The Four Pins Guide To Quitting Your Job

Hey you! Yeah, you, in the cubicle, with the Cheetos dust all over that Margiela fisherman sweater. You hate your job. Don’t try to tell me you like being Associate Researcher for Spreadsheet Efficiency, filling every Excel cell with each letter of the alphabet for some idiot boss named Steve who smells like Polo Blue by Ralph Lauren and calls you “Chumpy”. I know how to get you out. Let's explore.

Rachel Seville is a writer living in New York who believes in miracles. Read her blog, Pizza Rulez, here and follow her on Twitter here.

Don't Quit Just Yet

First, don’t just waltz in with some viral video and put it on blast to Steve like, “Thx 4 the memories, ya dick.” Because then you’ll be jobless and a guy from a viral video, neither of which is, as they say in perfume commercials and on restaurant menus, “desirable.” So keep up la bella figura, showing up on time, neatly dressed (Cheetos dust aside), flashing that cheshire grin that says, “You’re all loving my spreadsheets, telling Steve they’re the fucking best he’s ever done, but you have no idea that I’m about to disappear like a psychedelic cat in a cartoon tree.” And make sure you start saving because you never know what will happen in the last slide of the slideshow of your life.

Start A Meaningful Pet Project

Though you “work” from 9-6, what this really means is that you do 20 minutes of work interspersed with reading Four-Pins and Deadspin and RedneckMag.com, so you totally have time to sit at work and—forgive the impolitic term—blog. We’re probably past the point where you can just, like, quit your job and blog. But having a blog can still get you respect and make you look like you know what you’re talking about (which, if you’re like me, you don’t). Every blog on earth has been started, so try to start a blog that’s, you know, interstellar or whatever. No one’s blogging about just sweaters. What if you reviewed sweaters in the Yelp schema? Or put together hypothetical shows for a men’s Costume Institute? Or wrote little thingies about what bros wear in historical society portraits? Anyways, the point of this meaningful pet project is that it shows some skill and talent and gusto beyond what your spreadsheet investigator job entails: You can write. Or you’re funny (read: smart). Or you’re a great researcher of arts and pop culture junk. Or you’re super creative. Or you know all. About. Sweaters. Huh? Would you look at that! I think that was real advice, guys!

Start A Meaningless Pet Project

Let’s be real, you probably don’t have like a million deep thoughts, and who does in a post-Sartre world anyway? So you should do something else too. Maybe you select some horrifying girl’s style blog and just reblog all her entries on a Tumblr called “Presented Without Commentary” which would be like the ultimate in Haute Minimalist Trolling. Or you edit all of Don Draper’s epic presentation scenes to cut to chronically dull PowerPoint presentations instead of, like, a carousel slideshow of the great American family. Steve isn’t going to buying cologne at T.J.Maxx and a new job isn’t just gonna appear, so you should probably do something to make things a little less miserable until everything comes together and you’re on the path to creative genius.

Create A Fake Name

Then you can write whatever you want and no one can sue you.

Command + H

You’re going to need this shortcut. It is the “POS” of the cubicle life, when Steve darts over to tell you about going to happy hour at Brother Jimmy’s and meeting these “uh-maze-ing cocktail waitresses who are totally down to just, like, talk and touch knees” whatever that’s about.

Do Something Demoralizing Or At Least Pro Bono

Not, of course, in pursuit of being demoralized or unpaid. But let’s say you want to work at a gallery because you are deluded. Email a bunch of galleries and be like, “I will consult 4 u on all matters spreadsheet.” Or, “Can I just come and sit with you on Saturdays and you tell me a bedtime story about what it’s like to work here?” Nobody does that. It will make you look like a sparkler in a field of twigs. And then you can put it on your resume, right under “Self-published a moderately viral field guide to Dunkaroos.”

Look For A New Job

Oh yeah, this part. Put your meaningful thing on your resume. Make your resume look cool. Don’t fill it with a bunch of dumb crap, though. Like, writing it backwards so that you have to read it in a mirror isn’t going to get you anything except a retail job at Comme des Garcons. So maybe put some radical philosopher’s quote at the top. Or make a little section where you list four really weird things at which you are singularly awesome. Can you create a cat in Photoshop in less than 5 minutes? Can you make this very resume into an origami swan? No one really gives a fuck, except it will give the interviewer something bad ass to ask you about. Maybe this all sounds hella cornballzzz 2 u, but all I can say is that I don’t have a boss that smells like Polo Blue.

Network

For a thorough primer on networking, see this. But basically, you know, have meetings with everyone. Email all ur idolz and ask to meet. Except! Never. Ever. Ask. Anyone. For. A. Job. Just tell people you’re interested in what they do and how they got there and etcetera! Have a specific goal and specific questions. Don’t just email all, “You’re the best! Meet up? I’ll buy the coffee, you bring the job.” Give them a concrete goal and a reason why a meeting with them will help you meet it. (But not, you know, “My goal is to work for you and meeting with you will make you hire me.”) If all goes as planned, you’ll become pals and s/he will help you in the future. Or you’ll end up making out. Either way, you win.

Build Up Your Meaningless Pet Projects Like They're Actually Important

People who are all, “MAKE UR BLAHHG Ur S2nD JOB” are the worst. But put at least in a modicum of effort into the thing. Manage to make it look progressively more professional without taking it too seriously. If YoU'rE mAkInG gO—Jesus, I can't type like that anymore, even though what I'm about to say is so lame—if you're making good stuff, it doesn't really matter if not that many people read it because you're not doing it for the fame, but to show, you know, initiative, creativity, blahblah and so on.

Be Patient

This is going to take forever. It could take a year. Or it could take a month. Who knows? The question is, how good is your blog? Not. But don’t get all whiny or no one will talk to you on Gchat anymore.

Okay, Time To Quit

But if things get really miserable, you’ve got all those bones saved up (remember slide 1?) and maybe it’d be a better use of your time to make use of your (newly established, you're welcome) network for a job. Maybe you’ve even got enough Pro Bono or Anti The Edge work that you’ve even built up a name for yourself and you can coast on that until you find something more permanent. (That being said, it’s much easier to find a job when you already have one, so please be wise.) If you’re gonna do it, really do it. Look up important speeches, like maybe the Gettysburg Address or a soliloquy from Office Space or the part in Never Been Kissed when Drew Barrymore is like, “I’m an undercover reporter, stop covering me in dog food,” and use that as a template to have the greatest moment of corporate oration of your entire life. Your new life without health insurance starts ToMoRrOwwwwW!