I couldn't decide when I got up this morning if I should dress up to quit.  Do you dress to impress when you're walking away?  does it matter?  As the Mapmaker put it, "maybe it's like dressing up when you're breaking up with someone.  Like a parting shot so they always know what they're missing."  So I dressed up. Just a little.

I hashed out multiple scenarios of how I would do it.  When you have bad days, it's something we all fantasize about, how you would walk out, how you would have the upper hand, how you would feel making a demand for your freedom from the man!  It's so totally not like that at all.

Mr. Cogsworth took it well.  Much better than I thought he would.  But then I also went very out of my way to not try and cause a rift with the man who might eventually be supplying information to future employers.  All the fantasies we all have of explaining how horrible it was the day you found out you weren't getting a raise, weren't getting flex time, were losing insurance benefits, that you were hired over two other people more qualified because you were a) white and b) female.  The first time Treelighter complimented my "hot bod" to sweeten me up as he handed me a ten dollar bill and asked for "the usual" at Subway.  You can see the fantasy I build up of calling up the swirling spiritual waters of Joan of Arc, my labor union founding Uncle Len, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and demanding that it was an outrage that humans be treated this way, and I would no longer sink so low as to be apart of it. 

But, the first and greatest lesson I learned in 4 years of academia is that the key to success is adapt adapt adapt.  Know what the boss is looking for, and give it to them.  Somewhere back there I crossed the line of things I would take before I would put my foot down, in exchange for a quiet compliant experience at the Pivil Tar Weservation Crust.  The peace I make with myself on this issue is while I may not have strode through the gates of oppression, or taken my fists to the streets and demanded this mismanagement be brought to justice, I did at least finally, after years of wondering if I'd made the right choice, actually decide to make the right choice. 

Don't get me wrong.  In my actual speech, I said that I had had a truly wonderful experience at CWPT, and I was honored to have been selected fresh out of college for this opportunity.  I learned a lot about things I'd never known before and loved working with the people in this office.  but my family, and my heart, were calling me West.

  And while there is certainly discontent in my reasons for leaving as well, what I said was just as much the truth. I will try hard to remember the Pivil Tar as something that I 100% loved and 100% hated.  There are things I LOVE about the character I played here, and things I HATE about her.  Now I hope to get some distance and separate the good from the bad and move on. 

I should also mention, that not unlike what they say about people who commit/attempt suicide, the split second before they die/almost die, they have an insatiable urge to live.  If quitting your job is anything like suicide, then yeah, it's totally true.  Even though I knew I was doing the right thing,  I clearly scared the pants off like 35 Trillion molecules in my body, and in their teeny tiny microscopic voices, they all went "WWWWHHHAAAAA????!" 

And to those 35,000,000,000,000 molecules I say, shove it.  You're about to go road tripping and lay on the beach and hook up with melanin molecules to make us tan.  So shut your teeny tiny pie holes. 

Unless you're the fat molecules, and then you should be scared pantsless cause you are NOT going to last long in California. 

Ladies and Gentleman, let the November 2009 RoadTriptopia planning begin.