Twentysomething: Why it’s smart to quit a job after just two weeks of work
This is a guest post from Jamie Varon. She’s 23 years old. Her blog is called intersected.
Not too long ago, I started a new job, in which I moved my self from point A (college town) to point B (Bay Area). This was supposed to be my career launch. It took me about two weeks to admit to myself that I was unhappy. So I quit.
I had the security of knowing I could go back to my parents’ house to live. (Which, by the way, is such a good idea that 65% of new grads do it.) Here are five reasons why I am sure it was a smart decision to quit my job after just two weeks:
1. Your job performance will be terrible if you hate your job.
If you hate your job from the beginning, then you will never fully dedicate yourself. In fact, you’ll resent both the company and yourself for staying at a job that you knew you didn’t like early on.
I get it: You have this desire to prove to yourself that you are capable of sticking it out. Or you’re worried that this makes you a complete failure and you have given up. So what? You learn from your failure. You learn from that mistake. You’ll end up quitting at some point soon, so why draw it out?
2. You’ll have more respect for yourself if you respond to your needs.
Once I admitted to myself that I hated my job, I worried that if I didn’t quit this job immediately, even if I had no backup plan, that I would be setting myself up to allow negative situations into my life. If you know that going to your job will make you stressed, unhappy, and angry, every single day, then continuing to go is being disrespectful to your well-being. The more you continue to disregard your own feelings, the further away you get from happiness.
When we’re in our twenties we need to learn about who we are and what we like, so that we can find a work life we are passionate about. Staying in a job you hate doesn’t help.
3. You’ll prove your commitment to passion and engagement at work.
Quitting that job after two weeks is actually one of my proudest moments. I think it shows that I have integrity and passion. I understand the fact that productivity comes more easily in the face of happiness. Quitting quickly is showing impatience for a meaningful work life. Everyone should be impatient for that.
Also, people who switching jobs regularly makes people more engaged in their work. This makes sense. If you stay in a job for a long stretch of time, your learning curve goes down and things do not feel as new and stimulating.
4. You’ll do the company a favor.
If you stay unhappy at a job and then quit after, say, six months, the company will probably never know that you had hated your stint there. When you quit a job after two weeks, the company will notice and question what they had done to push you away so quickly. (A smart company, at least.)
Employees at, Apple, for example, produce the best products in the world because they are passionate about the company’s mission. You are not helping the company by staying at a position you hate when someone else may be better suited for it who will, no doubt, excel, while you are just getting by. Do the company a favor and quit so they can reevaluate their training, that position, and their hiring strategy, so the next person doesn’t want to jump ship after a week.
5. You’ll set yourself up for success.
High performing employees in companies like GE, Proctor & Gamble and UBS all get to rotate through a wide range of jobs at the beginning of their career. This is because job-hopping is a great way to build skills early in one’s career. We should all have that chance. There are no rules that say you need to stay at a job that is not teaching you enough.
And there are no rules that say how long it takes a person to know a job is not right. But there is a rule for who succeeds and who doesn’t: People who have self-confidence, respect, good teamwork instincts, and a sense of when it’s time to cut their losses; these are the people who succeed. That’s why high-performers leave bad jobs after just two weeks at work.
This is a guest post from Jamie Varon. She’s 23 years old. Her blog is called intersected.
I totally understand the bloggers’ comments, and have benefited tremendously from making significant 180 degree turnabouts in my field/occupation over time (including right after college, but I did secure a position with a good salary and benefits and was able to really explore what it meant to be an adult as a result). One caveat I would stress HUGELY is to understand that it is a TREMENDOUS LUXURY to move back in with parents/have any type of security net where you won’t be choosing between eviction/hunger/utilities/medication etc. if you leave a job without immediately securing another one.
also, in the interest of keeping it real, I am a recent Ph.D who has just accepted a full-time, very low-paying (but with good benefits) job that is still interestingly aligned with my interests, background and experience while taking me in some new, promising directions. I temped for several months before being hired as a permanent employee; this was some time after I turned down a full-time job with a great salary, great benefits, and a great organization back in 2007 in order to complete my Ph.D. Do I regret my decision? NO. Am I back living at home with mom and pops? YES. Is the new learning curve and unpredicatibility of how this fresh “turnabout” phase of my life going to translate into something more long-term (it’s already meaningful to me) exciting? YES! AND, I’m 40 years old, to boot!
Matt, I’m not bitter about my daughter moving back in with us. All I am saying is that learning to support yourself on your own is the most important lesson we can teach our children. Your parents clearly understand that, and you yourself have admitted how much better off you are for it. I’m doing everything I can to get my daughter on her feet and learn these lessons (which her older sister has done tremendously, oddly enough), but posts like this can unravel weeks of effort on my part in a matter of minutes.
I know that this doesn’t address the actual topic of career advice, but life lessons are important as well. The piece of career advice I would give (and I think Penelope has said something to this effect as well), is you need to work to support yourself. Do that as best you can. But don’t necessarily look to your “work” to define yourself. Self-actualize by what you do in your life, not by what you do at your job. If you’re lucky enough to combine the two of those, great! But waiting for it to happen is not sage career advice.
