I Quit.
I have not published anything recently (though I think the words I wrote to accompany a photo essay by Tara Rice in Maine Farms Journal will be out soon) and all I can think about is jobs, so…
November, historically, is a great month for quitting. Here in so-called Maine, it’s about to get dark as hell (I went to the community acupuncturist one January, dripping with tears, pronouncing “the darkness” as the reason for my visit) and awfully cold. Darkness falls like a heavy curtain. I rarely go outside or leave my house after dark. This time of year has come to feel like a deadline for having my ducks in a row, to make sure whatever is on this side of the curtain with me is tolerable.
In Nov. 2018 I was almost nine months pregnant with my second child. After a year of fighting for a raise while benefits were being stripped away due to a budgetary crisis within the nonprofit I worked for—and suffering a new boss who told me at our first one-on-one, “I know that feminism and social justice are important to you. I would just ask that if I say something that offends you, that you tell me nicely,”—I quit. My last day of work was Nov. 28, 2018. I didn’t have a new job in the wings.
I did have a few weeks off between the day I quit and the night Aloysius was born. I had this notion that I would radically revise “Out Here”,1 the manuscript I’d been working on, find an agent, and sell the book before our family—already on a tight budget—went broke. I’d been working on the revisions for years but went into a fever pitch those last few weeks, deliriously believing that it was all going to work out—both swiftly and hella lucratively.
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On Dec. 9, at 7:30 p.m., my older kid, Gloria, had just gone to bed, my partner, Derek, was in the shower, and I was sitting on a sheepskin in front of the wood stove. My sister texted to ask what I was doing for my birthday the next day. “Revising the epilogue,” I wrote. Aloysius’ due date was a few days out and I figured I still had time. But minutes after I sent that text, my water broke—dramatically. I burst out laughing. I hadn’t packed any bags to take to the birthing center. I was really clear that the new baby was going to come AFTER I’d “finished” all the revisions and secured my new future as a successful writer optioning my well-received book to be made into a feature film.
Forty minutes later, we arrived at the birthing center. I brought my laptop with me, thinking maybe I’d have time to “finish the epilogue” between contractions. Our dear midwife laughed (incredulously? encouragingly?) at me then disappeared into a rocking chair in the corner, knitting. Candles were lit. The main feeling I remember having that night was: “Tonight?! Really?!”
“You’ll know when it’s time,” the midwives said, knitting needles clicking. It was time, I knew it was time. But I also felt like I had a really strong plan and giving birth that night was not it. Yet just before midnight, there was Aloysius. And, there was me. We were fine.2
A few days later, I finished the epilogue as best I could, Aloysius sleeping at my side, and I started sending it off to agents.3 In the meantime, I accepted an offer at a local arts nonprofit that agreed to allow me to bring him with me to work. Most of the agents I queried asked to see the full or partial manuscript. All of them rejected it after seeing it in full—the prose was promising but ultimately, it needed far more editing than an agent was ready to take on. So I started my new job with a six-week-old baby strapped to me, in a loud, open floor plan office. On my first day of work I had an ocular migraine so bad that I couldn’t read the first two letters of any words I looked at—the first such migraine I’d ever experienced, a direct result of how stressful it was to start a new job six weeks postpartum.4
I worked there for a year or so5 and started to look for new jobs that November, taking another offer in January. I went into debt hiring a developmental editor to help me figure out how to improve my manuscript and make it “marketable.” The feedback arrived a week into lockdown: “Your prose is on fire!” coupled with, “This book needs a ton of work. You need to gut half of it and rewrite another third.”6
I felt like I’d been sucker punched. I knew the book needed work—extensive work—but the kind of work the editor was suggesting was far beyond the time I had available. Time had become wildly precious—what little free time I had was occupied by my sleep-deprived self. And what did it mean to work so hard on something for so long, something I naively thought would change my life, only to learn that all the work I’d been doing on it was apparently for naught? My self-worth at zero, I shelved the manuscript and devoted myself to my new job (lol, childcare disappeared a few months into the new job, I tried my best), learned how to bake middling sourdough loaves, and talked with my dad about how to get in touch with my parents in the event of nuclear war.7
One year ago today, I noticed that a particular facial expression was lingering on my face whenever I was at my place of employment. I took a picture of that face and posted it on Instagram, hoping that maybe someone would have an out for me.
I posted about the kind of work I was truly looking for. I started an author website. I started writing again—new stuff. I applied for around twenty jobs and went through something like five interview processes. I was a finalist several times over. I was offered jobs that didn’t pay enough.8 I was not offered jobs I found myself relieved not to have received (even after using multiple vacation days to interview with them—red flag!). I did informational interviews with people who had jobs I wanted. I pulled out of an application process for a job I had been recruited for because I realized the (very cool!) position wasn’t a perfect fit. Then, I quit applying and started spending all the time I had been spending searching for a new job pitching stories instead. The writing made me happy but the job continued to bring me down despite the energy I put into trying to make things better.9
Before I had children, I was willing to work long hours at my day jobs and found my work relatively fulfilling, fulfilling enough.10 The itch to “be a writer” was present but it wasn’t nagging at my soul yet. Working a day job hadn’t made writing feel impossible yet—my time, outside of work, still belonged to me. After having my first child, six and a half years ago, I cut back to 30 hours a week and haven’t worked more than that since.11 One notable downside is that since making that commitment to work/life balance (snore), I haven’t been able to find a job that pays a fair, living wage or offers full health insurance coverage, benefits, and the possibility of promotion unless I work 40 hours a week.
