career

How To Know When It’s Time To Go

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Fun Fact: Winners quit all the time.

Just putting in the effort/ hustling/ grinding is not enough- that effort needs to be in the right direction for what you want to do, otherwise you will just burn yourself out for no reason. Part of that process means constantly reevaluating what you are doing, and dropping the jobs, habits, and directions that no longer serve you like a hot rock.

Sometimes quitting is the easiest thing in the world- usually once it’s become a matter of moving on to something better or personal survival. Unfortunately, our pack-bonding brains are great at giving us reasons to stick around, endure the unacceptable, and sabotage our own happiness for the sake of security.

If breaking up with your job is hard to do, it might really be for the best.

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Paying the Piper- The Culinary Brain Drain

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You can feel it all around the United States. With the massive push of vaccinations and the slowly declining COVID-19 case numbers, restaurants and venues are starting to relax their requirements. People still need to wear masks, yes, and social distancing is still a thing- but you can eat inside now. You can sit with friends. You and your buddies can, within reason, go out and grab a beer just like you used to. We are starting to get back to normal after a year in a plague-ridden Hell of our own creation.

Not all industries are ready though:

“Hey, I need to hire two line cooks ASAP! Anyone give me any leads?”
“Guys, I’m desperate. I need a dishwasher, a busboy, and at least three cooks NOW- the restaurant is packed every night and I can’t take it anymore!”

“Why can’t I find capable help anymore?! Everyone I hire either flakes out, burns out, or just quits! WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE COOKS?!”

They found greener pastures, folks. They had no other choice. We need to raise a new crop of cooks from scratch- maybe we’ll be smarter about it this time.

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The Calling

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Several years ago, back in New Jersey, I walked into the casino bakery in a sour mood, knowing it would pass in a few hours.

The sour mood wasn’t uncommon- the casino job wasn’t the most rewarding gig in the world, and I griped a lot to Emily and my housemates. This time, however, the fact I was going to a job I wasn’t enjoying was secondary- there was other, external issues weighing on my my mind and, perhaps appropriately, I have forgotten what was so terrible about those days five years later.

What I do remember was coming in, putting my tools up, and chatting briefly with Karen.
“It’s so twisted… I almost find myself looking forward to going to work. Here everything makes sense even if it sucks, and I have control over it.”
Karen nodded sagely and said, “You’ll realize that as you move along in your career, Matt. Your family and friends love you, they support you, and they absolutely care about you succeeding- but they will never understand this life.”

When you realize that you want to bend your time, energy, and life around something- in or out of the usual rat-race, regardless of whether other people understand why- that’s a precious moment of self-knowledge that you shouldn’t ignore.

You’ve found your Calling.

A grayscale photo of a black womans hand in a sweater holding aloft a plaster bust of a serene woman's face.
Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com
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Crossroads and Signposts- Where Do You Go From Here?

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I really don’t like the idea of New Year’s resolutions. It’s not because most of the popular ones are superficial or shallow (as someone who wrote a weight-loss book, I know just how narrow my space to talk is by saying that.) It’s not even because they are cliche and nebulous (Not everything needs to be a “SMART” goal, but you can’t expect much from a resolution of “play less video games and get outside more.”)

What bothers me about them is that people set these big, noble but vague goals for themselves, then get down on themselves when they fall off the wagon- as they inevitably will. It turns the elements of effective goal-setting on their heads and, as someone wiser than me said, “people overestimate how much they can do in a day and underestimate how much they can do in a year.”

Regardless of your personal commitment, keeping goals “SMART”- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed- rewarding yourself for achieving them, and working toward them slowly will add up to success more (and disappoint you less) often than trying to “sprint up the mountain” on Day 1.

Before you start writing those goals down though (and yeah, put them in writing,) you need to ask yourself two questions and answer them as honestly as you can:
Who are you? What do you want?

Once again, an Uncle Iroh moment…
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Taking a Break for Ambition

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When it comes to ambition, goal setting, and planning- whenever someone says “there wasn’t room for doubt,” I don’t think that’s true. I think they didn’t MAKE room for doubt.

That sounds almost cynical and defeatist- and I suppose it could be taken that way. I won’t pretend to be some grand philosopher on that. I’m an anxious person. “Doubting” is as natural to me as lemonade on a hot day- as is planning, contingency, and fear-setting, for better or worse.

If Jesus can have a moment of doubt at Gethsemane, I’m pretty sure us poor mortals can wake up in the morning and wonder if we’re still going the way we want to in life. Those moments are important, because that’s when you make the turns that get you there. Don’t cheat yourself by removing room to doubt.

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