There is no greater joy than quitting a job. The term "resigning" is misleading. There is no resignation about it. It is grabbing your future in your hands, looking up to the heavens and shouting "by God, I can do better!" There is nothing resigning about that. But that is the image behind the term "I resigned."
This I did today. As of the end of August (and the end of my current contract), I have decided to leave television, the only career I have ever known and an industry that thousands are bashing down the door to get into. Well, I say to them, let me hold that door for you, because you are more than welcome to it.
I do not dispute that my life is richer for the time I have spent in TV. The people I have worked with have been universally extraordinary -even the ones that were monstrous (and still are monstrous) to work with and shatteringly terrifying and mortifying and gut-wrenchingly ball-breakingly awful have been fascinating and I wouldn't change having known them. I have been to places, seen things and done things that I simply would never have had the opportunity for, were I not in the vicinity of a camera crew at the time. I have been physically sick from stress, I have cried with joy and I have had howled with despair. In short, my time in television has been a nightmare, but my God it has not been boring. I will look back upon the projects with the certain knowledge that I am a fuller person for having done it. As my name flashes by on various credits in the future, I may dawdle for a moment in reminisciences. Perhaps I will ponder what may have been, had I been prepared to give everything I had to the career. I will wonder if dropping out was the right thing to do.
But, I am done. I am so thoroughly reconciled to this fact now that I'm not sure how I'm going to finish this project. I have been thinking this through for six months, fannying around and listening to the advice of people screaming at me that my job is the best in the world. Well, it isn't. I want a job that is permenant and that will pay me for my holidays. I want a job where a budget isn't constantly being busted. Basically, I want a job where I don't drive myself as close as I hope to ever come to total hysteria, and all for 57-odd minutes of telly for people to watch while eating their toast. My friends will still be in the industry - I live with a cameraman, for God's sake - but I'm out of here, in search of normality.
Work may well set you free. But unemployment is going to set me free.
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2 comments:
Best of luck on your quest for normality. So much of this sounds so painfully familiar to my own experiences. There's something awesome and liberating about stepping away from a job/career path that's been making you sick and miserable and has, in short, taken over your entire existence.
I've had great jobs in television, ones that haven't fried my brain -- they do exist! and some of them come with paid vacation time and benefits! -- but they're outnumbered by the ones that have curdled my soul.
Best of luck with whatever you do next. Hey, I added your blog to the blog roll over at my site. I hope you don't mind.
Thanks! I've added you too - I'm relatively new to this blogging malarkey so still figuring stuff out.
It's good to share the pain. I had some good jobs too, but my last one has been such an absolute monster that it's enveloped the entire back memory of my career in a mushroom cloud of horror! It may yet clear and I'll return to the fold...
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