Welcome to Ask Poppy! I’m Poppy, your go-to girl for all of life’s woes. And when I say ALL, I MEAN IT. I’m not an expert on anything except maybe for being me, which makes me totally qualified to do this.
Hey, Poppy!
I’ll be straightforward: I dislike my current job at this marketing firm. I’ve been planning to resign for quite some time because I feel like it’s just not for me anymore. The stress is too much for me and I’m not getting along with my workmates that well especially when it comes to presentations where I’m left to work on my own. Sometimes I think I only took this job for the paycheck and not because it’s what I want to do.
Anyway, some say that it’s too soon to resign since I’ve only been working here for nine months. But I’ve already decided and just looking for a new company (hopefully with a job I do like) before I say good-bye to this place.
However, it seems that the office wants me out of there ASAP because they’ve already found a replacement for me, apparently. I don’t know why and how, but I think they know that I’ve been going to job interviews and decided to hire a new person. Still, I think it’s unfair on my part and I feel sort of degraded because I’m still technically under contract.
So do I stand my ground and continue my duties before I leave for good or do I just hand in my resignation letter now? I hope you read this and help me out, Poppy.
—Viel
Hey, Viel
As someone who is working in the same field, there’s really only one thing to say: run. Or don’t, because HA-HA, I’m still here and kicking ass, yo. But then again, nobody likes a quitter.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx, who paraphrased Sigmund Freud and was subsequently then paraphrased by Woody Allen in Annie Hall: If they don’t want you, then push mo lang yan. Nothing’s more fun than being the biggest dick in the office especially now that you know that they’re looking for some place else. Don’t worry about it, really. If your heart is not there in what you’re doing, you’re going to be forever sad and miserable even though the paycheck is pretty damn fine.
When you think about it, it does feel degrading that they’re hiring another person na agad-agad while you’re still trying to do your best despite the lack of bayanihan in your team. There are a lot of dicks in the marketing world who are really f**king abuso especially if they are fully aware that you are capable of accomplishing things alone. It’s like high school all over again when you’re left alone to do the project and the other members just pay you for whatever’s the cost of your materials. Been there, done that. Back then, I would inflate the prices by 300 percent and I made a pretty good income out of it and was able to buy a CD of Britney Spears and N’Sync. What can I say, I have such good entrepreneurial skills.
Being part of the team and feeling like you are a part of a family is a very important thing in the workplace. If they’re being little pieces of sh*t towards you, you beautiful and talented creature, then you really are much better off to reach such great heights. These people do not deserve you and you deserve to be less stressed.
I hate being stressed. But I think it’s unavoidable especially when you’re working in such a cutthroat environment such as marketing. Isn’t marketing such a sh*tty place to be in especially when your heart is just not into what you are doing and the people are making you miserable? Like, as much as I would like to just work on projects that are near and dear to me, I have to sift through a ton of bull just to ensure that I can stuff my face with amazing food every time a new paycheck rolls in.
Nine months is a short time to be in one company, but really, I’ve had worse gigs. There was that time back when I lived down in the south and my work was at one of the biggest networks in the country. Those networks are in Quezon City, so you do the math. After six months, I looked around and noticed that my co-workers had all been there for at least 10 years. Just cutting promo materials, not really going up the corporate ladder. They’re just sitting there, going on with their lives, becoming these zombies.
I have a thing where I just get up and leave without any prior notice. If you call back all the jobs I’ve had for the past decade, they’re probably going to ask you, “Poppy, who?” It’s my thing. Same with relationships and f*ck buddies. Like if I’m not happy, I’ll walk away without saying a thing.
Not suggesting that you pull off the same sh*t that I do, but it’s always fun to break free from that one thing that made you feel like total sh*t. After I left that job, I went to Sagada and hung out there for two weeks, just getting stoned and walking around nature. And it felt amazing! Then I went back to Manila to look for a job, because that’s life.
I think you know where I’m getting at, Viel. Get out right now. Leave! It’s the end of you and that firm. If you’re confident enough to know that you have talent and that you’re a special snowflake that won’t melt under the sun, then go. If you’re going to wait for that contract to expire, you’re gonna get more and more miserable. And that will affect your work, it’ll affect how you view the world, and it’ll take its toll on you. Gurl, you’re not in locked up in Azkaban. You can kiss those Dementors goodbye.
But then how would this affect your resume? Dude, I don’t know. There is a possibility that other firms won’t let you in if they even get a whiff of your mischievous ways. It’s a small industry. The thing about now is that the world is at your fingertips. I made so much more money when I was working on a sh*t-ton of online rakets. It allowed me to work at my own pace, and I got to party a lot, but eventually, I got tired of doing the same thing all over again.
Viel, there will be a special place for you. It took me a really long time to find this one thing that I love; that really blends my passion with work. I once had a job interview and the president of the company looked at my resume and was all like, “Are you sure you want to do this?” She asked that not because I was all over the place, but because I think deep inside, she knew that I was just looking for a raket that would pay. “I never really knew what I wanted to do until I turned 35,” she told me with an earnest smile. She gave me an assignment to be submitted the next day. I ended up going out that night and I never submitted that assignment because she was right—I was just looking for something that would pay me copious amount of money for work that can be done by IBM’s Watson.
The company that I’m working at now values me. It shows on my paycheck and the way that they tend to involve me in decision-making. I also really like the people I work with and they have become attuned to my unconventionality. Maybe it’s that or I just know how to play their game real well. But my point is that there will always be infinitely better things on the horizon. Like right now, at this very moment that you’re reading this, someone’s having better sex. Someone’s getting paid for doing nothing. Someone out there is getting disillusioned by the industry, and you’re bound to replace him/her.
If what you’re working on right now is not working for you, then you should just stop doing the work. You’re going to be poor for the next couple of weeks, so get those de latas and packets of pancit canton ready. But hey, there are always better things waiting just around the corner.
What Pocahontas loved about rivers is how you can’t step in the same river twice. The water’s always changing, always flowing. Take your dreams and extend them just around the river bend. It’s not always the smoothest course that would lead you to great things. I mean, look at Pocahontas, homegurl didn’t end up with John Smith. So sad, but hey, at least she got to ship her ass out of the tribe.
Viel, just keep swimming. But also, swim good.
Always,
Poppy
Got a question for Poppy? From love and relationships to weird questions you dare not ask even your psychologist, Poppy is ready to answer them all. Send in your questions to [email protected] or post your question over Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #AskPoppy, and you just might get the answer you are looking for.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author in her private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of Preen.ph, or any other entity of the Inquirer Group of Companies.
Art by Dorothy Guya
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