About quitting
It's hard!
An old friend once said to me that she and I were different because she would instantly quit something while I would stick it out to the end. She had just come back from a summer job mid-way because something had happened. I was befuddled by her return and backhanded compliment, but admitted that her assessment was probably true. I wouldn’t have done what she did.
I can’t think of many times I’ve quit something, but I can think of many times I should have. When I interned at a tech company during COVID, I crashed out after three months, went to therapy, decided to take a solo trip to New Haven (of all places), and proceeded to stick it out for the next nine months. When I went abroad to teach in Kyrgyzstan and found myself with no mentor or resources, I crashed out after about three months, cried a lot, leaned a lot on my support network, tried skirting around school rules (that’s another story), and stuck it out for the next six months.
What prevented me from quitting? Probably my ego. I wanted to do well for myself and for others, and prove that I could do a hard or worthy thing. I wanted to complete the thing I signed up for, even at my own mental and physical expense. I wanted to make it to the finish line and show everyone that I could do it, even if it meant I was a little more broken inside.
What else? My attachment to people. In the best and worst environments, I leaned on the relationships I built up around me to survive. I cared deeply for the students, colleagues, and customers I was serving. I could not bear to let down the people I had left, nor the people I would come home to, nor the people who had selected me for the opportunity. But what about my relationship to myself?
And what more? My trademark stubbornness. Shoutout to my paternal lineage!!
Like many other things in life, quitting is inevitable yet never taught. It’s not something you can really practice or prepare yourself for. When you need to quit, you just do it. The most similar thing I can equate it to is a breakup. Even when you know it’s for your own good, it’s still agonizing.
I had always known that I would eventually quit my job at the Company. I had always known that it was more of a stepping stone and that it offered me a comfortable transition back into the US. When I joined, the Company was trying to climb back from COVID losses and things felt sort of transitory yet hopeful. I got used to the commute and my life generally improved. But after about a year or so, my department was suddenly purged, our creative partner left, our office location moved, our brand president quit, and the Company still continued to perform poorly. The mood in the office dimmed as murmurs of the future and more layoffs bounced around the halls. I grew antsy. The future did not look bright for me or the Company.
What sealed the deal was this past summer when the marketing head said a microaggression to a young colleague of color and everyone laughed and I spiraled. What shocked me more was how my colleague just shrugged it off when I checked in. I can’t even be your comrade of color? Something in me snapped and I became enraged at everyone and everything. Then I became scared that I cemented myself in this singular job that I could not escape. Am I really going to put up with this anymore? I angrily wondered. I don’t even like what I do! And I deserve more money! That’s when I started applying.
So when I did find something better and quit my job, why was it so freaking difficult to leave???
Four weeks ago was a quiet Monday before Thanksgiving. That morning, I met with my manager and broke the news. I felt fine at the start when I told her my end date. Her first response was, Oh nooooo, and then, I totally understand and I’m happy for you. But the tears welled up as she expressed her gratitude to me and acknowledged my hard work. Something about her words hit me hard, as if I had been seen for the first time despite positive feedback over the past two years. The bitterness I held inside started to leak out of my body and left behind something raw. I realized that I couldn’t just breeze through these conversations and that I shouldn’t expect anyone to expect my departure (I thought people had maybe caught on. I was wrong). After we hung up, I trudged through a few more calls as a deflated balloon of a person and by the end of the day, I could hardly speak. God.
Thanksgiving offered a wonderful respite, but once the next Monday came around, I hard launched communications on my departure—again, not something that is taught, but simply done on your own. I had considered telling everyone else on my very last day, but that didn’t feel right on a personal and professional level. I called who I could, talked to people in the office when I could, and sent out mass goodbye emails to various functions. No conversation was easy, and I emitted sighs and/or screeches (eeeek!) after hanging up the phone and sometimes held back tears. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, yet everyone asked for hints anyway. The process of delivering the news, managing the listener’s emotions, managing my own, and then handling the aftermath was repetitive and honestly exhausting.
