After being out of work for three full months, a couple weeks ago I started a new job, which I quit just ten days later, my ethics in a fat twist in my gut. The entire gig was online and remote, giving me ample opportunity to show up to do the work braless and in my pjs. Oh, how I love the age of technology – riiiiight up until Skynet goes live.

In preperation, I did all the things to bring an office into a space that isn’t even my own. I bought a new-to-me chair, targeted on FB Marketplace toward “tweens and teens”, which meant I, of course, would likely love it. A standard bucket chair on wheels, it’s covered in a dense, white polyester fur – perfect for a kid – or me! Or, it seems, Trixie, who takes the thing over the moment it no longer occupies my gettin’-bigger booty. (I mean, honestly, that’s the only thing I worried about when I saw the description – whether or not my ass would fit in it! I’m happy to report that it DO!)

I setup a make-shift desk using an old table, covered it with a colorful round beach towel my friend bought me while in Costa Rica. I placed silly notes and colorful trinkets that make me happy all about. You know, like a tween/teen would do. All I was missing was the Tiger Beat cutouts of teen idols. (In my day Kirk Cameron graced the covers of those silly rags, but I won’t dive into how I feel about him today and what he has to say about LGBTQ+ or his layman’s guide to manipulating people to find jesus – but suffice it to say that he won’t be hanging on any walls over here.)

I was excited to be working again, and not just for the ever-coveted paycheck – and hear me when I say that be a biggin’! But almost more than that – almost, I said – is the routine of punching into a J-O-B and the accountibility that runs with it.

So, why then did I quit my exciting job after less than two weeks? Why did I ditch the much needed bi-weekly paycheck and the must-do reason to be at my desk at 8am five days a week? And why am I disgusted by the company who hired me?

Because fuck them and their 19-155% predatory loans. Just FUCK THEM. When, on day three of training they finally delved into the “product” with the class, three people immediatelty quit. And me? My gut churning with an innate understanding of my own needs versus that of the customer I must supposedly “help”? Allowed things to fester and percolate in my bones for nearly two weeks of training before I unlatched with an exasperated hell-to-the-no! I was helping two, in the end – myself and a $40 billion company, and doing the very opposite for those I was allegedly assisting, with a short-term fix to whatever their immediate issues may be, while handing them a quadrupled long-term bill for it. Nope. Just no.

So, here I am decidely out of work again, but feeling very positive about the choice. Granted, I am once again in a position where I have no clue what I’m doing – or where for that matter. But at least my fucking integrity is in place, and I feel pretty damn good about that one.