I Quit After Only One Week of Working At An NFT Startup

If I had to wrap that one week up in one word, it would be 'lifeless'.

Every single day, I came home completely exhausted and dreaded waking up the next morning wondering if I needed that job.

As it turns out, I didn't. By the end of Friday, I wrote an email to HR and called it quits.

The reason? I hated every single minute of it.

Why did I take the job in the first place then?

I had three reasons:

• Great salary: The rate for a full-time content writer in a few non-fungible token (NFT)/blockchain companies I've applied to can go up to $2000 per month, while other businesses offered me up to $600 only.
• Wonderful staff: I met the best recruiter there. Enough said.
• A new promising industry: The Internet in the past couple of years has given me the impression that NFTs would be the future. I wanted to explore the field more and the quickest way would be to work for industry experts.

These seemingly-valid reasons led me to experience the most struggling job I've ever taken.

This job was everything I didn't wish for

From day one, I've wanted to create values and help people with my writing. The monetary compensation is a byproduct of solving a problem for someone, not my highest purpose.

One week of working showed me that it's the other way around in this industry (and probably some other fields).

In the first marketing team meeting that week, the Marketing Manager straight up told us that our job as content writers was to make customers feel buying from the company and its partners was a no-brainer.

How could we do that? Make use of the famous syndrome ever since the birth of social media, Fear-of-missing-out or FOMO. Create a sense of urgency. Make community members feel that they would not want to miss out on the next project launch.

To sum up, just sell.

That went against what I set out for myself as a writer.

No, I don't want my job to be only about the big bucks. I don't want to spend one-third of my life thinking about how I should convince people to open their wallets. I don't want to latch on to a psychological phenomenon to drive the audience to exchange money for some peace of mind.

Putting profit at the center of my creativity was probably the fastest way to kill the joy I could get as a writer since it only took me a week to decide I'd never want to return to this job again.

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I came across a post by Gary Vee the other day saying he'd rather smile in his Toyota than cry in his Ferrari. This is up for debate for sure but it applies to my current situation perfectly.

Many people from the previous generations believe young people should be grinders. They should go to the office early and leave later than anyone else. They should work tirelessly for years and put their mental health on the back burner to succeed.

These people probably will be shaking their heads reading the headline and jumping to the comment section to give me a lecture on work and life.

I don't think they would read to here but in case they do, here's my reply to their disapproval:

I'd rather take a less-compensated job that puts a smile on my face than one that offers me more money at the cost of my joy.

Real freedom is saying no without having to give a reason. Choose freedom and live the life you want. You'll thank yourself for it.