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Quiet Quitting
17 Plays1 year ago
On this week's podcast, I discuss how and why I quit my job quietly.
Here's My Book Recommendation:
Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job & Your Dream Job by Jon Acuff
If you want to send me an email you can email me at [email protected]
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction by Eliana
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Eliana Nita podcast, the podcast created to inform, challenge and empower you. Now let's get down to business.
00:00:24
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome to the Alienion Anita podcast. I am your host, Alien, and I'm so excited to have you guys join me this week.
Eliana's Mission and Podcast Goals
00:00:34
Speaker
If you do not know me, my name is Alien obviously, and I give business tips, life tips, and we just chat and shoot the breeze and enjoy good conversation on this podcast. I like to give a lot of tips that I feel I can help you propel forward.
00:00:51
Speaker
If you are a regular, welcome back. Thank you so much for joining me again. I am going to jump into this week's conversation about quiet quitting. So last year on, I think it was Twitter, the term quiet quitting started to trend a little bit. And I actually seen a few posts, I think on Instagram about it as well.
00:01:14
Speaker
So quiet quitting is basically from my understanding doing the very bare minimum that you can do in order to be employed until you can find something else. So basically you stop going over and beyond the call of duty, you stop showing up.
00:01:32
Speaker
Not that you're not doing your job because you're doing exactly what you're being asked to do. You're just not doing extra. You're basically just doing the bare minimum to survive until you can find something else and move on.
00:01:47
Speaker
And when I realized what that actually meant, I thought about how it was for me when I worked for my previous employer and how I was actually quite quitting without even knowing that I was.
Eliana's Quiet Quitting Story
00:02:02
Speaker
So I want to talk about that a little bit. I want to kind of like dive into my story about how I got to that place and why I got to that place. And if you're at that place, what I think you should do.
00:02:14
Speaker
So let's get into my story. So I worked for a company for 11 years and I have been working there for obviously a long time and I worked under let's see 123 different managers.
00:02:30
Speaker
So the majority of the time that I worked for this particular company, I worked under one manager. And when she was there, she was a black woman. She ran our group like the way our group was set up and ran in the chemistry department was amazing. We got a lot of work and we were often very busy. We had a lot of responsibilities, but we really worked hard and we worked together. And it was actually fun to do the work.
00:02:57
Speaker
It was tiresome. We didn't get paid a lot of money. We got a lot of money made. We made a lot of money rather in overtime. But as far as space salary, we wasn't paid much. But we worked together because we were a team. It felt like a family. It was great.
00:03:15
Speaker
And after so long, my black supervisor, she decided that the company no longer fit her needs. And the reason why is because they were demanding more and more and more out of her, and they refused to get her help. And she just kept saying, I just need help. If I can get some help, I would be better in this position. I would be able to help. And she just kept crying and begging and begging and begging and pleading for help, and they refused to get her help.
00:03:45
Speaker
And so after so much, she was like, you know what, I'm losing my hair. I'm constantly up at night. I can't sleep. My family life is being affected. I have to leave. So she actually quit the job, took a pay cut to get out of the job and moved on to another company.
Team Challenges and Discrimination
00:04:06
Speaker
After that, my department fell to shreds. So we were we were we were without a supervisor for about maybe a year or two. Yeah, it's probably like maybe two years. We didn't have a supervisor at all. We were unsupervised. We were supervised ourselves.
00:04:25
Speaker
And we started to have really valuable employees start to quit. So we're talking about people that had years of experience like 10, 15, 20, five, even five years of experience was big because, you know, that meant that you were around the group, you understood the chemistry enough, you could manage and do all of the work that we needed you to do.
00:04:47
Speaker
And they just started dropping off like flies. They started finding better jobs, better paying jobs. The economy kind of loosened up a bit, so people started to make moves. And as we started losing expertise and experience, our company started to suffer dearly.
00:05:06
Speaker
So it made it very hard for the people that had been there, that remained there, that had some expertise or years of experience like myself to kind of like stay there because all of the responsibility was placed on us because we had the most experience. So finally we get a new supervisor in and she stayed for less than six months. She found another job that paid her more money than what she was making as a supervisor.
00:05:32
Speaker
And it required her to have less responsibility so she decided to move on. Right after that we got a new ops manager, a new operational manager. And she and the lab director sat down with me and literally when I tell you guys I'm not even joking, they begged me
00:05:53
Speaker
literally begged me to apply for the supervisor position. They was like, you are the most qualified. You have the most experience. Please, please, please, please, please, please apply for this position. And so I told them, you know, at first I was like, no, I don't want it because it's just crazy. I can do it.
