deadendA few weeks ago I was flying home through the Orlando airport and noticed some major renovations to the food court.  An old favorite of mine, the Kafe Kalik restaurant looked like it was being replace by something else.  It was kind of sad, for that place was a solace for me at one dark period of time in my business career.

For a two –year period, I did some subcontract work for a client in Orlando.  The client was great.  The contractor I worked with was an absolute pain in my ass.  It didn’t take long for me to realize the project wasn’t a good fit, yet it paid really well and I got no sympathy from my family or friends for my misery.

Aside from a couple of people on the project, nearly everyone I worked with managed to rub me the wrong way.  For the first time in my life, I doubted my ability to lead a workshop.   Each time I left for one of these gigs, I was tense, stressed and one time actually became physically sick.  When the two-day workshop ended, I’d limp into the airport and park myself at the Kafe Kalik to de-stress with several beers and prepare myself to get home and recover.  It was a very unpleasant experience.

Finally I agreed (with myself) to do one last project with this group.  When finished (and after I got my check), I was planning to drop out of the project.  The contractor beat me to the punch, dropping me and a bunch of the other instructors from the project.  I was sad, only because I didn’t get the satisfaction of quitting, but elated that I was now free.  I vowed then never to take on any work that would stress me out that way.

What’s the lesson?  If you’re in a no-win, dead-end situation, get off that path and do something else.  I can’t tell you what I did with the large sum of money I earned on that project, but I do remember every stressful moment:  every incidence of wanting to smack one of my co-trainers over the head.  Each time where the contractor went out of their way to make me feel small and incompetent.  The sick feeling I felt on Sundays, waiting to board that flight on a Monday.  The fact that arriving in the Orlando airport didn’t have fond memories like it did when we brought our kids through there to Disney.

Life’s too short to tolerate misery.  I can tell you that now with 20-20 hindsight.  Why experience it for yourself when you can take my qualified word for it?