"If you love your job, do it all?" My anger at being forced to accept that everything is "expected" at a toxic company

Back when I worked at a toxic company

I still remember the morning I jumped into the furniture industry.
My fingers, tying the laces of my new sneakers, were trembling slightly.
“I want to design furniture I love and improve people's lives” — that wish was shining right in the center of my chest.

The name tag of my dreams and the cargo of reality

I was assigned to design. I was supposed to draw blueprints in CAD and breathe life into shapes.
But in the first week, the work started piling up under my name tag.
Sales assistant, loading work, clerical tasks, customer service in the store, serving tea.
“Where did the designer go?”
Every time I muttered that in my heart, I would smile and say, “Yes, I'll do it,” out loud.

Start time 9:00, arrival 8:30. Sometimes 6:00

On days with nothing special, arriving at 8:30 was the “unspoken rule.”
If there was loading or delivery, we met at 6:00. In the dim warehouse, the smell of cardboard dust stung my nose, and my palms throbbed from the corners of the boxes.
The official end time was 18:00. But the president's store didn't close until 19:00.
From there, work would expand as if that was the “real start,” and the clock would tick to 20:00, 21:00, 22:00, 23:00.
I would get home and sit on the floor while listening to the sound of the shower. I couldn't find the energy to stand up anywhere.
I wanted to cry, but I didn't even have the physical strength to shed tears.

My workload increases with “Just do this”

“Make a company website.”
“Set up an online shop, too.”
Without even a gap to say I had never done it before, the to-do list kept growing.
Weekends and holidays were spent on-site for festivals and events. My only Sunday was disappearing.
I gathered my courage and asked my boss for a compensatory day off.
What came back were cold eyes and short words.

The words shattered in the back of my throat.
My hands trembled with anger. I felt pathetic and my stomach tightened.
“Why? — That’s what I want to ask you right now.”
On the nights I screamed only in my heart, my pillow would get damp.

The days without even a small “thank you”

Blueprint revisions until late at night. Loading first thing in the morning. Customer service during the day. Clerical work in between.
If there had been a single word of “Thanks for your help,” I might have been able to recover.
But my efforts were absorbed into the “expected,” and nothing remained.
All that was left on the calendar were the circles for “work” filled in with a black pen.
My days off had become the company's property.

“I can endure it because I love it” was a curse

I wanted to do furniture design.
That feeling was true.
That’s why I could push myself. Even when my body and mind went beyond their limits, I could keep running.
“Since I got the job I love, endurance is expected.”
That excuse eventually turned into “numbness.”
The things I loved started to look gray.
Every time a line was added to a blueprint, a line inside me cracked.

The day I cried over my shoelaces in the morning

One Sunday morning, at the entrance as I was heading to meet for a festival, I crouched down.
I couldn't tie my sneaker laces. My fingers wouldn't listen to me.
My chest was pounding like a drum, and I could only take shallow breaths.
“I have to go,” “But I can't,” “I have to go,” “I don't want to anymore.”
The same words collided in my head, and it hurt.
That was when I finally realized.
—I have reached my limit.

My anger was a signal to protect myself

The day I fell silent when asked “Why?”, I made anger the villain.
But in reality, anger was an SOS.
It was the only siren that told me my “boundaries” were being crossed.
I was the one who stopped that siren.
“Because I love it,” “Because I'm young,” “Because they have expectations of me.”
I overwrote it with those words and pretended not to hear it.

To you who have come this far anyway

If your mornings are heavy right now and you are standing still in front of your shoelaces.
You can graduate from enduring in silence.
Your anger, your regret, and your tears are all proof that you are “alive.”
That is not being selfish. It is a legitimate emotion for redrawing your boundaries.

If something stirred in your heart while reading this far, I want you to take the next small step.
"What are you angry about?" "Where does it hurt?" "What do you want to protect?"—put these into words and let them out.
I am leaving a notebook here to serve as the gateway for that.

👉 To you, who are at your limit... and can't stop thinking, "I want to quit my job"
https://note.com/kaokaotaka/n/na0a2d0a73393