00:06:13
Speaker
And then finally, I was just like, you know what? If somebody's gonna take the position, it might as well be me, because I know how to run the position. I know how to run the group. It just makes sense, so I'll do it. So I applied for the position. First of all, they made me apply. The last supervisor, they gave the position to. She just said she was interested. They gave it to her. They didn't even interview her. They just was like, okay, go for it. And mind you, she was white, so let me make that clear.
00:06:41
Speaker
So anyway, they was like, well, you got to apply. I was like, okay. So I applied. They said, well, you have to have an interview. I was like, okay, I'll do the interview process. Sit down in this interview process. They grill me, which is fine because I can handle pressure, not a problem.
00:06:57
Speaker
go through the whole interview process, they was like, okay, we'll get back to you. They waited for about two weeks to get back to me and they never actually addressed me. We got called in to meet in my group, my department got called into a meeting and they announced that they had gave the supervisor position to another employee within the building and he was a white male. That's important, keep that in mind.
00:07:21
Speaker
so that he was a white male and so I find this news out they didn't tell me and I find out what everybody else and I was kind of shocked like oh wow they could have said something or whatever but they didn't so this white male comes from another department who he has no he's been there for years
00:07:41
Speaker
But he didn't have any experience in our department, which makes a huge difference because our department was so unique. It required that you understood the chemistry enough and you understood how the tests merged together and worked together in order for our group to run functionally.
00:08:00
Speaker
So, of course, they gave it to the white male and they was like, Oh, sorry, we expect other positions to be open soon or whatever people will be retiring. So once they retire, you could probably apply for those positions. And then they told me that the reason why they didn't want to give me the position is because I was too valuable as an as a worker in the lab to move me into leadership position because they felt like
00:08:24
Speaker
me leaving would be would leave a big hole in the group. And I was like, so basically, you're saying that I'm only as good as the work that I like, you know, you all don't see me as a leader, you all see me as a worker, and that's it. So that was like, okay, alright, keep that in your back pocket. You know how they value you. So let's
Financial Struggles and Health Impact
00:08:44
Speaker
move on.
00:08:44
Speaker
Then the pay was horrific. So to be perfectly transparent, when I first started working there years and years ago, I think I started, I think my base salary was like $29,000 somewhere in there.
00:09:02
Speaker
And by the time I left, I was only making like 43K a year, a little bit more than 43,000 a year. So I have been working for this company for 11 years and I wasn't even making $50,000. I wasn't even making $45,000 a year, which is insane, right?
00:09:20
Speaker
And their excuse was, well, you can make it up in overtime. Well, as my life started to expand outside of work, where I was starting to develop, you know, open up my own lab, I was starting to podcast, I was starting to do certain different, I'm starting to do other things. Working overtime at my job just was not in my plans, like, you know, not necessarily in my plans, but it didn't fit my life anymore.
00:09:49
Speaker
And they wanted me because they felt like, well, we feel like you're the most experienced here. You need to do more work. You need to pick up the burdens and do all of this stuff. They really had this expectation out of me that I was going to come in and be the superhero, but they didn't want me in leadership. They didn't want me to give my opinion or give advice that could possibly help us function and be better.
00:10:16
Speaker
They didn't want that for me. They only wanted me to sit quietly in the lab and do nothing but what they tell me to do. So I was like, you know what? I think I reached my apex here. I think I reached my end. So a few things ended up happening. So they were trying to so they wanted me to basically
00:10:40
Speaker
come behind my new supervisor, which is the white male, and make him look good by carrying the burdens of all of the work in the lab. And make sure that the lab stay afloat. When I refused to do so, they became angry. I was like, listen, I am one person. I am not going to take on all of this work. I'm not going to be here from sunrise or sunset. Those days are over for me.
00:11:06
Speaker
You know, and things started to like, outside of like, you know, things going on outside of work for me, my health became a priority to me. Where at one point in time, I would come to work at 5am and stay until whatever, until the job was done. I started to realize, you know what, I'm getting, I'm in my 30s now. I need to rest. I need to take breaks. I need to take time off.
