High-quality friendship is one of the scarcest resources on our planet, so when you find it, it’s important to maintain it at all costs. There will always be more money, but there are limited days of our lives to spend with our best friends. These are the types of thoughts I would have on my daily commute to work, where I’d spend eight of my most valuable hours toiling away for someone else’s profit. That’s why I quit my full-time job to focus on the things that really matter in this life, like hanging out with my unemployed friends.
Three of my closest friends all lost their jobs last winter in a string of layoffs that shook the “Party Shrek” industry, as they all worked as Shrek impersonators for children’s parties. Ever since then, they’ve been hitting me up to hang out during the weekdays to do any number of really awesome things. They wanted to see a rerun of Dune at 11:15 a.m. on a Wednesday then the premiere of Dune 2 at 3 p.m. that same day. They wanted to hit the local water park at 2 p.m. on a winter Tuesday, when all the kids would be in school and the best rides would be free for the taking. They wanted to play video games at 4 a.m. on a Thursday night because they all happened to wake up from nightmares at the same time.
I wanted to join for it all, but my job was holding me back.
My boss would not stop expecting me to accomplish my daily tasks, and it was stifling. I wanted – with my whole heart – to engage in hijinks and shenanigans with my unemployed friends, but I was stuck being a renowned repo stocks trader at Goldman Sachs.
I knew I had to make a change if I wanted to live my life with no regrets. I sent my resignation letter to my boss even though I was four days away from getting a promotion that would change my life, monetarily. I had to pursue another promotion, to Best Best Friend, which would also change my life, but this time in a friendship sense.
My boss didn’t quite understand, and I didn’t expect her to. After all, I was the best paid 10th year Associate at Goldman, and at the rate my investments were growing, I’d make partner in no time. I just couldn’t risk not getting to spend 18 hours a day with my friends seeing if we could find the perfect bag of Bugles chips to create “witch fingers,” then eating them all off one-by-one as a family.
My financial state has never been more dire, and I’ve never been happier. Fingers crossed none of my friends enter into the workforce soon!