The response was fine though. Mostly everyone was shocked yet excited for me. They said they would miss my hard work, my humor, and my shine. People who I liked and disliked came up to me and said really nice things to which I either smiled bittersweetly or smiled and thought to myself, Thank God I’ll never have to see you again. I was especially touched by one supplier in Europe who seemed genuinely interested in my life and and my creative hobbies. I laughed at another supplier who typed out annyeong-hi gaseyo (hope I say it right) in his parting words. Some things, I would not miss.
The rest of my last week was me going into the office and putting together all of my project information, timelines, files, images, and samples, updating a random passerby on my departure, connecting with my manager for the almost last time, and then repeating everything the next day. Since Thanksgiving break was part of my two week notice, I worked hard and fast to put everything together which meant I barely had time to process my feelings or truly communicate my sentiments to my closest colleagues. On my very last day, I entered the near empty office, made final edits to my notes, twiddled my thumbs, and then left the near empty office to go holiday shopping. That was it—that was how it ended.
In the ten days between my old job at the Company and my new job at the Agency, I somehow managed to fill every day with a social activity. While fun and unintentional, it didn’t leave much idle time to think about my post-Company feelings. The Agency wanted me to start before the end of the year, which added to what felt like a hasty exit. Even now, a week into the new job, I’m still thinking about the past.
Why was quitting so hard? A simple answer is that I was doing it for the first time, and doing things for the first time is hard. My brain needed extensive energy to handle an unfamiliar situation and it struggled to connect my new experience of quitting with anything before. My brain and I were surprised at how emotionally exhausting the whole process was.
Why was quitting so hard? Because of the people I left behind. It’s interesting how I didn’t realize how much my colleagues valued me until I said I was leaving. Maybe part of it was me not being able to accept positive feedback, or everyone taking me for granted (lowkey), or something else. But I was warmed by all of the people—especially my closer millennial colleagues—who told me that I was a good egg! I’ve learned that in all circumstances, I struggle to distance myself from others and gravitate towards people as a way to connect and make working together easier.
Why was quitting so hard? Quitting the Company was 100% my own decision, which also meant that the consequence was 100% mine too. If something did not pan out at the Agency, or if I wasn’t as competent as I made myself seem, that was on me. No one wants to make the wrong choice or have regrets, but that’s also part of changing and growing and being human. You would think that it would be easy to choose something better for yourself and something that you deserved, but complacency is real and change is so scary. I almost got cold feet before accepting the offer at the Agency for this reason, but I had my friends and family who reminded me that I was capable and that I had wanted change for a long time.
So that’s kind of where I’m at. I quit my job and I’m still here and everything is okay. It’s not something that I enjoyed doing, but a process I had to go through nonetheless. I’m ultimately proud of myself for doing something scary and pursuing a career that I didn’t think was possible. What’s cool about this new job is that it’s more aligned with what my bright-eyed college self wanted from her career—creative, innovative, design-focused—but slowly strayed away from. Something about that is very full circle and sentimental to me and I feel really grateful for my support network (big shoutout). Quitting was a very solitary process, but I felt less alone with the guidance of people who love me.
Anyway, here’s to quitting as an act of self-love and to a crazy end of 2025! Viva la Agency!
-MH
Random things
I was originally going to incorporate an Elena Ferrante book review of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay into this somehow, but it wasn’t really working. It’s the third book in the Neapolitan quartet and I was reading it as I went through the Agency interview and eventual Company resignation process. The title and themes are super fitting to quitting!
Some time ago, I listened to a This American Life podcast episode on quitting and enjoyed it. I didn’t listen to it while writing this post, but I was reminded of it just now. Support public radio!
What’s also crazy is that while I was interviewing at the Agency, I turned 27! One of my interviews was literally the day before my birthday. New year new job new me. Shoutout Scorpios!
so so proud!!! 💛💛
minhee i have missed your posts 😭 i knew there was a reason I resonated with you so much - I’m also 27! i also have trouble quitting things, my #1 reason always being the possibility of regretting my decision. kudos to you for doing the hard thing and i hope your new job goes well!