00:11:32
Speaker
And I just, I was like, you know what, this, this isn't for me. This, this is no longer that lifestyle is not for me. And I felt like at the time I had to work like that to make any kind of money so that I can live any kind of, you know, live a life. You know, you can't in Chicago making $30,000 a year, you know, mid 30,000 a year is not going to help you rent an apartment. You know, so I'm like, I got to prioritize things in my life so that
00:12:02
Speaker
You know, I could live and I thought that working that overtime and working like that would yield me a better life, but it didn't. It made me miserable. It made me miss out on a lot of opportunities, a lot of memories that I could have made with friends and family. I was often tired. The taxes that I paid out on overtime because you get taxed differently from your regular salary from overtime is insane.
00:12:25
Speaker
So I was like, you know what, really, to be honest, it's not really worth it. I'm doing a lot of work for nothing and I could do. And then I started to see if I worked on the things that I was passionate about outside of work and really like put my energy and effort into that. I started to see how I could make more money doing what I love versus doing what I have to do here. So that also was a factor for me.
00:12:53
Speaker
And then the humiliation along the way became an issue.
Humiliation and Realization
00:12:58
Speaker
So like I said, they wanted me to kind of just play this role in this part and not and not have any leadership or not, you know, use my voice or anything like that to kind of say like, hey, guys, I think we should move in this direction versus that. Maybe we could do this.
00:13:15
Speaker
versus that and so they took me upstairs my supervisor and the ops manager took me upstairs had this humiliating conversation with me and they actually demoted my position so they can't demote me and pay but they demoted me in position and they tried to give my position away to someone who had less than six months of experience.
00:13:36
Speaker
So they take me in this meeting, have this horrible meeting with me, and I'm telling them, I'm like, hey guys, this is not going to work. He's going to get overwhelmed. It's no way I can give him years and years of experience in a couple of days or a couple of weeks. They wouldn't listen. They put him in this position and they demoted my position and put me in a smaller position.
00:14:00
Speaker
And I was like, OK, fine, you know, I'm just going to do what I have to do. And I excelled, obviously, in that position because it wasn't difficult for me to excel in anything. And it was like shooting the breeze for me. But the guy was struggling very badly and he ended up going into the office and saying to them like, hey, I cannot handle this. Please put me on something else. Can you put her back in her position?
00:14:22
Speaker
because I can't handle it. And so eventually they had to put me back, they had to come back and put me in the position that I once was in and the guy ended up leaving the group all together. Then the icing on the cake for me was when I had the final meeting with them and I was like, you know what, this is it.
00:14:42
Speaker
So my ops manager was really flighty very, very anxious white woman like anything, anything would cause her to go from zero to 100 very easily like she did not possess emotional intelligence. And so she was looking at some data of mine and she wasn't
00:15:03
Speaker
familiar with the data that we produce. So it confused her and so she was like, I need to talk to QA, I need to talk to the lab director, I need to like, she was like basically trying to make this thing, make this whole thing and saying that I was falsifying data, which turns out that it was, it was all a lie. Obviously it wasn't true, but they was like,
00:15:25
Speaker
So she was like, I need to have this in meetings and like basically sending these emails like we need to sit down and have a conversation. But first I want to talk to all of these big, huge, important people first. And it was like a whole intimidation thing to make me feel like, oh, you're going to get it now. You're in trouble because I'm going to take this data to everybody and show it.
00:15:44
Speaker
So they called me into this meeting. I am the only black person in the room. It is five other white people in the room. They print out a bunch of my data. And she's passing this data around. Now keep in mind, nobody in the room actually knows how to interpret this data properly. So they pass my data around the room. Everybody's like, this is trash. I will throw this. This is absolute trash. I mean, they went on. This meeting lasted for two hours.
00:16:12
Speaker
and they trash my work, trash me as a worker, as an employee. And I remember sitting in that meeting just looking around like, I know more than everybody in this room, and everybody in this room is literally trying to talk down about me and my work. And I've been here and have the most experience out of everybody in this room in this area that we're talking about.
00:16:39
Speaker
So I was the person with the most expertise, the person with the most experience, the person who had the most knowledge, and yet I was being looked at, talked about, and criticized as if I knew nothing. After the meeting ended, I went downstairs in the washroom. I closed myself in and locked the door. I cried.
00:16:59
Speaker
I looked myself in the mirror and I told myself, I did not care what it took. This would be my last year at this job. I was like, if I had to walk out on faith, if I had to live off my 401k, if I have to sell peanuts on the street corner, I'm getting out of here. I don't care. It is over. I'm done. I went, I wiped my tears.
00:17:21
Speaker
I want to talk to one of my favorite coworkers. She's she's a black girl and she was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe they did that to you. She couldn't believe it. Everybody was astounded when they heard it because everybody was like, wait, but you have the most expert expertise. Like nobody could understand why they would do that. And it was from that moment where I knew no matter what happened, I had to
00:17:44
Speaker
So I started doing the very bare minimum because my back was against the wall. I knew that I didn't have a voice in that company or in that particular lab.
