Quit Your Job (Hardwear Sessions)

By Will Meinen

It's 11:14 on Wednesday June 25th, 2008. I check my Gmail. Nothing new. I check the Alpinist website for some newswires. I check the Mountain Hardwear blog for any updates. Ooo, an Alaska report. I read the story and look at the photos. Then I stare at the pile of papers on my desk that I'm suppose to process for my boss.

Click, Click, Clacker, Clack, Click. All I hear are mice clicking and keyboards typing at a rapid pace. Everyone around me is busy doing something. Busy little worker bees ensuring the shareholders a healthy profit margin. Filing, calculating, and double checking their work, in hopes of getting a good annual review.

It's 11:24 now. My life is wasting away in front of my eyes. And for what? A crummy paycheck that barely covers my rent and groceries in the over-priced city. I need to get back to the climbing life. This job sucks.

I open Microsoft Outlook and type up an email.

Dear Corporate Supervisor X:

I am asking for a leave of absence from July 14 until August 11, with a 10% increase in my salary and a proper job description upon returning.

I have in writing, from my previous superior, Corporate Coordinator X1, during my yearly review, that my current job description is not fitting of my actual responsibilities and was promised to have this updated. Over 8 months have gone by and I have failed to see any attempt by Corporation X to follow through on this promise. In fact, I am actually making less money now, with the increased cost of living, than when I started in the group. Despite this, Operations Manager X2 continually delegates tasks to me, which are entirely outside of my job description with no intension for proper reimbursement. Moreover, I believe Operations Manager X2 lacks the skills to direct people and I do not feel he is suited to the position he has been given. Micromanagement is mismanagement and only causes employee disengagement.

If Corporation X cannot grant my request, it is with my sincere regret that I must put forth my resignation with my last day being two weeks from today's date.

Thanks,

William Meinen

That should stir the pot enough to get some extended climbing time. Hopefully they give me the time off, because I really don't have any money saved up. Oh well. I can always move back into my truck for a while.

"Ring, Ring," goes the phone.

"Hello, this is Will."

"This is your boss, Corporate Supervisor X. Could you swing by my office?"

I hang up and walk down the hall into my boss's office. It's much nicer than my cubicle. It's got windows and art work hanging from the walls. He informs me that unfortunately the company is unable to deem my request.

* * *

It's a beautiful summer evening just before sunset. The colours are striking. Dark greens from the prickly textured pines along the glacially carved valley floor below me. Hues of grey and yellows and blues on the surrounding limestone mountains, with virgin white snow capped peaks are in all directions. The bluest sky I've ever seen meets the mountains along the horizon. Above the jagged skyline, cotton ball clouds float effortlessly by, reflecting purples and reds from the setting sun in the west. When I still my mind, I can hear the river thousands of feet below, with it's rushing banks from the fresh snowmelt. It's the perfect place to be. My soul overflows.

I've quit my job. I've pulled out of the system and I'm standing at the summit of Mt. Louis as a free man. I am not alive in an office, and I am not alive in front of a computer. Here and now, on the summit of a mountain, I find myself once again; raw, honest, and natural. This is the life I was intended to live.

Eventually I will run out of money and have to find a job again, but while I'm free I will make the most of it, and receive joy in being.