My (new) great resignation

Intro

I have resigned 6 times in my nearly 40 years of life. For various reasons: 1 time because I had no other option, 2 due to loss of interest, and 3 times because I believed there was a better opportunity elsewhere. It had been a long time since I last resigned, but I have just done it again. The decision was well thought out and was related to a family decision regarding a new place of residence, as well as the desire to try out a different lifestyle. Unintentionally, I joined the statistics of an unprecedented phenomenon: the great resignation.

Driven by the pandemic, the economically active population of the United States has decided to look at their career trajectories with a different perspective. At the peak of Covid in 2021, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 21 million workers resigned from their jobs. To this day, these positions have not been fully recovered.

Among the reasons for this great resignation are the pandemic as an unprecedented variable, but even before that, there were exits due to frustration with the generalized working conditions, the perception of limited opportunities for growth and stability among younger workers, and dissatisfaction with the commute dynamics that prevent achieving a work-life balance. I repeat: in 2021, 21 million people resigned from their jobs in the United States. It's as if 30% of jobs were suddenly lost in Mexico.

Problem

However, the great resignation is not an event derived solely from the pandemic. Its origin dates back to a date as remote as it is imprecise. The labor market is a mass grave. Millions of the living dead rise every day with the only hope of getting paid and repeating the cycle until they reach the longed-for retirement, which means equally hopeless problems for a large part of the population.

Is it the fault of companies and their damn exploitative managers who force people to commute for hours to a cubicle and then return in even more traffic? Is it the government's responsibility to do its job to organize infrastructure that helps move these workers from the suburbs to the city center and at the same time provide them with daily joy? Is it the responsibility of individuals to find enough motivation to make their workdays more enjoyable and to stand out in the complex hierarchical geometry of an organization? Since the first two questions have no answer, the third, in my opinion, is the reason for this phenomenon. In other words, if Mahoma no va a la montaña…

The social consequences of the great resignation cannot even be calculated at this time. On the one hand, the American labor market, and probably that of your country, is experiencing a boomerang effect in many ways. Employers want their workers back, and after a period of "rebellion," the same workers are returning to their "old" jobs. In a contracted economic context, the conditions of those "old" jobs will not be able to improve substantially despite the greater push to provide different mental health benefits or a career plan to achieve the desired work-life balance. The phenomenon of wellness-washing that is gaining strength is another topic.

Plot twist

This post is inspired by a discussion we had yesterday about the product line we will be launching at Xula Herbs this summer. After 3 years of commercializing CBD products specialized in women's health, we will be making a leap to 100% natural herb products to provide mental health solutions for both men and women in the context of hyperproductivity, permanent frustration, and the cheap dopamine inputs that, when mixed together, generate a bomb that implodes in the brain and translates into burnout, lack of energy, and chronic depression.

But I digress... in my case, my most recent resignation was related to the great resignation and I didn't even know it. The end of 2022 was very demanding and stressful. I arrived exhausted at the end of the year. The beginning of 2023 was the same: full of work, pressure, and exhausting obligations. At some point, I diagnosed myself in a complete state of burnout. At the same time, the possibility of moving took shape, and well, my resignation was forced to happen immediately. Regardless of this circumstance, today I ask myself, why did I really resign?

"The big resignation," I reflected with my therapist, can represent many things. The natural causes associated with exhaustion and fear of getting sick during COVID. The less obvious, that 21 million people have decided to resign almost synchronously represents that something is not working as it should. In my opinion, what lies behind this "big resignation" is a feeling of hopelessness in the face of a society that inexplicably attacks itself and its environment.

A resignation is an act of rebellion, whose origin is the conviction that something better is coming even though it is uncertain and dangerous. The great resignation is a massive act of courage that will have disastrous consequences for many in the short term but will serve to lay the groundwork for a new day-to-day. However, the great resignation is not finding solid and virgin ground in the distance with its demands. On the contrary, it is stranded and seeing how the muddy waters of artificial intelligence sink it further with each movement.

My list:

I remind you that I have resigned 6 times in my life. This list does not describe the reasons for my resignation, but the reasons why I resigned.

1. I think city life is a bad “decision”. Rationally, the pros lose against the cons. Better salaries vs. permanent high cost of living. More fun vs. less recreation time. Diverse and modern environment vs. hostile and insecure surroundings. More coverage of basic services vs. eventual scarcity because cities do not self-generate any basic service.

2. What I value most is my daily dose of high-quality dopamine. The city and its allies immerse you in huge amounts of low-quality dopamine: dependence on electronic devices, little exercise, junk food. The city confuses the survival instinct with subsistence.

3. Burning bridges. The city is too tempting. Just as the rebels of the great resignation are going back to what they left, the city does the same with those who partially renounce it. That's why burning bridges... to force myself not to come back.

4. Flexibility in work does not mean 100% remote work. By flexibility, I mean having a system that provides various sources of income permanently focused on passive income, compound interest, and my own personal brand.

5. My real crisis is not turning 40, what keeps me up at night is seeing my children grow up too fast. My theory is that outside the city time will pass more slowly.

¡Vamos carajo!

Fran Michavila