Interesting post – it’s like seeing what Penelope talks about all the time put into practice by another person. Interesting ‘case study,’ in a way.
I would be interested to see how the author would put a positive spin on this work experience when interviewing for her next position.
Amanda,
I checked Jamie’s resume on her “Twitter should hire me” website, and she doesn’t seem to have this stint on her resume. So her interviewer won’t even know about it. Now, whether that’s an ethical thing to do is another question.
I think it’s okay to leave out jobs like that. If it doesn’t work towards marketing yourself properly, why waste the space? Though she’d still need to have an explanation as to what you did with that gap in time on the resume. I think her interviewer will know about it, regardless – as long as Jamie is publicly blogging about quitting a job after 2 weeks, and doing a good job at it, as well.
Also, if she’s looking for jobs in social media, and has a blog where she posts on career/life-related topics, she’d perhaps put that link and experience on her resume. I think it would be silly to think she could hide from this 2-week job, especially if her employers are doing their job background-checking by browsing her blog and Googling her name.
In the end… does it matter? I don’t think a company would automatically view a 2-week stint as negative, as long as the potential employee would have a good story to tell when being asked about it.
Until they google her. This post is linked to her twitter site so it’s an easy connection. And yes, I do searches on every person I’m interviewing before they get offered a personal interview.
As she’s been “working” for Brazen, I wonder if she got the guest post in lieu of wages?
Scott – I don't disagree at all with you on your point. And I apologize for my misinterpretation, I understand how it could have come off as cold – I wasn't trying to say you don't love your kids and want them to be successful, not at all.
And you are correct – I am much better off for having supported myself and being able to handle everything that has come (thus far) with very little support from my parents. But it's different strokes for different folks. I do think that Jamie was a little brash in her decision making here – I understand if something isn't a fit for you, but in the real world – you have to pay your dues a bit before getting to where you really want to be. It's not about being miserable for years before your happy – it's about taking everything in and learning from it. But at the same time, she did what she thought was best and I don’t fault her for that – or the fact that she turned to her parents for support during a very difficult time in our economy.
Life lessons are important and you make a great point that I REALLY agree with. The work should never define you; you should define the work that you do. I understand that this has to be realistic and within some constraints at times – but it's absolutely critical that you don't lose track of who YOU ARE in any circumstance or situation. If there is ONE thing that I think Jamie, and a lot of other folks reading this can take away – it's that point; only you define who you are.
Amen, Matt. Great insight, for a 23-year-old!
I wonder how Jamie is going to explain this, once Twitter (or some other potential employer) Googles her name and discovers her post here.
Exactly what I was saying! (read comments between myself and Anna a couple of posts up from this one) I want to hear how she “spins” this and uses it to her advantage for a new job.
Well, her uncle just offered her a job. So, see, it worked.
I think I’m going to try this. I’m going to march down to my bank and inform them that my college loans–which have inevitably accumulated despite working through school and my scholarships–will now be paid back in that most precious of coin, my own “self-actualization.”
I am sure they’ll be just THRILLED to hear this! I mean, why should I get my head down, suck it up, and try to learn and work and pay my bills and live as a responsible adult when I could be EMPOWERING myself?
Gag.
To me, a passionate person who’s truly a high-performer will take a job that isn’t perfect and CHANGE it until it is a better fit. It’s hard when you start at the bottom, but it can be done and is every day, by truly top employees who are actually passionate, dedicated, resilient, and smart. Job sucks? If you don’t have another one on offer, figure out a way to get yourself into a different set of tasks or working with a different group of people. Take advantage of every learning opportunity.
THAT is empowerment. THAT is actualization. THAT builds confidence that you can handle even the most hostile work situation with grace and professionalism.
I wouldn’t hire this blogger if she was the last available candidate on my list (and in this economy, trust me, she wouldn’t be). What an offensively entitled, clueless and sophmoric little diatribe. I can only hope that someday you do learn a lesson that will sink in.
This post made me want to vomit. I grew up in a single parent family and my first job was cleaning restaurant bathrooms at age 15. I worked my ass off to get an education and to find jobs I love, but there were plenty of times early on when, if I didn’t work, I didn’t eat. And yes, I have been hungry.
Today, I am a doddering 43-year-old with an 18- and a 21-year-old at home, and I’m in therapy right now because I am having such a hard time helping them “launch.” They have a lot in common with Ms. Jamie, including the luxury of bring supplied with food and shelter while they figure out what makes them happy. Neither of them are even looking for a job right now. I don’t have the heart to kick them out.
Back to the post: is it a crime to quit a job after two weeks? Hell no. I’m open-minded; I’m happily on my fourth career right now, not counting waitressing.
But QUITTING. AFTER. TWO. WEEKS. DOES. NOT. PROVE. INTEGRITY. OR. PASSION.
And no company in the world will see a speedy exit from a 23-year-old as a reason for soul-searching about why it’s not supplying its new hires with their requisite dose of daily joy.
Grrr.
Thank you.
