On January 1, 2006, I resolved that the upcoming year would be my last spent tending bar. I was tired of spending all my weekends at work. I was tired of smelling like beer. I wanted a normal life where I had evenings free and could take vacations and wear nice clothes. Mostly, I just wanted to move on.
I looked for other work throughout the year. I applied for full-time jobs without much luck; I tried to find other freelance gigs to no avail. As the year dragged on, my search got even more and more frantic, and my standards for what I could and couldn’t imagine myself doing got lower and lower. Selling lingerie at a sex shop? Sure. Work as a personal assistant? Definitely. I even considered an hourly gig as a video game tester at my boyfriend’s company. Anything but bartending.
As Halloween and then Thanksgiving rolled around, I became increasingly desperate. By Christmas, I was in a state of panic. I didn’t see any way I could leave my job. But then on December 19, I just … did. With no jobs lined up, no lucrative prospects on the horizon, and a giant Manhattan rent bill, I gave my two weeks’ notice and left anyway.
I began the year doing temp work, and eventually took a corporate job that was a hundred times more terrible than bartending had ever been. It also paid a lot less; so although I had plenty of free evenings, I had no money to go out and do anything. The devil you know, I guess. That was my most successful New Year’s resolution. It was also my last.
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