New Beginnings and Entrepreneurship
00:17:55
Speaker
I knew that I didn't have anybody voucher for me. I knew that I had reached my apex as far as salary. They wasn't going to pay me more. Either I was going to work more, earn more in overtime, or I was going to have to leave.
00:18:10
Speaker
Like those were my options. Like they wasn't going to pay me more. It wasn't like I was going to be able to get into a leadership position because nobody would vouch for me to get in the leadership position because they felt that I was more valuable in the lab than I was in the leadership position. So I wasn't going to be able to grow anywhere else in that company and I knew it and I was miserable there.
00:18:29
Speaker
So I told myself I would never, you know, be dishonorable in the company. I'm still working here. I'm still getting benefits here. I'm going to serve and do my very best. But am I going to go over and beyond the call of duty? No, I'm not. I'm going to do exactly what I'm getting paid to do. And that's it. And I will work my 40 hours a week and I will leave right out that door.
00:18:50
Speaker
I did not feel bad. My supervisor would look at me and be like, so you're going to leave? Yes, I am. I'm done. And when I needed to take a break, when I needed to take a vacation, when I needed a mental health day, I did all of that because I had to make sure I was OK in order to make sure that I was ready for my next level.
00:19:14
Speaker
One time my mother called me and she said, hey, you know, the doctor said that my mother was waiting to get a transplant. And so my mother said that she called me one day and told me like, hey, the doctors gave me the green light. I am good to go. They said this can happen any day. I knew that once my mother got that kidney transplant, I was not coming back. And so I was the sole, I am the sole provider or sole caretaker for my mom.
00:19:42
Speaker
And I knew once she got out, once she got her transplant, I was gone. So I talked to my business coach and my business coach was like, instead of just flat out quitting, why don't you just take FMLA, take care of your mom, get her back on her feet, and then see what happens. Continue to grow your business, continue to receive benefits from this company because I wasn't getting paid, but I was able to keep my health insurance.
00:20:07
Speaker
So I did that, took FMLA and once my FMLA was up, I resigned. And I've been a solo entrepreneur ever since then. And so that is my story of how I quiet quit and why.
00:20:23
Speaker
I ended up getting to that point. And so the moral of the story is this, is that you have to, what I learned from my story was that, you know, I had this idea, even when I started working for this company, I had the idea of relevant labs, relevant cosmetics already laid out. This was my dream, it was my vision. And because I had got so comfortable with having a job and having regular steady pay,
00:20:52
Speaker
I didn't want to sacrifice that. And I didn't know and I didn't see and it didn't make sense of how I could actually launch a lab and actually like be able to provide and keep a roof over my head and keep food on the table for myself. It didn't make sense. And so I kind of like minimize my dream to be able to live a life that didn't end well for me.
00:21:17
Speaker
Like you would think that after 11 years, you know, you would be appreciated and you would be celebrated even in the sense that you would be valued. And it was like the more years I spent at the company, the less value I had there. And it didn't matter what I did. It didn't matter how much I proved myself to be right. I mean, I could tell you story after story after story, but to keep the podcast from going forever.
00:21:44
Speaker
I realized like, you know what, these people are never going to value me. And if I want to experience the value, the true value of who I am, I have to step out there and be the woman that I know that I can be. I have to step out there and live my dream because this is not my dream.
00:22:05
Speaker
And I think that God had to show me that I was in a small space and that my thinking was so small and that I didn't even have enough faith to really believe Him for what I really wanted to do. And that was just the truth. I had to come in contact with myself and really look myself in the eye and say, Elianne was holding you back.
00:22:24
Speaker
And when I looked in that mirror that day, when I was in there crying after that meeting, I looked in the mirror and I saw the person that was holding me back was me. It was me all along. It wasn't them. It wasn't the job. It wasn't any circumstantial issues. It was me. I just did not believe in me and I had let people tell me what my value was. And when I made them, it was something that just shifted in my heart and in my mind and even in the area of my faith.
00:22:51
Speaker
that made me say, you know what, this is it. They will never get an opportunity to treat me like this again, but I won't allow myself to have an opportunity to be treated like this ever again. I'm going to step out and I'm going to believe in myself and I'm going to really put energy and muscle into the area of my life that I want to change.