I am a doddering 53 year old, who on two occasions in my 20s moved back in with Mom ‘n’ Dad for a little while. But I was NOT in that position because of integrity or passion: far from it! <b<Lack of integrity or of passion is more like it. Had I had integrity, I probably wouldn’t have needed their help; had I had lots of integrity, I probably would have accepted it, but would not have asked for it.
You don’t file bankruptcy because you’re a shrewd financier, but because you aren’t. You don’t move back in because you’re a career success, but because you’re a failure – at least for now.
No matter what the situation, or the circumstance, or the creative and self-serving rationalization, to think of it any other way is delusional.
This was some of the worst career advice I have ever seen. Two weeks? TWO WEEKS? The author sounds like a spoiled brat who has never had to work for anything in her life. Her article honestly disgusts me; she paints herself as an airhead, a lost little girl who needs to do some soul-searching but cannot even commit herself to that, because if things get too deep she may even quit that also.
People like her are the perfect example of what is wrong with our society. If she were my child, I would definitely not let her come back home.
As a business owner and entrepreneur, I want to work with people who are resilient and can get through a tough day with good humor, grace and grit — because that’s what it takes to accomplish the big stuff that really makes business fun and rewarding. That’s what you could have learned. But not by running home to mommy and daddy, bwaaaaaah!
Good luck to everyone who takes your advice and quits their job in a recession.
I’m part of Gen-Y. Nearly on the outskirts of the age group, but still.
I can understand leaving a job if you hate it. But it should be because your boss is categorically abusive, you realize that it’s such a colossal waste of time that temping and waiting tables while looking for something else is is a better option, or realizing the company is a total scam.
But to quit after two weeks because you’re unhappy is very self-indulgent. It’s easy to hate any job, even a dream job, right after college. It’s a huge life adjustment that first year while working and is a complete reality check. Not to mention quitting after only two weeks leaves you with no references, no job experience, and no contacts.
If Jamie were indeed “brilliant” as she or her friends keep posting here, she would have sat down and reassessed. What am I learning here? Where can I go from this position? How can I leverage this job to find something better in 12 months? How can I show them I’m so dazzling they’re wasting my talents in the position I’m currently in? She could have also immediately started applying for other jobs and using her “unhappiness” as a means to motivate herself to define what her dream job really is.
She should try freelancing or consulting if she’s looking to discover herself and make job hopping a productive venture instead of shrugging off her responsibilities to her parents when things aren’t fun anymore.
But honestly… my gut tells me this girl is going to hate most any job she’s in for the next 3 or 4 years and have a mismashed resume cobbled together from brief stints at companies.
Susan, that was an excellent post with solid points. Plus you can spell and punctuate! What a rare treat!
My only real problem with this post is that Jamie has turned a very specific personal choice about a very specific personal situation into non-targeted preachy advice.
Just because you live through something one way doesn’t entitle you to make a bulleted list for how other people should live like you. She should have told her story, explained her point of view, and ended it. The story-telling element makes blogs interesting. In this case, the advice diminished the story.
I think this is great career advice. You can formulate an opinion about a company within the first couple of weeks. Interviews can be misleading since the company will try to put its best foot forward and may not show their true colors until later. There’s a lot of bitter parents on here but most baby boomers wouldn’t understand Jaime’s motives since they’ve been conditioned to sacrifice their happiness for a paycheck. Baby boomers are out of touch with the entry level job market anyways.
The only thing the author is guilty of is being a little flip with how she introduced this post. There is no detail as to the reason for quitting and that may have appeased some of the do or die folks who would have kicked her out on the street if she were their offspring.
But this post is not for seasoned folks like me, it’s for newbies! Why hate a job because of the people, conditions, etc when you have the wherewithall to do better? And in this instance, doing better seems to have involved returning home after a move to another town. What could have precipitated this? We can only imagine, but I would be very careful not to label anyone as shiftless or socially useless for making a decision to quit a job when the writing is on the wall that it was a bad decision to take it in the first place.
I find myself asking why corps can fire employees at will but employees must stick it out? Are we letting the economic times influence our thinking or is this really a generational thing?
I for one would welcome my daughter home if she made this choice. I know her and know her character, therefore I trust her judgement. If I didn’t trust her decision making capabilities, things might be different.
One shouldn’t boot their offspring from the nest just because they hit a chronological marker that’s abdication of responsibility in my opinion.
Your comment was the most straight thinking and relevant regarding Jamie’s post. And I completely agree with every word you said.
I just wanted to point out that a lot of financial advice for the “parents” of this generation tells them not to let their kids live at home if they are worried about retirement. So, this security may not be an option for a lot of twenty-somethings.
And before we complain about her lack of integrity, let us remember we are speaking about a member of the latch-key generation who watched both their parents work long hours in a full time job with no time for family and often time, saw those marriages end in divorce. Let’s not point any fingers here because we could also start a tirade on how selfish and spoiled the boomers are…like shooting fish in a barrel!
I have mixed feeling about this post. One thing that I will agree with is the feeling of empowerment of leaving a job you hate, even with no safety net. This is something you can only do when you are first starting out (if ever). It really does teach you what you are and are not willing to bear.
