After 2 Miserable Years, I Finally Took Action
I joined the great resignation (before I even knew there was such a thing) and quit a job that made me absolutely miserable. A dream job that many people would love to have. A job that once brought me great satisfaction and even joy at times. I was working from home and had great job perks like free hotel stays and discounts on travel. What sort of job was it? I was a travel agent for one of the biggest companies in the United States.
It started great (I suppose most jobs do). I first took the job because it allowed me to work from home, long before it was popular. I took travel requests from an exclusive clientele and planned luxury vacations that I could only dream about. Every call was a request to book first-class flights and five-star hotels. This job was easy for me, with the 20 years of experience I’d already earned in the travel industry.
Then It Was No Longer Great
In fact, it was horrible. I loved my co-workers. They were interesting people who also had years of travel experience. Most of the clientele was great. Spending my days researching destinations and planning amazing trips was fantastic. However, the company was not great anymore.
I went from feeling sought after and appreciated to feeling like a very small, very square peg in a round hole. It became more about volume and less about quality. Calls were monitored and timed. Take too long on a call, and you would need to answer for it. Go to lunch a little late, and you could lose your quarterly bonus (even if you came back on time, you were penalized for leaving late). I could go on and on, but I won’t bore you with the details.
Sunday nights were misery. Knowing that I would wake up on Monday morning to start another miserable week, I was filled with dread. I would lay in bed unable to fall asleep, knowing that falling asleep would only lead to another Monday morning.
When the COVID Hit the Fan
I first decided to leave back in February of 2020. My husband and I had been on a. three-week holiday in Europe. The weather was cold, but we didn’t care. We were in Europe, on holiday and having a great time. But that was in 2020, the year the COVID-19 hit the fan. As we lined up to board the flight home, gate agents took everyone’s temperature. Within a month, the borders closed, and my travel job became a lot more complicated.
It started with phones ringing off the hook from frantic travelers needing a flight home. Then came the calls from people who needed to cancel trips and get their money back. Refunds were tough to get as vendors were bleeding money. People wanted their money immediately and couldn’t understand the delays. My job was no longer about helping people plan idyllic vacations. Now it was about disillusioned, sometimes angry people who wanted assurances that this would all end soon and they could go back to normal.
I didn’t quit my job back then. To leave a job at that time with nothing else lined up was not wise, no matter how miserable I was. The pandemic couldn’t possibly last forever, could it? Someday I would be able to leave my job and get another one somewhere else, with a company that cared about its people.
Two years later, travel is starting to pick up again. Gradually. People are thankful to get back on a plane. No one is taking the privilege of travel for granted.
However, the job was no better. The loss of revenue over the past two years made the company even less personable and more rigid. Take more calls each day, they said. Work longer hours. Come in on weekends and holidays. After all, you can easily be replaced by someone else who wants to have a dream job in travel.
But enough was enough. I had enough Sunday nights filled with dread. Enough feeling a lack of appreciation and a lack of respect. I would take that jump and try something new.
I gave my notice and handed in my resignation letter.
I jumped off that cliff and didn’t look back. I have no regrets and no more dreaded on Sunday nights.
