Work Has Become A Soap Opera of Sorts

This all started out with a major decision that I had to make a while back. It wound up turning into a series of sorts, with multiple parts to it. And when I wrote the last installment, I was of the thought that it would likely be the last one.

It was a pretty simple idea. The decision would be made based on a variety of considerations, and once that decision was made that would be it. It would be a done deal. Nuff said.

But of course life often does not work that way. All too often life is way more complicated than that.

I will leave the initial question I was asking myself pretty basic to spare you of my rehashing of all of the details. Because how I arrived here is not as important as that question, and the answer to it ultimately.

Should I move forward with my job, or should I initiate a plan to enter semi-retirement and quit my job?

I was pretty sure that I had made that decision as of last week. I sat down with the boss at his request for a meeting, but I was already fully prepared to walk away on the spot, and had my letter of resignation in hand when I entered his office.

What he said to me changed my mind, and I decided to leave the meeting and tossed my resignation into the shredder.

In that moment I felt like I had made a commitment, albeit a potentially short term one. But a commitment nonetheless. In a sense, although that was not laid out absolutely, I gave him another year with certain considerations in mind that would work for both of us.

You have to keep in mind that for me the way it works, is that I never view an employer as my boss. I tend to view a job as a mutual agreement between two people who need something from each other that is appreciated on equal terms.

When that agreement, or that understanding begins to break down, that is when a decision has to be made by one or the other. Either the boss decides to fire the employee, or the employee decides to fire his boss and essentially quit.

In my current situation this is what is happening. The agreement or understanding is beginning to break down—and I will be honest here. I don't feel that my job is giving me the same level of satisfaction and enjoyment that it once did. There are a lot of reasons for that.

I won't bore you with the details because ultimately they don't matter. The only thing that matters is the break down and the decision that has to be made that is really in the best interests of the both of us.

Complicated though it may be.

And again, I thought I made that decision a week ago. But here we are a week later and today I fully intended on leaving my resignation on the boss' desk, clocking out, and calling the whole thing done.

The only reason I did not do that is because I want to take the weekend to mull things over in my head. Making decisions sometimes in the heat of the moment leads to undesirable outcomes that you only find you later regret.

Can things still work? Can the break down be fixed? Can we go back to business as usual? Can we still effectively meet the needs of each other?

Because one thing is true here, and I think it is important to point this out. It is not fair to my boss to have to consider my tendered resignation over and over again, and it is not healthy for me to be tendering my resignation in my mind multiple times a month.

This begins to adjust attitudes toward the end goal, and is quite literally counterproductive. What it becomes is a major distraction. It becomes a daily process toward focusing on just getting through the day rather than focusing on being successful.

To this end we both lose. And that is simply not fair to either one of us. One of us has to ultimately decide what we really want, is what I am saying. Do we want to continue to move forward or do we just want to part ways and move on?

I made the analogy with my coworker recently where I posed that I was a 10 pound test fishing line trying to reel in a 25 pound fish. That line could break at any time, at a moment's notice.

This is not a good place to be. Not for me. And not for the boss.

The thing is that the boss knows this. So really, at this point it is him or me. Who breaks first? We both have the full ability to survive without each other. I have plenty of money to survive without his paycheck, and he can find someone soon enough suitable to replace me.

Neither one of us is out anything if the decision is made to part ways. But certainly we are out something if we try to move forward pretending that we are still operating within this mutual agreement or understanding.

I would love to be able to write that the saga has ended. But it seems that it is going to require another installment or two.

As for this weekend, if I am certain of one thing, it is that I will not be alone in mulling over what comes next. I am sure the boss is making considerations as we speak as well, and that only means that Monday could become a very interesting day to say the least.

A Major Decision in the Next Couple of Weeks (read.cash)
Is This The Start of Semi-Retirement? (read.cash)
You Can't Just Quit Without a Plan (read.cash)
The Saga Continues And Decisions Still Must Be Made (read.cash)
Money is Power: The Saga at Work Continues (read.cash)
Financial Planning Is Paramount to a Decision I Must Make (read.cash)
An Unwritten Letter to the Boss (read.cash)

Lead image courtesy of Pixabay, user jplenio. Nature Panorama Heaven - Free photo on Pixabay