On average, how long do we stay in a job?
What’s the average job tenure?
For Americans, the median was 3 years, back in 1983. Despite the millennial generation bashing and being considered unstable job hoppers, not much has changed about the median years of tenure. In 2018, most people stayed in a job for 2.8 years.
My personal average job tenure is now messed up because of the time I quit the first day on the job.
Some quick thoughts on social media, attention, and addiction
Recently, I’ve started sharing my writing on my social media platform of choice, Instagram. There is a lot to say about social media in general and about sketchy practices to get you to stay on their platforms as long as possible. Instagram Reels is the newest invention to take up your time, though calling it an invention is a streeetch. See: Tik Tok, see: Vine.
As of now, it’s clear to me these billion-dollar generating machines do not have my best interest in mind. And as of now, that’s okay for me.
I’m on it for the conversations, the inspirations, for learning, and connecting and sharing. I have my best interest in mind, so as long as I explore mindfully, I should be okay and not develop a technology addiction.
So I started sharing my articles on Instagram, just like I’m now sharing this story here. Some of my readers don’t follow me on Instagram and some of my followers don’t check out my site. Plus, Stories are by definition fleeting, and sometimes 24 hours isn’t enough.
Intriguing shares
I posted part 3 of the education and career series. One of my followers replied saying she found the last paragraph of the piece (image pictured below) intriguing, and she asked about what had happened.
Here is what happened.
The time I quit my new job in 4 hours
While I don’t enjoy having to wait, I’ve started seeing it as normal by now, even expected at job interviews. I get it, everyone’s busy, people forget, that’s completely understandable. I even understood the secretary being rude. She probably had a lot on her plate, I know dealing with people for a living isn’t for the faint-hearted.
After being interviewed by the CEO in front of ~6 other people, where I was only offered a chair by the end of the interview, the first actual substantive red flag was getting hired on the spot. That usually points to a lack of structure, but I just assumed I had excelled in the interview.
I started the next day. In the first half-hour of the day, the CEO had yelled at at least 7 people, but the cherry on top was when he screamed: “You dick!” to an employee who was having trouble understanding something.
That was all before 9 AM when he stormed out and didn’t return for the rest of the day. The irony was that this happened as I was creating their communication strategy and writing their website landing pages ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF WELLNESS AND MINDFULNESS AND THE MIND BODY CONNECTION!
Once I realized I hadn’t dreamt this up, I glanced at the only other woman in my department. She looked ashamed, like it was her fault! She muttered: “You’ll get used to it.”
The thing is, I was in a position where I didn’t have to get used to it. So, I quit.
On lunch break, I left, sent a cryptic quitting email, and lived happily ever after.
After acknowledging my privilege to be able to quit like that, I invited my IG people to say whether they thought I did the right thing or not. The answers were almost 100% unanimous, “yes.”
Some people shared their own toxic workplace stories with me. It’s settled, no person or company is worth your mental health and your sanity.
There needs to be way more action taken as you did. Like the internet the world is such a big place that people think they can’t make a difference or change. By starting with themselves they already have made a difference. And this can and this will have a domino effect with just one response of consciousness at a time. Thank you.