Seven Ways to Tell You're Ready to Quit Your Job

1. You start carrying a knife to work in case you have to cut someone.
2. You consider selling your arm on eBay.
3. Your employees tell you that "you seem really laid back lately."
4. You've become a file mule.
5. Metabolife, Amway, and Mormonism all seem like viable career options.
6. You refer to the bottle of Two Buck Chuck in the fridge as "my medicine."
7. Your work wardrobe includes something you wore to bed last night.



RIP Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

Revenge Fantasies

Here are the revenge fantasies that I have:

1. My business is so successful that both local and global companies line up to hire me. The investors who made my life a living hell at my last job beg me to take their account. I, of course, decline, causing them to go bankrupt and resulting in their having to set all of their horses, cars, planes, and dogs free.
2. I lose 40 pounds, and a local magazine writes a cover story - featuring me, of course - on how eliminating stress and working for yourself results in dramatic weight loss. A generous plastic surgeon offers me a complimentary eye lift in celebration of the new era of work-life balance, and Jimmy Choo hires me as a spokes-foot.
3. I pee on above mentioned investors' toothbrushes without them knowing.
4. I am able to surreptitiously sneak into their offices and sew tiny salad shrimp into the seams of their curtains. Said shrimp are allowed to decompose undetected and the smell begins to haunt their dreams.




Of course, revenge is a dish best served cold, so I guess what I really hope is that they get what they deserve.

File Mule

I decided to quit my job about six weeks before I actually did (OK, six months, but who's counting?). Because the circumstances were less than great and folks in my world usually get walked right out, I was nervous about being kicked in the face (metaphorically-speaking) the moment I announced my intention to go, and my pride couldn't handle the idea that my staff and co-workers might think I had been fired. Blah blah blah, ego ego ego.
I had a ton of stuff in my office: books, files, art -- ten years worth of the stuff you think you need. It would have filled a dozen paper boxes, way more than you could pack in 30 dignified minutes. Part of that was my set of permanent files - the stuff I've traveled with for years and years - and I was afraid that it would look like I were stealing them if I packed them up and carried them out on my last day. The files were mine; I brought them with me when I got there, but it would have looked so shady if I grabbed them when I left. To try to avoid looking like an office supply thief, I started carrying a big purse. Every night, I slid my laptop into my briefcase with two or three file folders and dropped one big red pendaflex into my purse. When I got in the elevator, I would sweat and twitch like I was carrying heroin in my cleavage, probably making the security guards laugh their asses off as they watched me adjust my bra straps and tug on my Spanx with a Tourette's Syndrome flourish. I was constantly terrified that I would become the subject of a bag check and have to explain that the red carboard folder in my purse was something I bought three cities ago and had dragged around with me ever since. Would it be more embarrassing to get searched or to have to admit that I had been hoarding all this crap for so long? Thank God there aren't mandatory prison sentences for file mules.