Wednesday, May 13, 2020

There are two major reasons why I know that if I hadn't quit, I'd be in dire shape.

From an external perspective, I occasionally hear from one of my ex-co-workers and it sounds like if I'd stayed at the job it would have been recession redux, which was the major catalyst that drove my drinking for years. The lack of resources, senseless cutbacks when the company was really doing just fine (as evidenced by salaries in the millions for the top brass), and more than anything else, pressure pressure pressure driven by fear. This attitude was encouraged and enforced by levels of bureaucracy of course.

It was the unhealthiest environment in so many ways and something that probably would have literally killed me if I stayed and ended up in that situation yet again, but working from home this time around which would have compounded the drinking.

Internally, the other reason was that to work in the field I had to turn off my moral center. I watched so many deals go down where I knew the workers of the companies would suffer while management who worked with our bankers would get rich. I saw so many things that weren't illegal but were flat out immoral that I had to just do my piece of the job and try to ignore the rest of the implications.

I convinced myself that I was okay with this; I was only a cog in the wheel, not the one directing the transaction. That level of denial can only get you so far, as it turns out. I think that drove a lot of the terrible nightmares I would have, and the constant low level stress that exhausted me. I knew that I was selling my soul and that was the price I was paying for a job that gave me a financial cushion.

I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I don't know where I'll end up, but god knows I don't want to be back in that situation.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home