I’m Quitting My Student Blog Position
I wanted to take some time to explain where I’ve been after making a promise to post on weekly. I’ve been busy preparing to leave my job as a content writer at my university blog.
I officially join the unemployed starting 22 December. After that, I will be pouring energy into blog writing and freelance work until I deem it necessary to start applying to other companies. That might be very soon, so I’m going to put my heart into writing while I have the opportunity.
My Job Was Too Intense to Be a Part-Time Position.
When I began the job, I had a handful of manageable responsibilities and wrote one post per week. I managed the content that was meant to represent several different university departments. The beginning of my employment at my company was exciting and productive.
Over time, the position became more complex as Google introduced a new algorithm. The Marketing department assigned over one thousand blogs for review by my four-person team. Throughout December, I was working unpaid for several hours and never took a day off.
I remember calling my girlfriend and parents several times, panicking over the phone in my empty row of cubicles. I was always the last one on my floor to leave the building. For a time, I took pride in this, but then I decided it was time to leave for a job that was properly part-time.
My First Attempt to Leave My Company Failed.
I started 2020 planning to leave my company for a job as a data keyer at the Census. After onboarding for a part-time position, I learned that the Census Bureau had no accommodation to the flexibility I needed for my class schedule. After 8 hours of sitting through orientation, I resigned from the Census and resumed work at the blog.
COVID-19 hit my university in early April 2020. I took the chance to move out a week earlier than my other roommates. I settled into quarantine life. Two members of my four-person blog team quit and left much more work for me and my only other coworker.
Depression And Panic Led Me to Overwork Myself and Neglect School.
I had a period of intense depression and kept working myself to the bone at school and at work. I was putting in the effort, but my productivity was withering. Last week, I had 35 active projects to check and maintain. I worked on over 100 posts throughout 2020, and I still had 43 active projects at the beginning of December.
Despite my best efforts, I started building up a major backlog (some of it inherited). Every day has been about damage control. I’ve had the impossible task of trying to cram 40-hour workweeks into a part-time position.
I made it clear that I wanted to leave in December, but my two-week notice came as an unwelcome surprise. My supervisor understandably had concern with me leaving behind work for the rest of my team.
Recent weeks have gone by in a haze of writing. I am writing for work instead of writing for my blog or school. I want to get back to getting good grades and working on projects that don’t leave me with daily panic.
If you want to read more content like this, please check out my work on my website and Odyssey. You can see some of my most successful writing on my new Portfolio page. I would love to take the time to chat and interact with my readers! Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, or share your thoughts in the comments for this post.
