On breaking points

A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a fellow professional in the corporate sector. Like a lot people in the corporate sector, she was also lamenting her own profession and the stress and time commitment that it brings with it.

The conversation eventually turned to (as it always does) methods of quitting. I'm a firm believer that once I reach a certain breaking point, I will just up and quit right then and there - consequences be damned. She was arguing that most people will not quit in the middle of a project because you leave your colleagues hanging out to dry and they will have to pick up a lot of extra work because of your absence. I don't believe we reached a consensus on this particular point.

However, we did agree on one particular point - that companies/firms/employers are quite adept at "training" their employees to endure ever increasing levels of "pain". Think about it, if you're just starting a job, staying late to work might be really really painful (or in most cases, work 9-5 might be really painful), but after you've worked until 8 or 9 pm for a few nights in a row, the pain dulls and you adapt to your circumstances. That's when the 10 to 12 am work days start to come into play and so on. As a result, slowly but surely, most employees learn to adapt to the rigors of their professional work.

But sometimes, the company/firm/employer doesn't even have to actively force/train an employee to adapt to the pain. Peer pressure from co-workers, stories from other comparable companies/firms, and even one's own innate desire to "please" the employer all can lead to desensitization.

Except, even with the slow desensitization, a lot of professionals still reach their breaking points and they move on to other things (thanksfully?regretably?). These professionals leave behind empty dark offices with cleaned out desks and shadows of their former presence - empty dark offices that remind the ones left behind that there are other opportunities, other careers, other (life) possibilities. And leave some others to wonder if/when they will follow in the previously departed's footsteps and leave behind their own empty dark offices.

Either way, breaking points do exist - it's just that they usually change as one continues to work.