I’ve been on both ends of this issue. I took a job I knew I would hate just because my unemployment was running out. It was a miserable 9 months.
At another job, we hired someone who aggressively courted a job opening. After 2 weeks, he started calling in sick and having “family emergencies”. He resigned via voicemail with no notice. That made everyone furious because he wasted our time.
Leaving a job that quickly is something you have to be 100% sure about, because there will be consequences you have to be willing to accept (like not using that place as a reference).
Interesting. Sounds a tad self-serving… she doesn’t say why she hated the new job. Was her boss sexually harrassing her, or was it just too hard to be showered, fed and and awake at 8:00am?
I guess this generation is very different from mine… I wouldn’t have ever considered crawling back to Mommy and Daddy after something didn’t work out. No, I was on my own and have been for a l-o-n-g time. Definitely has made me who I am, and yes, I’ve been fired and laid off and hated jobs.
SOME (certainly not all) of the folks in this new generation seem to justify their spoiled behavior by claiming to be making significant changes to “they way things are”. Please take the time to note that SOME of the older generation might have a bit of wisdom and sticking it out, might allow some of that wisdom to be imparted.
1. Your job performance will be terrible if you hate your job.
No, your job performance will be terrible if you are unmotivated, unprofessional, lazy, or can afford to be apathetic to your situation.
2. You’ll have more respect for yourself if you respond to your needs.
As long as not being weak isn’t part of self respect, I can give her this one.
3. You’ll prove your commitment to passion and engagement at work.
You are not proving your commitment to passion and engagement at work. You are declaring that your passion and engagement at work applies to a narrower than infinite set of work circumstances.
4. You’ll do the company a favor.
The only way you do the company a favor is if you forfeit your pay for those two weeks. Or by not taking a job you aren’t ready to commit to. While they have a decision to make in hiring you, you have a decision to make in seeking and accepting a particular offer.
5. You’ll set yourself up for success.
By proving you can count to five, maybe, as that is now your largest accomplishment.
What we’ve been finding in the research study I work on is that the typical middle class or above parent is now more overprotective and overvigilant than ever, and have a hard time allowing the child to suffer, fail, brush themselves off, and begin anew. This is also reinforced by the better schools, ironically; as soon as a child shows indicators of having a hard time, s/he will be removed from the situation when in the past a lot more time would pass between difficulties and intervention.
It’s tough to ascertain the *appropriate* amount of time someone should suffer, and parents of course don’t want their children to suffer at all. And frankly, even if the job sucks to high heaven, there is a great deal to be said for the ability to tough things out for a respectable minimum, so you don’t burn bridges and perhaps find another job. I fear that more than ever, those with a measure of privilege are losing out on developing skills around resiliency, patience and resourcefulness…
If you wasn’t living with your parents, would you have quit?
Had you had a child I doubt if you would of had that option
Was interesting to me to see most of the comments do not agree that quitting after 2 weeks was such a smart thing to do.
Sometimes you need to tough things out to really understand the situation.
“Job hopping builds skill” – yeah but not after only 2 weeks. Quitting after 2 weeks does not demonstrate anything but lack of motivation, patience, resourcefulness or curiosity.
Matt’s comments above irritated me almost as much as Jamie’s. Granted, I don’t know the story of why his parents weren’t supportive of him coming back home. And maybe his attitude isn’t quite as expecting as he sounds.
But sheesh. He had a college education. He had a job. Why exactly did he need to still live with Mom and Dad? Oh, that’s right. He wanted to save money. Well, don’t we all?
A parent’s goal is to raise a strong, confident child who grows up to be a self-sufficient adult. College is one of the tools that aids this process. True, Gen Y disagrees as to when and what constitutes a self-sufficient adult, but for the most part it’s when you hit your 20’s, graduate from college and get a job.
That’s the time you start doing it on your own. And you save your own money by living within your means – on your own – just like everyone else.
Here’s the loving truth, as crude as it sounds. If you do too much for your children, you’re doing them harm. You’re not giving them the chance to learn things for themselves, to struggle and succeed, to gain pride in what they’ve achieved and the confidence to do more.
Matt, your parents sound pretty wise to me. They let you work hard and be responsible as a teenager (believe me, lots of parents have problems allowing this). They also stood firm in getting you out the door after college and on your own. Again, that’s a hard thing for parents to do – it’s very possible this was harder on them than it was on you. By nature we want to help our children and do everything for them.
Before you judge Scott or harsh out on your parents, give yourself time to become a parent yourself. You’ll be surprised at how your viewpoints change!
All good points, but I find that I rarely ever like a job in the first two weeks – or even the first month! It takes me awhile to get my stride and feel like I “belong”. So my advice is, unless you’re REALLY hating every moment at your new gig, stick it out at least a month or two. My thoughts after one month on the job versus three months are vastly different.
Why do people leave jobs so early? HOw do they know it’s wrong? Here are my reasons.
