How I Knew I Needed to Quit My Dream Job
I’ve wanted to be a teacher since I was a kid. I remember telling my own high school Italian teacher, “I’m going to be an Italian teacher one day.” I LOVED Italian. The melodic flow of the language, the endless vowels, the complicated grammar, the culture, my culture, my family. My goal was to become an Italian teacher and I worked hard and I accomplished that goal when I managed to land a position at one of the top public schools in New York City. Humble brag: it wasn’t that difficult, really. I’d done my student teaching at this school so I knew it well, I had a good relationship with my mentor, I was passionate and smart and hardworking and, even though I was new and young, a really good teacher - the job was meant for me.
It was, in many ways, a dream job for a brand new teacher. A New York City public school that I could drive to and had a parking lot. A specialized school with genius-level kids, most of whom really wanted to be there and loved learning. They were respectful, funny and sweet. Discipline was not a huge issue like it is for many city teachers. Our school had a very active alumni association which means we had funding and resources. My coworkers and administrators were kind, supportive and friendly (most of them, anyway!). I had a good deal of control over my curriculum and my lessons. This kind of paradise is nearly impossible to come by in any big city school district. For the first two years, I was really happy. Somewhere along the way things changed.
It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly. Like storm clouds making their way over the horizon as they inch closer and closer to the sun. I didn’t notice it at first, but I noticed I didn’t have the same oomph and passion about showing up to work every day. I also noticed that I wasn’t feeling well physically most of the time. It took years for me to connect the dots that my stress and unhappiness at work was a major factor in my health, but the strange physical symptoms like being unable to breathe, crippling headaches, intense anxiety and fatigue began to wear me down.
One of those strange symptoms was abdominal pain on the right side of my stomach. Sometimes it was behind my ribs, other times lower down near my pelvis. Dull and achy, or sharp and shooting, I worried that maybe it was appendicitis? I consulted WebMD, naturally, which confirmed my fears that I possibly could need emergency surgery. Then I thought, “at least if I have appendicitis I’d be able to stay home from work for a while.” It was not appendicitis. The doctors could never figure out what it actually was, and it never developed into anything more serious. But the fact that I would have rather had a potentially life threatening condition that requires major surgery than go to work has always stuck with me. Why didn’t I realize how incredibly twisted it is to feel that way? Sign #1 that it was time to quit that job.
Sign #2 was the fact that I was having recurring stress dreams AKA nightmares about work. Several times a month I’d dream about being at school. Usually the dreams involved being in the classroom and screaming for attention but getting none. In one dream, thousands of students were pouring into my classroom door. They just kept coming and coming, filling up the room, and I had no idea why they were there or who they were. I tried using my classroom phone to call for an administrator, but no one picked up. I looked out into the hallway for another adult to assist me but no one was there. I screamed and screamed for anyone, but no one ever came. Other dreams included not having a lesson ready when my principal was there to observe me, trying to deal with rowdy students who just wouldn’t listen, or just standing at the front of the room shouting and trying to be heard over groups of disinterested teenagers. I’m no dream analysis expert but it seems PRETTY obvious to me that I did not feel heard or valued at this job, in addition to feeling constantly underprepared because no matter how hard I worked it was never enough. I was feeling suffocated, essentially.
Of course, there were other signs like just feeling constantly miserable and dreading going to work. But, I think it’s safe to say that if you’d rather have emergency abdominal surgery than do your job, you might want to stop and think for a moment about whether or not you’re on the right track. Of course, it still took me awhile to eventually work up the nerve to leave the field I’d been a part of for 10 years. Looking back, I definitely wish I’d taken these feelings more seriously at the time and considered my options. Hindsight is 20/20, right?
