This week I quit my job.

“Why? Why am I doing this?” I keep asking myself those questions. It’s strange that I just don’t know.

I’ve been with the company for thirteen years. Thirteen! I’d never had a job past a few years prior to landing the gig. And it was my first real world big-pants professional job. It was also in a field that I wanted to be in. It was a career. It was stability when, at the time, I was sitting right at poverty level.

It saved my life.

I started as a web designer right as the dot com bubble reached its apex. Within a year the bubble burst and all of those cool stories about how fun it was to work for a software company you heard in the ’90s passed into legend. No more parties, no more work trips, no more sushi in the break room. The economy mostly tanked and people were laid off. 9/11 happened and the economy tanked. More people were laid off. There was a recession and yet more people were let go. The housing market took a dump and the economy tanked yet again. All the while, my division had been made not just viable but necessary to the company as a whole. I got really really lucky.

So now I’m quitting. Why? What is so awful about the job that I should leave? I sit in relative comfort, in front of a huge monitor, with a view of trees (and a parking lot). There’s no physical labor and no one will die if I make a mistake. Stress is minimal (or what you make of it) and the personal growth has been fantastic. So… why?

It’s really a lot of things. Whenever someone quits (or at least when I have quit a job in the past) the assumption is that they’re unhappy. But I’m not unhappy. I’m not angry. There’s no middle finger in the air and a “take this job and shove it” bumper sticker on my car. I’m just not… happy.

I’m not happy with the way management works. I’m not happy with the way upper-management works. I’m not happy with the way upper–upper-management works. I feel like I’ve stated every case, made every argument, and dropped every hint that I wanted something more. Or at least I wanted something to change. And that seems to have either sailed over the heads of my up-line or they themselves felt powerless to do anything. If you can’t expect those you’ve worked with for years to champion your cause or believe in you, who will?

As an employee, you shouldn’t have to ask yourself this question. “Who is on my side? Who will approve this raise request? Who has the pull to do anything about recognizing my years of work, dedication and passion if not my immediate supervisors?”

It also comes down to respect. Respect for the discipline of the producers. Respect for the product. Respect for the customer. Without any of those things, any company should not expect to succeed. Or at the very least, the company should not expect to keep talented people. If mediocrity is a benchmark for your development team, then that’s just not for me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no rock-star. I’m an artist who enjoys immersive tech. I have opinions about things that other people also have opinions about. The difference is that I don’t speak at conferences. I don’t write articles. I don’t subscribe to methodologies like they’re the new Atkins diet. I don’t preach. I’m not even that much of a whiz-bang visual designer.

I don’t code especially quickly. I have to look up the star hack to remind me of the formatting. I still don’t use a lot of pseudo selectors just because I haven’t had to. I don’t know how to properly use media queries. There are few moments where I say “Hey! Why don’t I use this really obscure but effective strategy or property and that will solve all of the problems!” No – there’s none of that. Sometimes I don’t even have a good grasp on all of the requirements and how they impact every single business unit in the company.

But I’m still better than some.

So I’m quitting my job. I’ll miss it. I’ll miss the people most of all. And I’ll miss the 30″ monitor and window cube.