I’m 29, not 23 so have a mixed bag of career experience behind me. I recently left a great writing job I’d been in for 3 years to join a small consultancy which seemed awesome at the interview. But, I was fairly sure after 3 days that it was all wrong. I started job hunting soon after and managed to find a new one and leave the consultancy after 8 weeks. I’ve been in the new job for a year now and have loved nearly everyday of it.
But why did I leave?
– As an experienced graduate I was being asked to do mundane tasks like filing and copying.
– My colleagues were bitchy and rude and often plain ignored me most of the day.
– Work was scarce and there wasn’t much on the horizon. I doubted their stability.
– I missed the kind of work I had been doing and realised I wasn’t suited to consultancy (yep shoulda researched that more).
– I would go home and cry every night and feel sick to the stomach in the morning.
– My doctor told me I was suffering from severe stress and wanted to put me on meds.
-My employers, despite what was said at interview, turned out to be petty e.g. ignoring overtime but harrassing you for arriving 9:02 instead of 9:00 (seriously).
I would’ve learnt things if I’d have stuck it out but I didn’t like the people or the work and I knew my talents lay elsewhere. I’m so pleased that I did leave as I’m now in the best place of my career to date.
I'm pretty sure you misjudged my entire point, but that's ok. I didn't WANT to move back home. It was extremely hard for me to even ask because, to be honest, I felt like less of a man, I felt weak, and looking back, I'm glad I didn't – and, as you said, my situation is a little more complicated than the surface. I love my parents very much, and I'm glad I stayed on my own – I supported myself through college as well, this was a situation in which I am planning on moving and wanted to save some money, again – that is neither here nor there.
I was out the door when I started college – that's important to note. My education was not on their dime. And I was not judging Scott at all, I think we aired our grievances and reached common ground earlier this morning – and I understand that I am not a parent so I do not have that – real life' experience backing me – before you judge me (or Jamie) you should realize that everyone is in different situations.
I am very proud of where I am today – when I had my doubts, my parents stood firm and showed me that hard work and determination pays off. And it has – I am 23 and on my own, something not very many people can say. My point, which I have reiterated several times, is that I do not agree that two weeks is enough time to fully be able to judge a job, but I still understand that everyone is different, in different situations, and that I am in no place to judge anyone, none of us are.
I don’t understand the abhorrence people have for asking one’s parents for temporary help. Most people I know would be more than happy to help their adult children, provided they’re in a position to do so. Where is it written that parental support must cease upon graduation? And what’s with the pejorative “loser”? Long gone is the era where you work for one employer for three decades before being given a gold watch. Employers don’t exist to make sure their workers are learning and growing and satisfied. That burden is now on employers, and that means changing jobs more often and creating your own opportunities. Sort of like we’re all independent contractors now, regardless of how long we spend at a particular job. That might mean we need support now and again. I’ve been lucky enough to receive it, and I’ve also been lucky enough to provide it to family members. I hate when people say this in comboxes, but I truly feel sorry for those of you who would never help adult children nor ask for help if you found yourself in a dead-end job. You can’t tolerate the concept of career-life happiness because you feel subsequent generations aren’t paying their dues as you did. It’s a different world now. Time to get on board.
Apple is in the Bay Area – you possibly could have gotten a job with them instead of just quitting. Terrible jobs are meant to be stepping stones to good jobs. If nothing else they motivate you to move on and find something better suited to your personality. It’s hard to find a job when you don’t have one – a bitter paradox.
Interesting responses by the Gen Y’ers. For all of their supposed self-confidence, disagreeing with them seems to usually result in being called “angry”, “jealous”, “a hater”, or “bitter”. Which, of course, one does when you want to minimize the argument of another party by attacking their motivation instead of attacking the substance.
People can disagree with Jamie’s blog post and do it for perfectly valid reasons that have nothing to do with bitterness, jealousy, hate, anger or judgement. And High Achievers, like my 7 year old, can argue their points intelligently without resorting to name-calling.
Now here is my take on Jamie’s post: big flipping deal. There is no here here, no big massive insight. I quit a busboy job after 4 days when I was working myself through college. I went back to McDonalds to work with my girlfriend. No life lesson that I needed to bestow on the world except that making out in the freezer next to frozen hamburger patties is cold.
Here is my advice to Gen Y: learn to have some grace, humility and humor as you go through the world. You are not as smart as you think you are and the the other generations are not as dumb as you believe. You haven’t fought back evil like WWII, you haven’t broke down social barriers like the Civil Rights movement, you weren’t part of the great technological advancements of the 80’s and 90’s; so far, your #1 achievement seems to be an ability to bear breasts on Facebook and MySpace while talking about your massive world saving capabilities from your parent’s basements. 65% of young college graduates living at home isn’t a statistic to be proud of unless prolonged adolescence is a virtue.
And if Taylor is an example of your “best and brightest high achievers”; then someone needs to open his mind and pull the stick out while taking the shift and 1 buttons away from him immediately. I suspect he wants to bed Jamie but hopefully she makes better choices in men than she does in the companies she chooses to work for.
“bear breasts”??? Are you talking about photos from trips to Alaska?
You did say you from graduated college.
