"Unpromoteable": Why I Left the Best Job I've Ever Had

So here's a post that may piss some people off, but its really a story that needs to be told, and I'll tell you why at the end. It's the story of why I left the best job I ever had after four pretty great years, and did so without a safety net.

But to get to the end, I should backtrack a little. Halfway through the summer of 2017, after I had been working there for a little over two years and had already been promoted and received a few raises, I started having a problem commuting. I would get stomach pains every time I got on the bus in the morning, pains that would lead to panic attacks. It got so bad I started getting off of the bus not long after I got on it and would have to take an Uber to work, at an average of forty-five bucks a pop. We first thought it was stress-related; my supervisor was on leave so I was shouldering a lot at work, had just applied for another promotion and had no idea if it would work out, and, oh, yeah, I was getting married in a month. So no shortage of stress, right? But it persisted, even after the wedding, after my supervisor came back, after I didn't get that promotion (wouldn't be the last time I didn't get that promotion, but more on that later). I started seeing doctors to figure out what was wrong and got jerked around quite a bit; first I was just overweight, then it was gall stones, then I needed to get my gall bladder removed (I was but that wasn't the point, the stones are there but harmless, and I still have my gall bladder three years later).

While I was either leaving doctors flabbergasted or exposing the inadequacies, I was never quite sure, I moved to taking either Uber or Lyft to work everyday, whichever was cheaper on that particular day. So it's safe to say I was spending $200 a week on transit just in the mornings. Keep that in mind as the story unfolds.

Finally, I got in to see a truly awesome gastroenterologist, who immediately diagnosed my stomach pains as acid reflux, put me on a pill that helped with that, and then further figured out through some testing I have "mixed IBS," which is a version of Irritable Bowel Syndrome that expresses itself sometimes as constipation and other times as diarrhea.

It's as fun as it sounds, let me tell you.

We also figured out stress is a very heavy trigger for me, and that's why I was always experiencing symptoms in the morning. Not knowing how long the bus would take, if it would break down, if it would get stuck in the tunnel... even taking Ubers to work, not knowing how bad traffic would be, would we get stuck on the bridge, would I be late, etc. It was all just very bad. The doctor also helped me get social accomodations at work for it to be okay for me to be up to see hour late because of my condition, and for the first year that was fine. I worked hard. I got passed up for that same promotion two more times in the span of a month and got transferred to a new team for what I was told was the express purpose of preparing me to be the next one promoted. So I learned the new team, worked hard, forced myself to sit in an Uber cramped up with pain day after day, because I loved whereI worked.

Let me say that again. I loved where I worked. Did I complain about it? Sure. It's work, that's what people do. But I knew it was the best job I ever had. I loved the friends I had made there. It was the kind of work I enjoyed.

So I worked hard for another year, until the next chance for a promotion came up. In that time, some management changes happened, both in my department and in HR, and they started giving me problems about my accomodations. I don't know if they thought I should just magically be better, if they didn't understand what a chronic condition was, but they didn't want to approve it for another year. The doctor had to recertify, and no matter what he wrote on the form, they challenged it. I had to go back three times. They started counting the minutes I missed, instead of allowing the hour a day. All this was making my condition worse, because again, stress. And through all this, I worked hard. I hit goals. My team succeeded constantly. And when that next promotion chance came up, I still didn't get it. And that's when someone in management finally told me the truth.

Because of my chronic health condition, they considered me "unpromoteable."

That's right, I was told no matter how hard I worked or how good I was, I'd never be promoted because I had a health issue. So I thought it over for a few days, talked it over with my wife; talked about how offer 40% of my paycheck was going to transportation, how my days were twelve hours long, how I was always taking short lunch break to make up for the time I missed in the morning, and how all of it was for a job I just found out after four years of hard work didn't have any interest in giving me a future because of something completely out of my control.

So after thinking it over and talking it over, I gave my notice. Did I have a job waiting? No. Partly because I couldn't figure out how to job hunt in New Jersey while working in Manhattan because clearly committing wasn't an option anymore, but mostly because I couldn't stomach working there any longer than I had to.

That's why I left the best job I ever had. Do I regret it? I regret it had to happen, because at one point a future there is all I wanted; I sure as hell regret not still having the amazing health care they provided now that diabetes has me 15K in the hole and stuck in a miserable, remote- only job hunt, I regret the amount of shit my wife and I have both gotten about the decision and the situation it led to from people with a shocking dearth of empathy, but I don't regret my decision once I realized that future I hoped for there was forever going to be denied me.

I just wish I could find the next "best job I ever had" somewhere that will appreciate me, sooner rather than later.