"It wasn't a quit!"

I realized just now that the dictionary is nothing more than an endless loop of synonyms, which I hadn’t ever fully digested until this very minute. I looked up the word “quit” to see if it would prompt any interesting thoughts on how to start this post and found a bunch of synonyms like “stop,” “cease,” “discontinue,” “leave,” “resign,” etc. Then, just for fun, I went and looked up several of those words and found the word “quit.” So, essentially, if you don’t already implicitly understand what one of those words mean, you are going to be hopelessly lost in circular references trying to figure it out. This would be truly unfortunate if you were legitimately trying to learn what the word “quit” meant.

Fortunately, though, I feel confident in stating that most people understand what quitting means. The most basic form would include the words "I quit," followed by them no longer showing up for work. In my orbit, this usually this happens during a temper tantrum of some kind with the end result leaving a moderately foul taste in everyone’s mouth.

To 'resign,' on the other hand, is the professional way that one would quit his or her job. Resigning involves giving your employer a reasonable advance notice (typically two weeks), continuing to work and be productive for the duration of that notice, and surprising exactly no one when you stop showing up for work one day on account of, well, having given advance notice. Usually this ends in an amicable or semi-amicable separation.

I spoke to a lady recently who was adamant that she did not quit her job, and the fundamental disconnect between my understanding of the word “quit” and hers was enough to instigate this post.

Bit of backstory: She was a cafeteria attendant for a public school and had been working for about two months before she stopped showing up for work. We reached out several times over the course of a week to see what happened. Having no success contacting her, but at the same time receiving no indication that there was anything suspicious about the situation (outside of your garden-variety unprofessionalism), we ended up ending the assignment.

[Sidebar: Yes, we do care about your wellbeing, despite what many might say. I have personally requested a wellness check on one of my contractors, whom I knew had no close family or friends in the area that might check in on him, who was a model employee, never missed a day, was never late, and suddenly dropped off the face of the earth.]

Anyway, she called in, three months later, looking for work:

Contractor: I'm looking for a job. Part-time.

Me: Ok. It looks like you worked with us at the schools about three months ago, but you stopped showing up for work. What happened?

Contractor: I need a part-time job.

Me: And I'd like to know why you quit your last job with us.

Contractor: It wasn't a quit. It wasn't a quit!

Me: Well, it was. You quit showing up for work, and you never contacted us after.

Contractor: I went to Chicago to visit family. I'm back now.

Me: Ok, but you didn't notify anyone that you would be leaving. You just upped and left.

Contractor: Because I was visiting family.

Me: Which I'm hearing, but since you just quit showing up for work, that's considered a quit. You didn't tell anyone you were leaving. Since you didn't notify anyone you were leaving, that's considered a voluntary job abandonment. In other words, you quit.

Contractor. I need a part-time job.

Me: Unfortunately for you, I won't be considering you for anything we might have available because you quit your last assignment without notice.

Contractor: It wasn't a quit!

Me: You quit showing up for work. That's a quit. You didn't notify anyone you were leaving, and you never contacted us after until today, three months later. That makes you an unreliable worker. I won't send someone who has proven to be unreliable out on another assignment.

Contractor: It wasn't a quit. I never quit.

Me: Well, I don't know what your definition of 'quit' is, but you don't have to say 'I quit' to quit. You quit showing up to work. That is you demonstrating, in an obvious manner, that you will no longer be working, which is the same as quitting. You quit. I will not be considering you for any other assignments at this time.

To be fair, I'm aware that the definition of words can, over time, alter and change to mean different things. Likewise, I am aware that context can also alter meaning. Because I’m feeling clever, let’s drive this point home with the word “mean”:

A person can be mean [not nice]. You can find the mean [average] of a group of numbers. Someone could make a mean [super good] lasagna, but not if they use mean [poor or bad] ingredients.

See?!?

I may not be the most up-to-date on today's latest lingo, but as far as I am aware, 'quit' still means to stop, cease, resign, discontinue, etc. If someone has an idea of how it's not a quit when you stop showing up for work, please do enlighten me. I'm all for learning new things and tucking them away for future reference.

[Speaking of not being up-to-date on the latest lingo: I just heard the word 'yeet' the other day and still don't understand how that came to mean 'to throw'...if that's even what it means. Feel free to enlighten me on that one as well.]