Wow SG, nice job catching a spelling mistake. I guess you can cross that off your list of accomplishments today :)
I guess Gen Y deserves the right to arm bears, or bare breasts :)
Humor SG, Humor…it’s easier when the stick has been pulled out :)
HOT DAMN Sidney,
That was a whole MESS of name calling you just perpetrated.
I want to point out that the generations who fought WWII, broke social barriers, and gave us great tech advances also ruined social security, brought forth our climate crisis, exploited the earth’s resources and continue to do so, and destroyed our nation’s economy. Thank you for all of those crowning achievements! And did these previous generations march to stop another costly Vietnam, ahem, I mean Iraq? Um, no. Why? Because they were too busy getting “theirs.” Gen-Y will be the generation that lives through all of this mess and will have to make the ultimate sacrifice when those polar ice-caps melt in 40 years.
From where I’m standing, those generations really do look as dumb as they seem. Maybe you guys went through life with too much grace, humility, and humor to wake up and do something about this mess. I feel sorry for the world your 7 year old will inherit thanks to those “wiser” generations.
Why do you get to let Mommy and Daddy support you when everyone else has to work and make a living? Spoiled. Insolent. Coddled. Brat.
Are you all really serious? This is a story about a 23 year old kid who quit her first real job in a place that she no longer lives. It’s not the end of her life nor the end of her career. We’ve all made mistakes and that’s how we learn. Whether it was the right decision or not will have no long term bearing on her life. Lest we forget, George W. managed to become President, not once but twice, and if that screw up can pull it off I think Jamie still has a chance. And to you Y’ers, I don’t think she is solely responsible for the lack of respect the world shows you, I think it’s a collective issue and one that will evolve as you do.
I think she’ll be ok, she’s maybe a little naive and inexperienced but the world has a rather efficient way of teaching us lessons that we refuse to learn. If she’s still thinking this way in ten years, maybe there’s grounds for concern.
While I don’t agree with quitting after two weeks and going home to live with Mom and Dad, I don’t think enough of the facts were given in the article as to why she had to quit. Sexual harassment? Quit immediately. As one person earlier said she was lied to about the job description. Yeah, that would piss me off too but I don’t think I would have quit. Every bad experience does turn out to be a good one and will be used somewhere in one’s life. I’ve had some good jobs working with difficult, annoying people and I learned so much for the future. There will always be difficult people wherever you work. So this experience has taught her to look out for herself because companies won’t. This is true too but there’s no need to be narcissistic about it. I hope she’ll take care of her parents someday like they’ve protected and provided for her.
Living with your parents who can help you is not like having a family that you must look after!
That’s odd, all of the links in Jamie’s post point to old Penelope posts.
WOW- Way to give our generation a bad name. After two weeks, how could you know that you hated or loved the job?
When older generations tell us that we are the spoiled generation that has no understanding of a work ethic, this is what they are talking about.
Could you have hated the job because, unlike college, you had to be at work from 8-5 everyday, with no sleeping in? It is a hard transition from college freedom of schedule to a work place where you have to be on top of your game, but you adjust. Hell, I have been in the workforce for 4 years now and everytime summer rolls around I wish I could do nothing, like I did in college, but that is a part of growing up.
Grow up.
Let’s take a look at this…
I had the security of knowing I could go back to my parents' house to live. (Which, by the way, is such a good idea that 65% of new grads do it.)
Sounds like there’s a lot of parents out there that are spineless enablers and plenty of grads that are equally spineless with no sense of dignity.
1) “Your job performance will be terrible if you hate your job.”
Your work ethic sucks if you only give a job two weeks. You take on with an employer, you owe it to them to stick with it for six-months to a year, to honor the ethical committment you made to each other. Do you honestly believe that if you told the company you wanted to do a two-week trial-run first, that you would have even scored the job? Me neither.
2) “You’ll have more respect for yourself if you respond to your needs.”
You’ll have even more respect for yourself if you can also look out for the needs of others.
3) “You’ll prove your commitment to passion and engagement at work.”
You’ll prove that you’re ADHD and can’t keep your eye on the ball for more than two weeks.
4) “You’ll do the company a favor.”
You’d have done them a bigger one by not accepting the position.
5) “You’ll set yourself up for success.”
You’ll damage your character while deluding yourself into thinking you’re brilliant. That’s OK in high-school, that’s not OK in the corporate world.
This has got to be the most narcissistic post I’ve seen to date. Don’t get me wrong, if I discovered an insidiously caustic environment, I’d jet if I had to, but for none of the reasons above and I sure wouldn’t be patting myself on the back. More likely, I’d be kicking myself in the rear. If you read through each of these, the point they scream is that: YOU DIDN’T RESEARCH THE POSITION WELL ENOUGH. Apparently, that scores you a guest post on Penelope’s blog.
I’m a big Penelope fan, but I still can’t work out how this post made it on to her blog. I fill really ripped off for following it, to be honest.
This is not well written and not well reasoned. Jamie I looked at your blog and girl – leave some commas for the rest of us.
