested” even though that post was about an orange faced monkey’s twitter advice to an actress of a bubonic plague.

Disclaimer: This doesn’t mean you have to leave your job and start ranting about it online. Mr. Brown is laying it out thick already.