Working

I quit my job yesterday.

Note: This is a long one. I hope you stay until the end.

My last work event at the Kennedy Space Center ten days ago.

Purpose. What are we meant to do on this Earth? For a long time I thought each of us was assigned a role, a task that would make the meaning of life important. A mission that would guide us through our days. As I got older and watched people live and then die, I thought about what I remembered most about the ones who left us. Then, my ideas on purpose began to change. And like most overachievers, I’ve burnt myself out at the ripe age of an early 30 something year old. My bar for success has lowered to match my desire to not work as hard, to not be as ambitious. But that wasn’t always the case; let’s rewind to a year and a half ago.

2024.

I turned 30, had the biggest depression of my short lifetime, dated a man I don’t like to think about, and searched so hard for a job I thought it might break me. This is not in chronological order and like most annoying shit, it happened all at the same time. Except for my birthday, that was last of course.

I’ve never publicly written about the job I’ve had for just shy of five years. I still won’t say much that can trace back to specific people, but I do events and partnerships for an education media company. On paper it’s the perfect job for me, I’ve done events since graduating college, partnerships at my former job in Chicago, and education has been the through line of my career.

Yet, I hated my job for three of the five years I’ve had it. 2024 was the worst year of them all. I was in the throes of a depression I didn’t think was professional enough to tell my boss I was suffering through. The monster of grief had swallowed me up as I lost three family members in the three years I was there, ceased having a relationship with my mother, and could tell one of my coworkers had a disdain towards me that I couldn’t figure out was due to my age or race. Most likely both. For the first time in my life, I was quiet, lacked initiative, and waited for someone to tell me what to do. When events came around every 3-4 weeks, I would dazzle, get compliments from all of the attendees, and then crawl back into my shell until the next one. My boss’s slight conflict avoidance worked in my favor as she wanted more, but would ask me tepidly. However, I didn’t think as the only black person on the team I could say I was swimming in the depths of despair.

In fact, a therapist a year earlier presented a feeling wheel to me and pointed to despair. She said that’s what I was describing. I thought the word was too dramatic, then googled it and told her,

“You’re right.”

So I did what most black women do when they are suffering from crippling depression, I over functioned. I decided that my job was the culprit of my despair, with a boss who sometimes praised me and at other times deemed me underperforming. A co-worker who asked me if my hair was real and then told me she’d never ride the subway because she didn’t want to get raped. Another co-worker who had good intentions, but didn’t heed my jokes when I pointed out he only gave me compliments on my hair when it was straight. I took all of these comments quietly and sheepishly, the voice you’re all used to squashed down by sadness.

Everything was a problem that needed fixing. I needed more money, more growth opportunities, less micro management, and more space to be myself. I was performing at work and when I perform, I become small. So I became loud with my plea: I need a new job. Now, I was no stranger to job searching. I’ve been on and off job searching since the moment I formally entered the workforce, wearing my badge of a job hopping millennial extremely well. I told everyone I knew that I wanted a new job and I needed help fast.

Following a worrisome meeting with my boss in May 2024, I ran the gamut of: job applications, informational calls, and scouring LinkedIn at all hours of the night. Every time I hung out with someone, I mentioned I was looking for a job. My community showed up big time and I did as well. Ironically, I never worked so hard in my life. My insomnia was kept company by new job post alerts and jotting down people I wanted to connect with when the hour wasn’t so late. I did cold reach outs to strangers and warm reach outs to former acquaintances. My mind was consumed with finding a job and keeping my mental health just afloat enough to keep going. By the start of August I got desperate, pleading with friends to connect me with someone even if a company looked like they were having financial trouble.

Anything is better than what I have now.

I believed that with every fiber of my being. So when doors closed or warm leads chilled, I created new ones. Following a meeting with a woman working at a company I didn’t want to work at, I adopted her job tracker. I refined it. I tracked job applications, dates of messages, emails sent, if I spoke to a recruiter, and so on. I color coded it red and green to know what was in progress and what went cold. By the second week of August, I applied to 50 jobs. My friends were worried, but also impressed. Simultaneously, I was getting better at the job I hated. But of course, my coworker’s slight disdain then turned into full blown work obstruction. She wouldn’t let me join meetings, didn’t appreciate the initiative my boss was thankful to see, and I realized that my despair wasn’t the only thing that made me dislike my job. I’d appropriately discerned that this wasn’t a space where everyone wanted me to take the lead. Early on I knew there would be ceilings I didn’t care to break.

I kept going down this unsustainable path because I was rewarded. Interviews popped up. Applications rejected by AI systems were then greenlit because I messaged recruiters. My research skills reached a new level. Now when I woke up in the middle of the night, it wasn’t to check Instagram, it was to look at LinkedIn. People praised my persistence. I thought to myself, it has to work, it just has to.