Jobs are like the weather, they change all the time. You get new responsibilities, new bosses, new tasks. If you stay in a job for 2 years its likely to go from good to bad to good every six months. And all that change is good. Its unrealistic to expect you could walk in the door and be passionate about the mission of the company on Day 1.
I think you should consider the possibility that you may have made a mistake, that your personal development and happiness would actually be greater today if you had stayed. Maybe you wouldn’t still be there, but sticking it out might have led you to another opportunity. One you didn’t get living at home. You seem 100% sure that you did the right thing for you and the company and you want to share your genius with others. I worry that your next job may last just as long as your last job.
“Your 20s are the time to discover yourself?? Figure out what you want to do? I always thought that’s what COLLEGE was for!”
That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. College doesn’t help you do any of those things. For most kids, it’s just another four years of high school that shelter you from doing the things you need to do in order to discover yourself and figure out what you want to do. It hinders the process, it doesn’t help it. The only way to figure out what you want to do is try a bunch of things. I wouldn’t recommend that anyone graduating from high school head off to four years of drinking camp at a university. Get a degree, sure, but do it while you work.
I would never, never, ever, ever move back in with my parents. I’d sleep in a tent first. However I have stayed in a job too long before – it was a really terrible, toxic situation and to this day I wish I had left sooner, even without another job lined up. I was too worried about “burning bridges” but have you ever considered that sometimes the company or the boss is the one burning the bridge? I wish I had told that creep to shove it and walked out with no notice. He deserved it that much. I was way too nice.
A couple theories on Jamie’s post making it to Penelope:
#1
Jamie is actually Penelope.
#2
Jamie is not actually Penelope. But she’s like many young people who don’t quite have an understanding of how the internet can affect their lives. For years.
Transparency works for Penelope because she’s older, wiser and well-established. Transparency is Penelope’s trademark. For twentysomethings, however, it has the potential to be crippling. Few this age have the acquired discernment to know what will help them in the future or what will bite them in the bootie.
This little posting may just be the ticket for Jamie. She may even get her dream job from it. But just as easily, she may have written her own bad reference and made the whole world privy.
Be careful, Penelope, how you use people to boost your ratings.
I don’t think Jamie is actually Penelope, but I do think that Penelope wrote this post, or at least heavily edited it. Either that, or Jamie chose to link only to years-old Penelope posts as some kind of homage to her mentor.
I dont see any negative long term impact from a blog post like above by Jamie. It’s well articulated thought process whether you agree or not with her actions. Bottom line, she got a job, rapidly discovered that it wouldnt’ work, had the mentality to move on right away.
97% of people would stay at least six months– but more likely for their “safety” and pay and not because they thought it was the “right thing” towards their new employer. Stuff happens.
Spineless enablers? Really? I’m surprised at the negative comments about living with parents thus far. Coming from an immigrant family, we have much different attitudes about living together. When I graduated from college 2 years ago, my parents BEGGED me to live with them until I saved up enough money to stand on my own. I declined because I was already looking for jobs away from their area, but really did want to take them up for it so I could be close to them.
Now that I’m married, they are offering for us to live in their house for a year so we can save money for a house instead of paying $1700/month like we do now for ridiculous city apartment rates. Are they coddling me? No. I’m still independent, but it’s great to have parents you can always fall back on. I think this is one of the major differences between American and immigrant families: in America, you are seen as cut off at 18, but immigrant families are always willing to help their children out, and as a result, sometimes (not always) have closer families. When I have children, I know I’ll want to give them the same support system my parents gave me.
I am a twentysomething and I’m disappointed that you would think this is a legitimate way of handling yourself. Your rash decision making skills are making the rest of us twentysomethings look bad. Your first job your going to hate- college is much more fun then any job you’ll ever have. But at a minimum, by hating your first job and sticking with it, you’ll learn what to look for in your next job.
Hi Jamie,
I am a 25 year old who understands your dissatisfaction with ‘standard’ jobs available to recent grads.
My first year out of college, I worked negotiating wage claims cases for Latino day laborers. I hated it. BUT, I learned to speak Spanish fluently (truly, not classroom Spanish).
My second job was at Google. I found it to be excruciatingly mind-numbing, and, in many ways, I hated it too. BUT, I learned ‘tech,’ I learned organizational management, and I learned teamwork.
My current job is at a Web start-up doing product management. There are many, many aspects that I hate as I’ve come to accept that what I really want to do is write and publish, NOT work in tech. BUT, I’ve built a network, I learned to create and see through projects under extremely averse circumstances, and I saw how to run a venture-backed business in troubled economic times.
My point is, if I had quit at my two week mark at any of these jobs (and, I considered it seriously at each point), and went home to my parents, I wouldn’t be the unique, ‘young-humanities-major-in-tech-covering-entrepreneurship’ package I am today.
–Susan Su
Wowsa-People really get riled on this topic. I still say it totally depends what you do with an experience like this that counts. The proof is in the pudding-do you actively fight to pursue that Sustainable Passion or do you fold up your tent and stay home for the next few decades. We need a followup! In my “An Open Letter To My Daughters” I tired to strike the balance between the 2-its not what you are doing at 22 that counts, but what it leads you to be doing at 52 that mattered in the end!
