I Quit

Blog Original Creative Works Production Diary

December 12, 2025 / December 12, 2025 by Mister

Have you ever thought about what you would be able to do if you used all your work energy for yourself? I have, many times. I did, every week for the first six months of this year, as I heard the company I work for report revenues that inspired rage when taking into account the extremely low levels of pay within the company and the fact that this company intentionally markets itself to low income families. This year, the company decided that they will be working with fewer charities than before, to offer less free and discounted places to the parts of the community that need it the most. Simultaneously, they have got themselves on a certain register which allows people to use Universal Credit in order to pay for the service. I have to say, as of now I have zero remaining faith in the idea of corporate benevolence. I quit that horrible place after just 6 months without another job to go to, such was my conviction.

I won’t start at the beginning because that was 33 years ago – but I will describe the present state of things as thus: I have now thrown away the career in education that I fought and scraped for so that I can do something wildly different for myself. Why? Well, partly because when I tried to leave the classroom but stay in education, I got to see just how cynical the British world of business is. I now consider myself almost unemployable. Don’t get me wrong,  you can hire me — and you will be glad that you did — but there’s something in the employer-employee dynamic (of most* workplaces I have ever graced with my presence) that I am simply allergic to.

Belonging to several intersecting minority groups and being situated in a not-too-cosy, hyper-vigilant and social-sciences-as-a-special-interest area of the spectrum, I often clock structural inequities from the jump. As such, I often find myself placed as the perfect spokesperson (or target— or both) in environments where most people just adapt and mask and I simply refuse to anymore. I mean, I pretty much can’t, anyway – which is one of the few things I am happy to let age take from me. Seeing beneath the mask – essentially accepting myself for who I am – was near impossible until the mask started to falter. 

Another reason that I give up – I give up! – when it comes to the workplace is that I have reached that age where the undiagnosed mask I had the luxury of pretending didn’t exist has simply lost its battery life. All of my earlier reasons for believing I am not autistic started to fall away in 2022 – at times in the most distressing fashion – once I hit my thirties and had some major life changes. 

The person underneath was fundamentally predisposed to have an even more difficult time in society. It had been easier, while I could, to pretend that the issue was one that I could resolve by constantly striving to be ‘better’ in every way possible, all the time. When I was younger, I excelled at pleasing people. I worked ridiculously hard for countless hours to achieve great results for many bosses. And yet, at the time of writing this, I am still financially poor in relation to those people who enjoyed so many hours of my labour, and only asked for more (and got it). This leads me to my second reason, which also sets the stage for the way in which I am going to navigate my endeavour…

But before I proceed, it is important that you know – I don’t care what you think. Not about this.  Comment on literally any part of this post —including this one — by all means. But I won’t be swayed. For me, this is both political and spiritual at the same time.

For the next 365 days, I am going to do for myself, what my past employers have had me do for them. I am going to be making all the same sacrifices and investment in myself that have previously been extracted from me for the benefit of someone else – who quite often, frankly, didn’t even deserve it. All the early mornings; all the late nights; all the repetition and exploration and humiliation of publicly failing until I found success will be reserved for my endeavour.

Writing this, I realise that I have ironically enjoyed somewhat of a sheltered life — in regards to the fact that I worked in familiar spaces and lived in the same apartment for 15 years, spending an inordinate amount of that time alone (which brought varying degrees of comfort and distress). This might also be behind my decision to abandon my previous structures completely and forge something new from the ashes of the professional life I have essentially burned to the ground (you can’t be a teacher and an adult entertainer at the same time…). 

And so it gives me great pleasure to announce…

PROJECT CYCLEBREAKER.

This is more than just a book, an album or a play. It is all three. Contained in a universe of my own design, this project will feature several pieces in different mediums that all contribute to the same overarching narrative. It’s already happening – I’ve written most of the music and poetry, delivered test performances in front of live audiences, secured myself a mentor and started training in burlesque, with my debut performance already booked at the Clapham Grand (tickets on sale now).

So that’s it. for the next year, sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears will all be extracted in the same gruelling fashion, burnout-be-damned. Because this endeavour, as much as it is a vehicle to set me up for a lifetime of creating, also serves to prove to everyone else exactly how precious their time really is — and just how much has been stolen. 

Stolen from the Journal of Tríus, 28/09/2025