After I Resigned at 45, My feelings & Others' Reactions
Before Submitting My Resignation
I was exhausted.
I kept thinking,
“I want to quit.”
I even uploaded my resume.
I did get contacted here and there.
But I was scared.
At 45,
could I really adapt to a new organization?
That question stayed with me.
I even met my brother-in-law,
who works in electrical work at construction sites,
and asked him what the job was like.
Deep down, I felt,
“Anywhere is fine,
as long as there’s no people stress.”
But I didn’t have the confidence
to start work I had never done before.
The days of forcing myself to go to work continued.
As my heart grew heavier,
my body started to feel worse as well.
Then, just when things felt like they might truly fall apart,
by some stroke of luck,
I was accepted by a company
that was just getting started.
Submitting My Resignation, and What I Felt
Just having a place to go
felt so good.
Of course, it was a start-up.
And that came with risk.
Still, I thought,
“As long as it’s not this company,
I’ll be fine.”
I told my division head
that I intended to resign.
Our relationship hadn’t been good,
so there was no attempt to stop me.
For 11 years,
I believed I shouldn’t be away from my desk for long.
I had never taken an overseas trip.
But now,
matching the timing to my resignation date,
I even planned a family trip.
Life felt strangely good back then.
The burden of going to work disappeared.
Even the division head
I hated running into
didn’t bother me anymore.
I used to relieve stress
by being around coworkers
who talked about this and that at the company.
But suddenly,
it all felt meaningless.
Still,
I felt sorry
toward the team members who followed me,
and who I genuinely liked.
My Wife’s Concern
My first two jobs were start-ups.
At the first company,
I didn’t get paid for six months.
At the second,
my salary was also delayed from time to time.
The third company — my current one —
was publicly listed.
My wife finally felt
somewhat reassured.
But when I said
I was going back to a start-up again,
she said:
“Are you sure they’ll even pay you?”
“How long am I supposed to worry
about whether your salary will keep coming?”
There was a refreshing sense of relief in quitting.
But there was also the worry
that if things didn’t go as I expected
at the new company,
it could get hard.
At the time,
I felt like if I stayed any longer where I was,
I might end up in a worse place.
I didn’t even have room
to think about that kind of worry.
I pushed the concerns aside,
and focused only on the hope
that things would work out.
How My Coworkers Reacted
When I sat in the office,
people around my age came by.
People I usually only saw during meetings.
They asked me to grab a coffee.
“Do you have somewhere to go?”
“Why are you leaving?”
“What are you going to do after you leave?”
In your mid-40s at work,
you usually end up becoming
one of these types.
Someone who works well
and even invests weekends
to do hobbies with senior executives.
If you want to become an executive,
this seems like the basic requirement.
But from the senior’s perspective,
this person could become a competitor later.
Someone whose work is average,
but who serves seniors extremely well.
They’re always “on your side,”
so seniors tend to like this type the most.
People like this often have a higher chance
of becoming executives.
Someone who works well,
but has no intention of pleasing seniors.
This is the type that makes corporate life the hardest.
Over time,
they become easy targets.
Most of the people who came to ask me out for coffee
were this third type.
People who worked well,
but didn’t try to please seniors.
But the ones who were good at pleasing seniors,
they acted as if they didn’t even see me.
The Last Meal with the CEO
The CEO would stop by our office
and make instant coffee for himself.
At first, feeling awkward,
I would say,
“I’ll make it for you, sir.”
And as we talked,
the conversation would last
30 minutes at times,
or even one to two hours.
After I submitted my resignation,
I kept avoiding him.
I felt sorry toward him
for how humanely he had treated me.
One day, he came directly to my desk and said,
“Team Lead Jung, shall we talk for a moment?”
I explained my reasons for resigning.
He didn’t try to stop me anymore.
A few days before my final day,
he asked me out for lunch.
After an awkward lunch,
I thought,
“So this is really the end.”
But then he said,
“Let’s grab a cup of coffee before you go.”
For one to two hours,
he spoke to me
not as a boss to an employee,
but as someone who had run a business for a long time.
“It may be hard in the middle,
but the strength to carry it all the way to the end
is what matters.”
After everything —
- Relief and freedom.
- Guilt toward my team.
- Anxiety about the new company.
- Gratitude toward the CEO.
It was a mix of many different emotions.
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