Okay, guys.

I know a lot of you said you respected me for getting my tears out and going back and trying again, but after it happened 10+ times, I realized:

-I can't work in a place where I have been poorly trained and thrust onto phone calls where I have to sit in silence for 15 minutes struggling to get an answer and am making the company look like it hires idiots. The people that are there to help us are spread so thin that we literally were left going "uh... please keep holding on, I'm trying to get an answer from someone else" on every single call.
-I was having what could be very close to an anxiety attack on even simple e-mail setup calls, which I can do backwards and forwards and with my eyes shut -- I was getting close to hyperventilating at times.
-I am pretty sure I need medication for anxiety if I am going to do a job that requires that level of interaction with people in such a fast-paced environment.

I'm not like that with my art clients. Here, you guys see me as a professional who has some level of skill and the dynamic between us is one of respect and generally a pleasing exchange for everybody. But in that job, I was completely unprepared and it wasn't getting any better... so, every day, I was being put on the defensive and never given the tools with which to make things better.

I spent 4 hours last night reading all the things I needed to know to get better at my job, and within the first two hours on my next shift, I had already accidentally hung up on 3 people (we were never taught how to use the phones and I couldn't get anyone to teach me) and encountered THREE more scenarios I was never taught to deal with. There just is not enough information in the company's resources to teach me how to do everything I needed to learn how to do. Four hours a night, every night, on my OWN TIME and not getting paid for it, should have been enough to teach me, but it wasn't, and after enough repeats of the "study all night for inevitable situations... encounter yet more situations I am not prepared for" cycle, I was done.

At best, I should have been in training with a mentor for another two weeks. I literally started training and was on the phones the next week, even though I knew nothing about DSL yet. I'm not kidding. I appreciate and am really proud of everyone who can step in and do that job and learn it and get to where they're comfortable, and I am in NO way saying it's impossible -- hard, frustrating, but far from impossible. It's just, I realize now that for a person like me, it was never going to happen the way I hoped it would.

I feel bad for my trainers and for my team mates, but better that I get out of their hair now and get back to my normal life. I can work harder to make money and become a better artist, especially now that I understand the benefits of keeping a regular sleep/work schedule, and now that I appreciate what I had so much more.

I hope this doesn't make me sound like a spoiled, selfish brat. I was grateful I got the job; I just don't think I was ever going to be good enough, and while I appreciate the faith they had in me, I'm so much happier now that I've quit.

More importantly, now I appreciate what I had before, so much more, and I will respect it.

So, I apologize for not being able to be a great role-model in this situation... but I did learn something important from all of this, and I am going to shore up my work ethic and respect what I already have.

x.o.
HD