Labels: Administrative, career, cooking, food, life decisions, Nerdiness, New York

The chart sits on my screen, a web of measured colored boxes set on a field of grid. An ordered elegance that fills me with pride over the design but also makes my stomach churn by what it represents.

“This is great,” my boss says as he leans over my shoulder and glances down at the dotted lines and boxes meant to illustrate a new organizational structure. “It looks kind of like comic book art.” I highlight the teal blue box where my name would have been and type in an italicized “open.” It blinks at me, a pretty Pantone depiction of the decision I’ve just made.

I left my job this week. Barely five months since I started that position and I’ve already moved on to something new.

“I’m about to resign and I think I might throw up,” I typed to Looney the morning I gave my notice. Our weekly staff meeting had just ended and my boss had run out to grab a bagel and coffee. “Want anything?” She asked me cheerfully from my door. I shook my head and focused on the screen. “She offered to buy me a bagel. I’m about to quit and she’s offering me a bagel,” I added.

“I could go for a bagel,” he replied. “What can I say? It’s not personal; it’s just business.”

“Ugh,” I think and open up a chat box with Sara. “I’m freaking out because I’m about to quit and Looney is quoting The Godfather…”

“Ooohhh,” she types. “I know how you feel. It’s the worst, but you just have to do it.”

My boss walks back in, sipping coffee and unwrapping her bagel.

“You had something you wanted to talk about?” She asks me.

“Um, yes,” I barely squawk out. “Actually, can we talk in private?” We enter an empty office and close the door. Suddenly her demeanor changes and she leans towards me, her voice thick with concern, “Alejandra, are you OK?”

I catch my reflection in the window and realize how I look: jittery, pale, I hadn’t slept much the night before.

“Oh, I’m fine, fine,” I quickly reassure her. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just that…”

I take a deep breath and begin to stumble somewhat coherently through the speech that I’d rehearsed over and over again in my head: “Well, it's not easy to say…I’m leaving…at the end of the month…Really wasn’t looking for anything…this just kind of fell into my lap. …I really do love it here…I just can’t pass this up, though…it’s kind of my dream…”

Her support instantly puts me at ease. Together, we tell her boss, the rest of the staff. The anxiety disappears and excitement floods in.

And just like that, I know that I’m ready.

Labels: career, life decisions