Overwhelmed

I am extremely overwhelmed right now. 

I just sent in my resignation to my job. Without a sure-thing to take it's place.

You're probably wondering why I would do something so stupid drastic. So I guess it's time to get a little personal here...

Once upon a time, I graduated from college with a degree in PR. Immediately following graduation, I had an awesome internship that wound up lasting about 5 months longer than I originally planned. It was supposed to be just a summer thing, but the person over me left her position while I was interning, so I basically took her position to finish out the rest of the year. I was interning at a chamber of commerce for a town that was located on a lake, so summer and fall was their busiest season. Because of that, they didn't want to go through the hiring process and bring someone new in during that time period. So, I filled in while they waited. I applied for the position, and over the course of a month or so, and several rounds of interviews, they had it narrowed down to myself and one other lady. And unfortunately for me, I wasn't chosen. The other candidate had previously owned her own business, and had 20+ years of experience in the business world. And with a chamber's primary focus being to grow the business community, she was obviously better equipped at doing that.

So, I continued working at the job I had been working all through college (and even during my internship period), while searching for a full-time job. I started off looking in Athens, where I was living and didn't want to leave, but it didn't take long to realize that opportunities in Athens were limited, and my job search expanded to Atlanta and the surrounding area. During this time, my job was cutting hours (I was working in retail, and it was the slow season). By the beginning of the next summer after I graduated, I knew that my one part-time job was no longer enough to support me living in Athens on my own (especially since it was time to start paying back student loans), and that it was time to make a move. So I made the very tough decision at this point to leave Athens, and move home. Home being a small town west of Atlanta. Not cool.

Thankfully, my best friend from high school had a job opportunity for me bar tending at a new place in Buckhead, which I immediately took. My first thoughts were this will be fun, I should make lots of money working in that area, and hopefully I will make some good contacts that could potentially lead to a "real" job. Because at this point, I had been out of school for a year, and job opportunities in the PR industry were few and far between. None of us imagined when we graduated high school in 2006 that by the time we graduated college in 2010 (or later, if you took a victory lap like me!) that the economy would be so very  bad, and that finding a job would be so very hard. So of course, I took any opportunities that were handed to me, and this one came along at exactly the right time.

At first, it was all good. We worked lots of hours when we first opened the restaurant, but we made lots of money and had a pretty good time. Everyone was excited about the new place and we quickly became a new 'hot spot,' so we stayed busy and made even more money. And since I was living at home, I finally had a new sense of financial freedom that I hadn't had in college. (I don't know about you guys, but I was constantly broke while in school!)

But then things started going downhill. Y'all, my boss is was crazy. She was young, had no managing experience, she's immature, and I swear she had multiple personalities. I have never worked for someone so rude and disrespectful and demeaning. She was constantly flying off the handle over the most random stuff, and no one ever knew how to act around her. It quickly became miserable. I'm talking, there were days I cried at work because of the way she talked to me or miserable it was. I was literally almost sick to my stomach each day that I had a shift there because of how bad I didn't want to go. I absolutely hated it. And I know that the majority of my coworkers hated it just as bad as I did.

So, after several events over the past few weeks that are all long stories on their own, I finally got to my breaking point. I have lost all respect for my boss, and I am tired of being miserable. And today, I quit. 

I do have an internship right now, doing PR and events for a company in Atlanta, that pays me a small amount. And I have another opportunity in the works that will hopefully pan out. So say a prayer for me, please. Say a prayer that I made the right decision to get out of a toxic situation, that I will be financially able to survive right now, and that the opportunities I currently have will lead to an amazing career for me (or at least a good full-time job).

I know this post is long and SUPER boring, and I'm sorry. But I just have so many emotions going on inside me right now, and I know my family and boyfriend are tired of hearing me whine about this situation! But I had to get this last little bit out. I believe that I did take that job for a reason, and that there were lessons to be learned during my 6 months there. I believe that God had a purpose for me being there, even though I don't know right now what exactly the purpose was, or exactly what lesson I was there to learn. I imagine at some point down the road, it will probably become clear. But for now, I am just thankful that I had the job to get me through a tough transition period, and I'm even more thankful that now it's over.