Dear person who had the worst fucking day at work,

I am truly sorry you are going through this. It sucks. Work is supposed to be a place where we contribute to society and have opportunities to grow and create and meet interesting people. But some days, it just fucking sucks. Maybe you didn’t get the promotion you wanted, or maybe you got a bad performance review. Maybe your org is doing layoffs. Or maybe the project you poured literal years of your life into is getting canceled without ever being launched and you will have absolutely nothing to show for it. Fuck.

The best thing to do right now is acknowledge that it sucks. Vent to your partner, a family member, a trusted coworker, or just write it down in your journal. Get out all your emotions and frustrations so you don’t keep carrying them with you.

Now stop thinking about work. Go home early if you can. Turn off your phone and close your laptop. Take a mental health day or a sick day tomorrow.

As cheesy as it is, remember life is short, work isn’t everything, and you will die one day. Revisit your goals in life and what truly matters. Think about what a life well-lived means to you and how unimportant your job will be when you look back and what you’ve accomplished on this Earth. Remember the vastness of the universe and think about all the other humans before and after your lifetime who also had shitty fucking days, a lot of times wayyyy worse than whatever you are dealing with now. Eventually the Earth will be destroyed by the exploding Sun, if nuclear war and climate change don’t destroy it first. So you might as well focus on enjoying your time here.

Take a minute to focus on what you can control to make yourself less dependent on that damn job. Make sure your finances are in a good place, you got your 401k match, have a rainy day fund, and maybe skip that unnecessary expensive purchase. Open up a job search website to remind yourself that you have options. Do all the prep you would do if you knew you were going to leave your job, without actually quitting. Maybe quitting is the right thing to do, but right now you are too upset with work to make such a consequential decision.

Give yourself a night of indulgence tonight. Order pizza with extra cheese, watch your favorite movie, have dessert, and take a bath. You need some self-care and relaxation after the day that you’ve had.

Tomorrow when you wake up, I hope you give less of a fuck about your job, or at least the shitty parts that caused you to feel this way. Try working as if you knew you were hypothetically going to quit in 6 months. It’s not soon enough to completely slack off, but it is soon enough to stop giving a shit about next year’s nonsensical strategy or a passive-aggressive comment from your boss. Do your duty and be good to the people around you, but embrace the feeling of letting go of the bullshit at work.

And please don’t give that damn company any more of your life than the 40 hours a week you contractually owe them.

It might be hard to believe now, but the bad days will pass and caring a little (or a lot) less can actually make work enjoyable again. Focus on the things that brought you to the job in the first place and what you like about it. Drop every unpleasant thing you possibly can. If you are going to (hypothetically!) quit in 6 months, the company needs to figure out how to get by without you doing all those BS tasks anyway.

If you end up feeling like this regularly, maybe it is time to get a new job, but until then… quiet quit, survive each workday, plan your next vacation, and know that you deserve better than how that stupid company treated you.

Sincerely,

Another person who just had the worst fucking day at work ✌️