Think8 Women

A woman came up after a Roundtable hesitantly asking if I thought it was ever ‘okay’ to quit a job.

“Tell me about your job…” I asked.

“It’s impossible.” She looked down, blinking away tears.

“But I’m not a quitter!” She added quickly.

Every woman knows that place of ‘impossible’. And no woman is a quitter.

No matter how bad a job gets, it’s not in our DNA for women to quit.

How familiar that place is… panic snaps us awake at night, heart thudding. Nausea kicks in, bones ache, positive you have the flu.

But since we’re not quitters, we trudge back to do the ‘impossible’ at first light.

My ‘impossible job’ was in Montreal as Executive Story editor for a TV series. The producer embedded three camera crews in a Toronto fire station 24/7 to capture every move of forty plus firemen to create a ‘riveting reality’ show around fire fighters.

My job (one city removed) was to view footage, discover threads of stories (based on director’s notes) and weave three stories together for each half hour.

Two problems made this ‘impossible’.

FIRST PROBLEM — firemen rarely attend fires. Every day huge boxes of tapes arrived containing hours of firemen answering false alarms, helping people stuck in trees, bathtubs or cars, but mostly eating, sleeping, cleaning trucks, riding in trucks or working out. Not exactly riveting TV.

Add to this– not one tape arrived with director’s notes. I had no clue who was doing what or why or where. Miles of unidentified footage.

And when fires did happen, random firemen slapped on helmet cameras, adding two more hours of unmarked tapes. Mostly of thick smoke.

SECOND PROBLEM: the producer, whose job was to oversee and direct crews and shooting, was nowhere to be found. As weeks dragged on she refused to answer my calls or increasingly desperate emails.
Every day twenty additional hours of unmarked tapes arrived, stretching endlessly on tables. By the end of the first month I had over 600 hours of tapes.

But I was not a quitter.

I started sleeping four hours a night. Then three.

Hired assistants out of my own pocket.

Reaching only her voice mail, I pleaded for meetings. She missed seventeen in a row.

One night I had a complete melt-down, couldn’t stop crying, shivering. I had to face my fear — not of failing, but of quitting.

I had never quit in my life

Felt like failure.

My failure.

When the producer finally met me and I quietly handed her my two-week notice, she fell to her knees, pleading. Did I want more pay?!

This was no ploy for money. This was me quitting.

When I look back on my really impossible jobs they share striking similarities, no one cared about the cost to my body, nervous system or sense of worth. No one even noticed that I had won the battle against all odds.

I had delivered. That was all that mattered to them.

There are times it is not a failure to quit.

I asked the woman if her impossible job was worth the cost. She smiled resolutely, she knew her choice.

Deep down we know when the impossible job is not worth the cost.

We just need to know when it’s okay to quit.

A huge hug,

Nancy