We all have tendered resignations after an unforeseen event at the workplace, or a major argument with the boss. Many of us who find it difficult to make our case strongly and negotiate on our behalf with maturity, are more prone to freak resignations. The pent up resentment may bubble up to the surface and lead to a major altercation with the stakeholders. Such confrontations with seniors often leads to a deadend. There is no coming back from what has been exchanged in that heated moment, when you finally decided to let your bottled up feelings out.
Our work consumes a lot of our emotional life. Often the decision to quit a job that you have been doing with diligence, and which has been the centre of your life, out of sheer frustration may have a lingering effect. One must deal with this sudden change in one's professional and emotional life. It is not wise to merely move on.
A freak resignation means you don't have a job at hand. The next month's bills are yet to be paid. It also means a sudden separation from your work colleagues, who have become a part of your life. But despite these factors, there is nothing that can stop you from leaving as you have made up your mind. The prospect of hanging on to the toxic job means prolonging an agony you have been enduring for way too long.
How to deal with this change
1. Give yourself a few days to process what has happened. Scan the events that led up to the final confrontation. When you go over the details you will realise that this day had to come. There are no sudden resignations. There is pent up anger that you decided to let out when you were pushed against the wall way too much.
2. Do not let the event determine your self-esteem.
3. Learn from the experience. Seeds of resentment were sown long back.
4. You may have signed up for a job that wasn't the best fit for you, or you worked with people whose values didn't match yours. Your terms and conditions, and your expectations from a work-place need to be laid out from Day One. Use this bitter experience for cautious negotiation in your next job and gig.
5. Don't move on to job hunting mindlessly. Take time to figure out if your dissatisfaction at work came from something deeper and if you should change career course to avoid such scenarios.
6. Finally, use the break to replenish yourself intellectually. Do things you haven't been doing while you were busy doing the job. This will shift your focus from the loss and remind you that life is not all about work and it's fine to take these unplanned breaks from work.
7. Work on getting your fitness back on track, in case you slipped on that count, so that you are mentally and physically better prepared to take on the next challenge in your life.
(The writer is a mental health and behavioural sciences columnist, conducts art therapy workshops and provides personality development sessions for young adults. She can be found @the_millennial_pilgrim on Instagram and Twitter.)
