I am the camel...

And the straw broke my back.

Companies go through growing pains when they hit a certain size. I remember this vividly when I was working for a dot-com in Minnesota. Every month, every week, some new policy or mandate, some new project, some new logo, some new venture, all of guaranteed to be wildly successful beyond everyone's wildest dreams - and all of it to be carried out yesterday.

But its a bit different to do all of this while being paid a reasonable salary - I drove to work every day, had quite a bit of freedom, could buy pretty much whatever my heart desired... leather jeans? Yes. Doc Martens shoes? You bet. Plane tickets someplace for the weekend plus hotel plus a few restaurant meals? Yeah, no problem - just be back in time for another 50+ hour workweek where everything is urgent.

And here I work for a company of a similar size. It's making that transition from being a small-time concern to something that could be really big. Everything is of course new and wonderful (well, new and cheaply-taiwanese-made-wonderful) and always, always urgent. And that would have been just fine like the dot-com - except here new clothes are impossible, restaurant meals are few and far between, plane tickets for the weekend are out of the question, and shoes are to be repaired, not purchased new. Hell, sometimes its necessary to choose between the cat food and the shaving cream or toothpaste - a fact which is not lost on me when the kitty is having her daily 4 AM I-can't-decide-if-I-want-to-be-in-the-room-or-out-of-the-room crisis.

The straw that broke the camels back came in three parts. Friday July 1st saw the first installment, and Tuesday July 5th was the second and third. The guy I work for is quite a number of levels down the food chain from the owner of the company. But another manager - someone who reports directly to the owner, decided to take a special nasty interest in me and just be as rude and demeaning as possible. Nothing I did for this person was acceptable, everything required some nasty email carbon copied to my boss and even other co-workers, and I just had enough.

So Tuesday July 5th I had one of those rare moments of clarity. After receiving a couple of go-rounds of nasty abuse that morning at the hands of this Carrasco-raised breast-fed-by-proxy-and-then-Catholic-schooled sociopath, I had had enough. So I did well, what I can do. I got myself some insurance - i.e. a quick phone call to my parents in which I explained what was already obvious to them:

• broke
• need plane ticket home if am going to go home
• need place to stay while reestablish self

They assented (THANKS A MILLION MOM AND DAD) and that left me the courage to tell this company that this uptight arrogant manager had made it impossible for me to continue working for them.

I did so. My resignation was tendered and three weeks notice was given as per my contract. My boss was extremely surprised. I was very upfront with him... "This is not a negotiating tactic, I am not looking for a raise, or better working conditions, or anything. I simply want your acceptance of my resignation and an agreement about how many more weeks I will be working here."

And that was that.

I will post more in the coming days about what went on in between time... but suffice it to say that on 11th August I will leave here. My time in Uruguay will come to an end. I am very OK with this too.