By the last week of August I was in two active job processes and told the man who decided to break up with me one Tuesday morning, that I had no time to deal with his half assed break up text that still left the door cracked open, because I had an interview to prepare for. (Who the hell breaks up with you on a Tuesday morning?????) I killed the interview, joined a work meeting, and found time to tell him he was a liar. My mental health was shakier than ever, but I told myself I had to keep going until I got a new job.

So I went on, September came, and two job prospects turned into three. I was inching along to the final round in two jobs, my favorite being an org in the Presidio and the other a sales job in Civic Center. I didn’t travel home even when invited by multiple friends. Once I get a job, was my mantra. In retrospect, my friends expressed their worry for me during this time. But they know once I start, it’s hard to stop me.

No one said the word depression until I uttered it one morning to a friend, after a workout session left me angry with the man who broke up with me months prior. My depression was only unknown to me. I finally began to see the signs. I was crying before work started. Noticing the vibe of my coworkers before they said anything and to be frank, stressing myself out. I was paranoid and sad. But I kept working, enough for no one to think my breaking point was coming soon.

October arrived. After one job prospect turned into a job offer I declined due to low pay, my favorite job prospect looked like it was going well. You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t going to get a job offer, so much so, that I bought work clothes the month prior to prepare. An October week went like this:

Monday: My coworker’s disdain turned into antagonism and I couldn’t get anything done without my boss asking her to let me do it first. Then I joined a call and she called a neighborhood where my other coworker was house searching, ghetto. Everyone got quiet and with my departure on the horizon, I told her I didn’t like the use of that word. Hours later she made it a point to not introduce me to an external partner on a call, so I interrupted and introduced myself.

Tuesday: I woke up crying again, the day before shaking me. The job offer was coming soon, I told myself.

Wednesday: The recruiter called. I didn’t get the job. I held my own on the call asking for feedback and expressing disappointment. My shoulders slumped, the last warm thread had gone cold.

Wednesday afternoon: I angrily sobbed. Then, after washing my face, I called my boss and asked her what we were going to do about my coworker’s behavior towards me. She faltered a bit. I said it was making it hard for me to stay. We came up with ideas.

Thursday: I had a call with the coworker and fully defended myself for the first time in three years. She rolled her eyes when I said as the only black woman on the team I had to make sure I was okay. I scoffed in disbelief and told her to never roll her eyes as I spoke of my identity.

Friday: I closed out of the job tracker and decided to make a new plan: it was time to give up.

My defeat made me see my depression and how large it was. My survival strategy ended when I didn’t get the job. I proved to myself that working hard doesn’t mean anything when it’s just not the right time. It was unfair, it fucking sucked. But, I realized I needed a mindset shift. I was running away not just from my job, but my grief, my fear, and my life. So I made a new tracker with way less columns and took stock of my life. I slowly began saving money and went back to Pilates classes. My friends saw me again. I joined more work projects. I started seeing a psychologist. Five months later with a clearer mind, I decided to move home. Now, a year and a half later, I put in my resignation yesterday.

In the time that has passed, I dazzled all the time at work. I made more jokes that bordered the line of tact, I initiated more, took more opportunities, stayed at events longer. In an odd turn of events, taking my coworker to HR for her work obstruction and insensitive comments made her respect me more. She said with a joking tone at a work event two months after our phone call,

“You don’t mess with Marquita.”

After that, I gave her hugs every time I saw her. My boss said my bravery helped the whole team with her. I withheld the symbolism that it took a black woman being mistreated to help everyone else. When I went to an event ten days ago, I wandered around the closing dinner and spoke to all the attendees I fostered relationships with. I’ve grown our outreach by 50%, my systems keep our events running smoothly, I’ve diversified our community, I led a mentoring program, and I’m often the coworker people call when they want a calm perspective.

Because life is funny, this new job I have is only the second job I applied to since 2025. I didn’t take the process as seriously as I did before, and I didn’t realize I was going to get the job until the very last second. It was hard to tell my team I’m leaving, but I remember something my father said to me in 2023 after I ended things with a man I’m pretty sure I loved. He said,

“It’s a good skill you have, to know when to leave. You leave when it’s good, you always leave when it’s good.”

Just when I made peace with being at my job for however long and enjoyed it, the new opportunity came. The lesson is so clear, it’s annoying. But yeah a thousand words later all to say: I’m grateful. This job taught me to just be, to experience, to be present. I’m beginning to think that’s really all of our purpose, to just be. It’s not grand, it’s not heroic, but it’s true.

I’ll miss my team and I know they appreciated me. However good it’s been, it’s now time. It’s time to leave.