That's it. Chuck and Jill have had it. Enough is enough! They are quitting.

They are both so stressed out by work that last weekend they discovered that they even had the same stress symptoms. These symptoms included a tension headache and a tension stomach ache. After that, their symptoms differed. Chuck had his own pain symptom by his wrist, and Jill had her own pain symptom by her eye. This is really terrible, and so they both decided that something drastic must be done.

Chuck has been working as a lawyer for thirty years, which is a long time. He can't stand it anymore. He has a heavy bag of legal papers that he carries from the office to the house and back again. Sometimes, he even takes the papers out. He glances at them balefully, then he puts them away. He really hates these papers. He cannot stand the sight of them, much less having to carry them back and forth between the office and the house. And after thirty years of being a lawyer, he is unable to do a thing with them anymore.

Jill, on the other hand, has been working for only six months. She works at computers, which she loves. But at first, she was unable to do anything, too. Whenever someone would ask her to fix a computer, she said she would. But, since she had no idea how to fix one, she wouldn't. Instead, in fact, whenever she worked on someone's computer, she crashed it. Sometimes she worked on the entire system, and she crashed that, too. She didn't realize how lucky this was, until she made the mistake of learning what to do. This has not turned out as well as she thought it would. Before she learned what to do, nobody bothered her too much, because they thought she would crash their computers. Now, everybody is bothering her, because they think she will fix them. Now, everyone wants her to fix their computer. First. Before anyone else. Immediately!

So it is little wonder that Chuck and Jill are both stressed out.

Chuck decided he should quit. So, after deciding to quit, he sent out a memo to inform everyone he was quitting. Then the very next day he promptly went into the office to quit and didn't quit instead. At first this didn't make much sense to me, until I realized that he probably likes the idea of quitting so much that he wants to keep his options open.

But Chuck also decided that - since Jill has not been working for thirty years - she should not quit. So he has carefully been advising her about what she should do so that she doesn't have to quit. Like saying, I'm sorry, but this work is too much for me; I can't do it anymore. This is what Chuck said when he quit, and this is also what he thinks Jill should say when she doesn't quit. It strikes me as a somewhat generic approach, but I guess Chuck finds this a totally effective way to handle situations involving quitting.

So now Chuck and Jill keep very busy. They discuss their quitting and not quitting together at great length. They discuss what they think they should do and shouldn't do. Like whether or not to quit that day. And how to work less and have other people work more. I think their collaboration must be very productive and that they are coming up with some really good strategies. Which is good for everyone. They don't talk as much about their heads and their stomachs and their wrists and eyes anymore. They are both sounding better now. They are looking better, too. And who knows? This may even turn out to be a great bonding experience for them.

And the nice thing about it is that, until the next time they decide to quit, they are both still working.

October, 1996
BB