I want to say to all those negative people out there that you can in fact “discover” if a job sucks after working somewhere only two weeks. I’ve been through it myself. I actually quit a job after working there only one day. When you are lied to throughout the entire interview process (my experience- four interviews approximately 1-2 hours long each) and then talk to your new co-workers on your first day and discover everything the owners told you is a lie, it doesn’t give you much hope to stick it out. In my case I confronted the owners at the end of my first day (which was to be 9 hours but was in fact 12 hours long) they denied that they had told me certain things to get me to take the job. Unfortunately for them, they had given me a letter of agreement with all the information spelled out! I got the hell out of there fast and am very thankful I did. I found out about 6 months later that the entire team quit, due to the fact the owners were so crazy.
Anyway, I say do what you need to do for yourself and try not to let the people who choose to remain in the same job their entire lives get you down. Everyone needs to live their own life!
It is interesting that people think they know someone from a one page post:)
The judgements flow yet few of you, but Taylor has done any background sleuthing as to who Jamie is or what she stands for. How does this relect on you… very poorly.
As an immigrant, I have different ideas about raising kids, more akin to Vicki’s. I expect to be a safety net, an advisor (not a dictor), and a role model to my children. I would not advocate keeping the doors to the nest open indefinitely, but a recent college grad needs help and not just financially. That’s not enabling!
To those who credit Jamie with much of the moral decay we see in youths today:), I ask you to harken back to what your parents said about you, and your generation. Then determine if your opinions are the result of logic or of the harsh realities of your own lives making you bitter and unempathic.
Life will often suck even with the help of loving parents. But to allow one’s self (or one’s child) to be unhappy in a position that has no redeeming qualities is just plain self-violation. Additionally the “I had it hard so my kids must have it hard too” ideal is a crock of…!
Parents should be parents in the true sense of the word, and know the child of whom they speak or make decisions about. So far, most of you are just being “soapbox jumpers” with a burr in their britches about societal and generational issues.
My2centsworth, Dale to you Taylor:)
I think perhaps these postings are giving the wrong idea about Americans not supporting their children. I’m a parent of 20-year-olds and as I look at myself and my peers, we’re offering them lots of support. Whenever my kids need us, my husband and I are there.
But…. and here’s the catch.
We’ve tried to raise our kids to be strong and independent. I think they did a good job growing up to be just that. They chose to live on their own in college (dorms one year, apartments the rest) and they worked through college. When they graduated they continued to live on their own, even though they didn’t immediately find the job of their dreams or in some cases, even a “real” job.
Are they separated from us as a family? No way. They come home often for a day or two, here and there. We love having them and they seem to love being here.
The thing is, they don’t have that attitude of entitlement that I see coming thru in many of these posts. When they chose to do youthful adventures such as traveling or quitting jobs, they do so knowing they will foot the bill and take full responsibility.
I’m really proud of my kids. They’re like many Gen Y’s. They’re taking their time to settle down. They’re living life and gaining awesome experiences. And they’re doing it on their own. They haven’t once come running back to us because the job wasn’t doing it for them.
This is the most naive post I’ve ever read. This girl is so deluded it is truly unbelievable. I perish to think that I may at one time have held similar beliefs. I also, just recently started a new job, at age 34 mind you, and at the two week mark I was literally standing outside my boss’s door, ready to go in and give notice. It has now been 4 weeks and things are looking up.
While I do have a mom who I could go home to, I’m old enough to know how unfair that would be to her, plus I want to continue living the in that city I moved to, and she can’t pay my bills for me. To quote Jamie:
“But there is a rule for who succeeds and who doesn't:” The one who succeeds apparently has mommy and daddy to run back to when they don’t like their new job.
The one good thing is that you are 23, and I do agree, that if you have the opportunity to take advantage of your parent’s situation, now is the time to do it. BUT BE THE MOST GREATFUL PERSON IN THE WORLD! Pretend like you are roomates with them and treat them with the utmost respect. They did their job. Anything more is just being nice.
As has been said before it seems she haven’t done her groundwork before joining her first Job, while this is not a crime for a fresher however one cannot blame others for it.
If you have other dreams/interests, fight for it while you are on your Job.Applying for other Jobs learning newer skills is not something that cannot be done while you are working.Believe me 1 st Job does teach you several things like how to work in a team, how to behave in office etc.
Nobody gets his dream job in 1 st try.
There is a fine line here. There is “this is absolutely not what I thought this job was and I am unqualified/uncomfortable” and “the people here are utterly terrible”.
Even as a professional, I have had jobs that I wanted to quit after two weeks. They didn’t get better. It would have been better for everyone if I had quit after two weeks.
This is not the worst advice in the world. It doesn’t mean that you should be a spoiled brat – which is not how I read it, at all – but it does mean that you aren’t chained to some 50’s mentality about service to the company or the almighty dollar.
If she didn’t do her groundwork, well, now she’s learned what she needs to do. She said nothing in that post about finding her dream job. She just said that it was completely wrong for her.