May 20–June 2, 2003 — Making this end

I said yes when asked to work on Victoria Day for 2.5 times my usual hourly wage. A few hours into my workday, I stopped being able to tolerate my job. Being rotated from task to task, I spent the last two hours of my shift building a chest of drawers in a hidden corner of the warehouse. I was alone with my half-assembled piece of furniture, and I decided to quit IKEA somewhere around the time I finished assembling the fourth drawer.

I had almost changed my mind between finishing the chest of drawers and leaving to cash myself out. But cashing out was a nightmare because I had jumped from register to register all day, and some of my receipts had been taken by other co-workers. Three people ended up making me feel pretty awful for what was an easy mistake to have made and a mistake that was just as easily corrected.

I could’ve found someone to drive me to a subway station, but I wanted to walk. The walk takes about 35 minutes, and that’s when I decided to quit and resolved not to change my mind.

I began telling friends and family that I was done at IKEA. I wrote my resignation letter and printed it in the font IKEA uses for their catalogues. I wanted to give two weeks’ notice on Friday night so that I wouldn’t have to work the Saturday two weeks later, but no managers were available, so I had to wait until the next day. Then I saw that I had been given a Saturday off without asking for it for the first time in my IKEA career. I rejoiced quietly in the customer service office, and one of the home delivery managers said I was glowing.

I gave my letter to my manager the next day, and there were excessive and awkward apologies from both sides. I didn’t give a reason for my resignation aside from shrugged shoulders. There were plenty of reasons that I didn’t want to discuss, and none really relating to the moment that clinched it on Monday. It came down to me deciding that I’d had enough.

I began planning for my freedom.

The problem with being unemployed is that it comes with a lot of responsibility to make something of all the free time that being unemployed provides. I feel I ought to be writing more and making more web sites for reasons other than money, but I’ll probably just end up sitting at home and becoming addicted to cable TV.

My last day at IKEA did little to make me regret my decision. They refused to take my uniform back unless I’d washed it after wearing it for my final shift, so I have to make another trip later this week. I wanted to keep my name tag, but they said they had to cut it in half, and they wouldn’t let me keep the pieces.

Three people from my department are leaving to work at an IKEA that is opening in a few weeks in a different area of Toronto, and there were plans to hold a farewell party for them later in the week. Because I was also leaving, I was tacked on to the list of people the party was in honour of, and my attendance is now more or less mandatory if I don’t want to risk feeling rude and ungrateful in the event I ever see anyone from my department again.

So it looks like I’m going to the party, convinced though I am that there wouldn’t be a party in my name if three other people weren’t leaving as well.

Back at home, I’m not working very hard at settling in: Our answering machine message still asks callers to leave a message for Amy, Jeff and Mike. I like it better this way, I think.

Shona told me yesterday that I remind her of the parts at the end of Life After God when the narrator admits to suspecting he is broken, feeling that he’s lost any connection between love and sex and that he is incapable of kindness.

Moments like that make me want to sit everyone down and tell them that it’s just an image, that I exaggerate any minor unsociable tendencies I have and make them seem a lot more dramatic and interesting than they really are. Admittedly, I rant on about love not existing and sex being a trap, and I use these rants to justify my boycott of relationships, but it’s all a ploy: Months or years from now, I’ll either have the satisfaction of not breaking my boycott, or I’ll have reason to be happier despite being wrong. I’m trying to turn all of life into a win-win scenario and to avoid taking chances under any circumstances.

And anyway, my sadness isn’t the real kind. It’s not the kind that people need pills for; it’s the sort that is a lifestyle choice I’ve made because I think it’s the best way to seem quirky and eccentric. I pretend to hate spending time with people because I hope that this will make others think I’m interesting enough to spend time with.

When it all comes down to it, I’m just lonely, but calling someone would ruin the image I have of sitting alone and living a secret life.

That was fun to write. I hope no one who knows my phone number takes me seriously enough to call me.