Why I Quit My Job & Started an Online Fashion Store?

"Just like any other manager, mine was allergic to ambition." - Somebody Smart

Once upon a deadline, in a land far, far too fluorescent-lit, I had a job. You know, one of those 9-to-5 hamster-wheel specials where you stare at spreadsheets so long, you begin to see your ancestors in the rows.

Now, before you picture me flipping a desk and storming out like a caffeinated gladiator, let me clarify: I didn’t hate my job. I just… moderately loathed it. Like the way you tolerate soggy fries—still food, but deeply disappointing.

The tipping point? A printer. Not a metaphorical one. An actual, sentient, paper-eating demon of a printer that jammed more often than a high school garage band. It was the fifth time in one morning I had tried to print a report that nobody would read. I stood there, praying to the gods of toner, when I had an epiphany: I am arguing with a machine over paper I don’t care about, for a meeting I don’t want to attend, about goals I didn’t set.

Suddenly, the office chair I’d ergonomically bonded with for five years felt like a tiny wheeled prison.

But before we move there, a word about my boss.

My boss, bless his beige soul, had the inspirational qualities of a wet sock. He believed in three things: status reports, buzzwords, and the power of doing absolutely nothing differently, ever. When I floated the idea of innovating a process, he looked at me like I’d just asked him to salsa dance during a quarterly review.

“You’re thinking outside the box,” he said, “but we are the box.”

I nodded, took a long sip of coffee, and began mentally drafting my resignation letter. Spoiler alert: it opened with “Dear Oppressor of Joy.”

Now Here's The Twist

While working my corporate day job, I’d been secretly running a side hustle selling quirky items online (even though my contract with the company made me sign that I will not work on anything else except what the company demanded - but you know, I am a rebel). It started with one shirt that oddly went viral in on a specific subreddit and sold out faster than donuts in a break room.

Soon, I created the website Ropestitch and added a few more colors. It was retail therapy, but I was the one getting paid. And the best part? I never once had to pretend to care about a KPI.

The Final Straw

One Monday (because all life-altering events seem to happen on Mondays) I got called into a meeting about “maximizing synergy across verticals.” This is corporate for “We don’t know what we’re doing, but we’d like to talk about it for an hour.”

As I listened to PowerPoint slides that could’ve been replaced with a single shrug, I thought: If I can sell 800 T-shirts that say “Meetings Could’ve Been Emails,” maybe I shouldn’t be in a meeting that should’ve been an email.

So I quit. Right there. OK, not exactly there. I’m not that bold. I drafted my notice that evening with the finesse of someone who had Googled “How to write a resignation letter.”

The Joys & Challenges of Online Store Ownership

These days, my boss is a total pushover (me). My meetings are just me, a coffee mug that says “CEO of Chaos,” and my cat, who has more authority than most middle managers I’ve met.

I work in pajamas. My commute is 12 feet. And when something breaks, I yell at myself.

Sure, it’s not all memes and mugs. I once accidentally ordered 500 t-shirts with a typo that said “All About Boobs” (was supposed to be "books").

But you know, it's not paying as good as the job did. That's why I am here writing a mediocre post on a wannabe-Medium-platform. Sometimes, I have to work overnight, sometimes I get no sales at all (not complaining, just be cautious before you follow my example).

But you know what, life’s too short for bad printers and buzzwords.