So last week I quit my job.
I was analyzing ICOs (I analyzed about 200 ICOs in 4 months) for one of those companies that isn't technically investment advice but that's what they were basically doing and it was a bit ponzi-ish/MLM. I was uncomfortable with the legal status. I was uncomfortable with my work permit status (which they promised and didn't deliver). I was uncomfortable with the ever increasing amount of work. I was uncomfortable with the low pay that always came late and long hours that were affecting my personal life.
I didn't huff and puff like many would imagine this archetype of millennial would. No. I followed procedure like a good little employee robot. Two weeks before my appraisal was due and I sat face to face with my boss to discuss my issues so I wouldn't walk into my appraisal blind. Despite my fear of confrontation, I had a written list of points, all of which I covered. I was stuffed full of empty promises and found my workload, instead, increasing dramatically.
The date for my appraisal came and went and after working a month over my contract and repeated requests for an appraisal, I finally crumbled and quit. Did I quit with nothing lined up? Of course not, I'm a sensible girl. I lined up a crypto editing job where I was promised around 6 hours of editing a day for $17 an hour.
Now let's just start there shall we. I have been a professional writer for 8 years. During that time, I was an academic writer covering a plethora of topics from psychology to business to forestry. I am a trained permaculturalist who specializes in social and economic permaculture. I ran my own marketing firm at 22. I have managed and coordinated a wealth of different projects and businesses. I have a degree from an excellent university.
Put all those skills together and you'll see a versatile portfolio that can take a business from a vision through to an investment package, successful crowdfunding campaign, cover your marketing strategy, write your business plan, deal with your PR. I am lyrically quick as a whippet and my accuracy and quality is second-to-none (maybe second to a few, I guess). I have managed and coordinated a series of projects that have come from nothing to suddenly standing, flourishing in the light of their own brilliance. From bars and hostels in Guatemala to fully-regenerative edible gardens in Nicaragua and Dominican Republic, I took fashion school graduates in Bangkok to become globally-selling fashion brands in Europe and the USA and took an old gold mining town in California and turned it into a 6-figure a weekend sustainable destination resort. So please explain to me why, with 8 years' experience under my belt, I have to work for $17/hour BEFORE tax.
Not only that, those 6 hours a day for which I quit my job, are actually more like 30 minutes a day.
I am a hard worker. I am self-driven. I am productive. I am fair and honest and authentic. I am creative and innovative. I am a forward-thinking, systems-designing, out-the-box, whole-picture grasping, problem-solving, 110%-giving grafter. I will put my heart and soul into whatever I'm doing to get the results and failing is never an option. So why in the world am I continuously beaten down by a lack of job security and false promises.
Moreover, having swiftly moved into the crypto arena, please explain to me why I'm writing about companies being handed $30 million in an ICO, based on a two-bit vision and a wing and a prayer, yet I'm having to work for chump change out the back of a sofa. I was under the impression that the crypto and blockchain space wanted to alter the practices of greedy centralized organizations that chewed up the people and spat them in the garbage; yet here I am experiencing the same. Yes, you spirited young tech whizzes may feel you're the lifeblood of this new found innovation, but without people like me coordinating your business, inciting investors, and demonstrating the regenerative-ness of whole systems thinking, your technology will go nowhere. You can make it all you want, but we will sell it, we will create the story behind it, we will bring it to the world. Why am I looking at pay packages of thousands of dollars a month for developers, yet peanuts for the rest of the team?
This is just one little example but there are plenty more where that came from
Yet here I am, pockets full of skills and scraping by on $8.50 a day because frankly, people are still full of shit, despite desperately crying out that they want to change.
I know this may seem like a jumped-up self-serving rant. I know I may come across as arrogant. But if you really knew me, deep in my soul, you'd know that for me to even walk into that meeting with my previous boss was a task. Self-belief doesn't come easy to me. I've blamed myself continuously for not seeing the warning signs of people taking advantage of me. Yet at some point you have to look in the mirror, point your finger angrily at yourself and say, you don't deserve this kind of treatment. Or people will walk all over me forever. I'm 28 years old. I want to start a family, I want to build a home. Right now I'll be lucky if I can build a full plate of food.
I quit my job because I didn't want to be treated like a cockroach anymore and to feel like I deserved it. I quit my job because I wanted to feel self-empowered. But the question is, how do we even begin to trust ourselves in understanding which path is self-empowering, when they all seem to lead you off a cliff?
Note: I am aware this may we a sweeping generalization. But in my community I know I am not the only one who feels this way. Go ahead, prove me wrong.