00:23:12
Speaker
And my area was my job. And when I tell you guys, once I quit that job, once I let it go, my life increased in such a significant way, even when I was in the transitional time before I actually resigned, or even before I went on FMLA.
00:23:30
Speaker
I literally was like, my life just shifted significantly in such a beautiful way. It happened so effortlessly. It was just a beautiful thing that God did. It was almost like once God seen that I was ready, he was like, okay, let's go. And when I tell you guys, I got up and I ran and I mean, I was like, I'm out of here. And I was out of there, for real, for real. And God seen that and I believe that he honored that.
00:23:58
Speaker
And he honored my commitment to what I was trying to build and what I wanted to do. And so I say these things to you, because if you're in a position where you're working a job, and I'm not just saying like, oh, they're not paying me enough because I feel like I should be making this much.
00:24:15
Speaker
I'm talking about like, if you know that you have put in work, you have spent time, energy, you have done all of the things, exhausted every avenue, every way, every route, and you know that this is the end. You know that you have reached the highest point you can reach. It's time for you to reconsider and make the next best move for yourself.
00:24:41
Speaker
And I know it's scary and I know it's hard and I know it could be difficult. You can have people in your ear telling you that's not the way, that's not smart, whatever, right? But you have to believe in yourself enough to know that you can do whatever it is you're trying to accomplish.
00:24:57
Speaker
I had to believe in myself. I had no other choice. I exhausted every other option. And the last option I had was to trust what God had put inside of me. And a part of believing God and believing in who you are and believing Him for who He is, is believing that He put something great inside of you. You cannot have faith without believing in yourself first.
00:25:23
Speaker
If you don't have faith to say, I believe God put something great inside of me, then you don't have faith at all because it starts with you. And I had to grasp that and grasp that concept and really sit and meditate on it and saying, faith starts when I believe first in God and second that he puts something great inside of me.
00:25:47
Speaker
Then all of the avenues and the doors opened up for me. This wasn't an overnight process. This took years and years and years of time. But once I reached that point, that's when life changed. And so I just want to encourage you, you know, if you all are out there quiet quitting, it's time for you to really do some, some deep searching within yourself to find out what is it that is going to make your work life happy.
Encouragement and Belief in Potential
00:26:11
Speaker
What kind of job, if it's a job, what job do you want that will make your life happy? Don't just look for money. Look for all of the amenities that come with it because you need to be able to enjoy life enough to, or you need to have another space in your life to enjoy the money that you make.
00:26:30
Speaker
If this job is going to make you work tirelessly to make a good salary, then maybe you need to reconsider that that job because you're not going to be happy. You know what I'm saying? So make sure it's more than just money, but it's about fulfillment.
00:26:45
Speaker
It's about reaching a goal or living out your purpose and your God-given destiny because that's what it's about. I'm telling you now, money isn't everything. Money is great. Money solves problems. Money can make you very happy. And I'm not one of those ones to say money won't make you happy. That's a lie and a myth. Money will make you very happy at times, but it won't solve all of your issues.
00:27:08
Speaker
So you want to make sure that you understand that and you know, make sure you can have a work life balance. It exists. It's a real, it's a real thing. Work life balance is a real thing. Don't let them tell you that's a myth. So yeah, that's, I just wanted to share that with you guys to just say like, you know,
00:27:27
Speaker
You out there quiet quitting, you know, make sure you're making the very best move for yourself and what you need to do for your family, your friends, and your well-being and your happiness for your mental stability. It's a journey. I know it's scary. I know it's hard. It's not as easy as people like to make it seem to get out there and quiet quit or
00:27:50
Speaker
quit your job or whatever, but don't do it irresponsibly. Make sure that you're taking your time to iron out all of the details. How are you going to get paid? What is going to look like for you moving forward? What is your day-to-day going to look like?
00:28:08
Speaker
and give yourself a break and just breathe and take it easy. But I just want to encourage all you quiet quitters out there that it is a light at the end of the tunnel, but you have to go towards that light. You got to make it happen. And I pray for y'all. I love y'all and I hope that it ends well for you all.
00:28:27
Speaker
I want to give you a book recommendation. It is called Quitter, Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job and Your Dream Job. It is a national bestseller by John Acuff. I'm going to link it in the show descriptions below. And yeah, you know, let me know, guys, if you have any questions, is it if it's anything that you want to know more about my story that I didn't cover in this podcast. You can always email me at ElianaNitaShow.
00:28:55
Speaker
at gmail.com. I am your fave chemist on all of the social media platforms. And as always guys, be blessed and stay relevant.