I’ve resigned.
Yes, I’m not mincing any words. I’ve thrown in the towel. It’s much too steep a mountain to climb and I’ve reached the point where the air's thinning and to struggle on without an oxygen tank would be participating in a suicide mission. So my official last day of work at infohell's on 31 May 2006.
The family’s been harping on me to get a new job – one that doesn’t require me to work such long hours. It’s agonising to be apart from my two children, and they clamour for attention when I’m back.
Xian’s regressing into a baby-like state, as she feels threatened by her younger sister and gets frightfully insecure and jealous whenever I start to fuss over Wen. The baby’s starting to experience separation anxiety and wails miserably every morning when I leave for work. It’s heartbreaking. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the root cause of everything: I don’t spend enough time with them.
Naturally it was a long and painful decision to be made. After all, I’ve been working at infohell for 5 years and much as I love to grumble about the grueling hours and tedious workload, I have formed an emotional attachment to the people and job. Once I set my heart into getting a new job, I rehashed my resume and “repackaged” myself in the process. (Unfortunately, age is catching up with me and I don’t have the luxury of staying home without a regular income.) I had two choices – to return to the corporate world and pick up from where I left 5 years ago or remain in the education industry.
I’d been scouring the papers intensively over the past months and sent in a few applications. Although the need to get job was urgent, I was also selective in my choices, as I really have no intention to jump out of the frying pan into the fire. And to satisfy my own silly little ethical obligation, I ruled out competitor organisations.
Admittedly, I am lucky – the only place that granted me an interview gave me an offer (though I was subjected to two rounds of panel interviews and had to wait 1½ months for a positive answer). In my new job, I’ll be concentrating solely on lecturing – no more management shmucks and useless, meaningless meetings. At least I’m hoping not, since I’ve taken up a pure teaching assignment and will not be sticking my finger into any management pie.
The only thing I can mention about my new workplace is that it’s a government institution – and the traveling distance from home is more bearable, i.e. shorter.
It’s a crying shame that I was so emotional when I told my bosses of my decision to resign. Something I haven’t mustered all these years – I tear too easily. Naturally I am rather upset at the thought of leaving behind my colleagues and workmates, many of whom have offered me great advice and listening ears. Heck, I even wrote a poem for them! Some have become such dear friends and in truth, they are the ones I will miss the most especially since I spend even more time with them than my own family.
In taking up a new job with fewer responsibilities, I’m quite confident that I’ll be successful in obtaining the work-family equilibrium. Yes, I will no longer hold on to a supervisory position, and in some ways I’ll be relegated to a “mere worker” role, starting from scratch. But that’s the whole point of it all. At the end of the day, my family should take top priority and me being the ever-dutiful workaholic slave often cave in to the demands of the company.
I believe it’s a sacrifice worth making. Especially for my kids.
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