Why are we doing this to people? Why do employers feel a need to demand complete loyalty from their workers, day in and day out? Why do we workers allow it? Why can’t we pay workers well AND ensure they have enough time to connect with what makes them happy and healthy?12 Rigidity around how we define the work week/what constitutes full time, only offering benefits like full insurance coverage to workers who vow their fealty is stupid.13 While I don’t recommend it, even if you wanted to look at this from a cost-benefit analysis alone, happy workers are more productive. We all have different things that bring us happiness and health. For me, unstructured time (during which I am not stressed about finances) is huge. There are only so many hours in the day. Why are we using so many of them up working? There is only so much light.
“Mama, when will I know when I am going to die?”
“Mama, when will I know when I am going to die?” Aloysius, now nearly four, asks me almost every day.
So, I quit, again, handing in my notice a few days ago. This time, a new job is waiting in the wings. I’ll be working for/with a dear old friend who makes me laugh and knows how to read the room. I’ll be working 32 hours a week, compensated fairly, and have access to full benefits. I say these things not to gloat but to affirm that the jobs we want are out there, and, that (when and if we’re able to) letting current or prospective employers know what we need is one way of changing exploitative (or grumpy-making) work culture.
The day I quit, my kids and I had a campfire to celebrate. I’d been purging—a bound copy of “Out Here” was in the kindling box. I ripped out the pages I’d paid to put together and handed them to my children to crumple and tuck into the fire we were building together. I put a stake in the center of the title page and we watched it burn, my children’s faces made that much more brilliant by its light.14
Birth is not a blip. Donate to the Black Mamas Matter Alliance here. Donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds. I was incredibly fortunate and privileged to birth where I did, and that everything went smoothly. For what it’s worth, I did end up bartering my services for more than half the cost of the birth. For what it’s also worth, midwifery care should be 100% covered by health insurance (see footnote 13). ↩
A carefully curated list of agents who were noted for their editorial prowess as well as the writers they represented. ↩
Aloysius came to work with me for five months. I was fortunate in that I could be with him but it was extremely stressful, difficult, and messed up my body. No one should have to work for AT LEAST six months after a new child comes into their lives (unless they want to). Click here for easy ways to contact your reps re: supporting working families with paid parental leave. (And while we’re at it, let’s better support people going through loss/miscarriage, too.) ↩
I call it “the lost year.” One bright spot was artist Al Crichton asking me about my writing and encouraging me to keep at it. At the time, I was so run down that I wasn’t writing at all, but the fact that Al knew there was still a writer inside me (and verbalized this) was huge. ↩
Recently, I ran into Stella Corso, a poet friend I knew from grad school, where I had started working on the manuscript. She asked me whatever happened to the book. When I shared the saga with her, she offered, “Maybe it just wasn’t the right editor.”—something I had never even considered. Maybe she is right. That would be so nice. ↩
I still can’t remember if I’m supposed to walk to you or if you’re going to walk to me, Dad—please call to confirm. ↩
Good advice: don’t apply for jobs with salary ranges lower than what you can actually afford. Even if it’s an internal position, you’re due for a raise, and surely they’d be happy to keep you? Apparently, yes, even then. ↩
I really did try to make things better. ↩
This doesn’t only pertain to being a caregiver/parent. For me, that was the shift but for others, it could surely be something else. Maybe you’ve always been wise about not giving so much of yourself over to your employer. Good for you! How do you do it? Will you let us know in the comments? ↩
The reason I’m able to do this is that I have a partner through whom our family gets health insurance, who makes enough money to balance out how little I’ve brought in since having children. I acknowledge that this is not fair. Employers need to create jobs that do not require people to be in partnerships in order to be accepted. ↩
If you are someone for whom work itself is the thing that makes you happy, good on you! For real. ↩
Furthermore, tying health insurance to jobs is ABSURD. ↩
I still believe in the manuscript’s potential. Who doesn’t want to read about a daughter traveling across the Pacific Ocean on a working containership on a journey to understand her father, the chief mate, and herself, in the process? It’s a good premise, and I stand by it. I still believe that what I learned through writing it will serve me forever. I don’t believe that the process of writing a book is only valuable if the book sells. *If* I were to be able to, you know, garner some interest and sell it, I’d be hella willing to do the revisions necessary to make others believe in it, too. (As long as I could safely quit my job first in order to have the time to do so, lol.)
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