I Quit My Job and Realised How Mad the World Really Is

Hey loves,

It’s been a little minute, but I’m back. Life’s been lifeing, from feeling dejected to over the moon, from being bored out of my mind to completely mesmerised.

Honestly I’m just a girl!

Thankfully, I’ve just come back from a beautiful holiday in Doha, and I still find myself daydreaming about it. The weather, the culture, the food, the way people carry themselves, chef’s kiss. It was much needed to unwind and enjoy myself. Best believe I’ll be going back.

Just before I flew out, I wrapped up my final year at university. Dissertation submitted. Degree completed. And I can’t lie, the feeling was indescribable. I kept staring at the screen like, wait... I actually did that? It’s giving grown. It’s giving big big achievements.  

Unfortunately, I've also been facing other mental health challenges, and it's been rough, but at least I'm here! It’s all been a lot to process. I’ve been thinking about my next steps, and not getting the role I’d been hoping, praying, and preparing for over the past few months hit me HARD. It made everything feel heavier. But I’ve learnt not to fixate so deeply on something that it becomes an idol. Because when it doesn’t work out, the disappointment cuts deeper than it should. And more importantly, your worth should never be tied to an outcome.

It felt awful. I won’t pretend it didn’t. But maybe it just wasn’t part of my story. Maybe something else is waiting for me, something I can’t see yet, but that’s already mine in the long run.

I’m not sure what it is, but I’m sitting waiting patiently for it, for when it’s the right time, it comes towards me.

But while I was inching closer to that milestone, I was also stuck in a part-time job that drained every ounce of joy from me.

My manager's leadership style created an environment that physically and mentally drained me.

I was contracted for part-time hours but they had me working overtime and even tried to rope me in right around my dissertation deadline.

Something I was only doing to earn some money and fill my time after finishing uni ended up causing me way more stress than I ever expected. Can you believe it?

I dreaded every shift they were on; I would even come home at the end of each shift and immediately send voice notes to my cousin or my friend, breaking down the nonsense of the day.

There were other individuals whose behaviour felt erratic and unkind, making it very different from professional values.

But thank God I’m out of there. I’m praying for a new work environment that actually aligns with my values going forward, because that?       

That wasn’t it.

And listen, retail? Yeah, it’s not for the weak. It’s not even just the oddball colleagues; it’s the customers, too.

Honestly, I forgot how unhinged some people can be. And that brings me to today’s blog.

Have we, as a society, lost our ability to think critically?

In short: yes.

Long answer? Let’s get into it.

Because based on what I’ve witnessed, from retail madness to the absolute state of the internet, it’s giving brain cells in decline. I’ve got examples. I’ve got thoughts. And I’ve got questions.

Let’s talk.

I’ve had customers throw full-blown tantrums because their loyalty cards weren’t working, as if I personally coded the system. Even after I calmly explained that it was something they’d need to contact customer services for. I’ve had people ask questions a toddler could answer in their sleep, and others who asked for help only to argue with the exact help they asked for.

It sounds ridiculous, but it happened more times than I can count.

What surprised me most was that some of my worst experiences came from other people of colour, particularly women. And I’ve thought about that a lot. Maybe it’s because I look young, so they assume they can talk to me anyhow. But please, I am not the one. I’ve had to respectfully clap back more than once when someone thought they could speak to me like I was stupid.

One interaction in particular stays with me - a customer spoke to me with blatant disrespect. At one point, she even had the audacity to ask, “Is everything okay [with me]?”and it made me reflect on the lack of empathy people show to those in service roles.

Anyway sha, I’ve quit retail. And I’ve promised myself I will never step back into that world again.

My patience has been stretched beyond recognition. And honestly? It’s enough. Abeg.

That said, not every interaction was negative. Some customers were genuinely lovely, and we’d even end up exchanging socials. It reminded me that kindness still exists, even if it feels rare these days.

The more I think back to these encounters, the more I start to notice a pattern. A lot of people aren’t just rude, they’re projecting. You can see it in their body language, in their tone, in the way they speak to service workers like we’re beneath them. They come in with stress they haven’t addressed, tension they haven’t released, and they offload it onto the next person who can’t fight back. It’s got nothing to do with a loyalty card or a return policy. It’s about power. Control. A lack of self-awareness.

And that’s when I realised, it’s not just that people are mean for the sake of it. It’s that a lot of adults in our society have lost the ability to think critically. To pause. To assess a situation logically. To simply ask, “Is this person the problem, or am I just projecting right now?” Instead, people respond based on impulse, not intention.

It’s honestly quite scary how few people seem to practice emotional regulation. Like the slightest inconvenience will have them spiralling, shouting, or trying to embarrass someone in public. What happened to common sense? To basic emotional intelligence? To understand that not every moment calls for a meltdown?

Working in retail was like watching the slow death of self-control in real time.

And this isn’t just about retail. It’s about how we engage with each other daily, online, in public, in relationships. A lot of us are navigating the world with big feelings and no tools. And when you combine entitlement with a lack of emotional discipline, it shows. Badly.

What’s wild is how normal this kind of behaviour has become. It’s not even shocking anymore. People walk around being rude like it’s casual conversation. And somehow, some have learnt to expect it. To brush it off. To keep it moving. But when did speaking to someone with disrespect become a default setting?

The other day, I went to get pizza with my mum, and this entitled man and his partner were being unbelievably rude to the staff. No basic manners, no patience, just attitude, all because they didn’t want to wait a few extra minutes for their food.

What made it worse was that it was a Black man moving like that. It left me thinking: is this really how your mother raised you? 

Even his partner stood silently, which was equally shocking.

It was behaviour rooted in entitlement and lack of awareness - sadly something that occurs way too often and it needs to stop.

And it’s not just in real life. Go online for five minutes and you’ll see it everywhere. On TikTok, in the comments, even on Twitter. People are quick to jump in, quicker to misunderstand, and even quicker to perform outrage like it’s a full-time job. No one’s sitting with things anymore. There’s barely space for reflection, for nuance, for…common sense.

What makes it even madder is that so many of the people acting like this are adults. Grown. Proper grown. Paying bills and raising children grown. But lacking basic emotional maturity. And that’s the thing, emotional maturity has nothing to do with age. It’s about how you handle yourself when things don’t go your way. Whether you can pause before reacting. Whether you can ask yourself, is this really about them… or is it actually about me?

There’s a difference between reacting and responding, and a lot of people haven’t clocked it. They hear something they don’t like and that’s it, voice raised, eyes rolling, and the next person gets it full blast. There’s no pause. No thought. No filter. Just heat.

And to be fair, life is stressful. People are carrying a lot. But stress is not an excuse to treat others badly. It’s not a personality trait. It’s a sign that something inside you needs attention. And if you don’t address it, it spills out. You start projecting, snapping, and misdirecting your emotions at whoever happens to be nearby.

Because this isn’t just about being nice. It’s about being present. Being aware. Being considerate. And at the heart of it all, there’s a deeper question that’s been sitting with me: Have we really lost the ability to think critically? Or are we just too overstimulated, too reactive, and too drained to even try?

Let’s talk about the fine art of figuring stuff out on your own. Honestly, some of the laziness I’ve witnessed from customers is next level. People asking me or my colleagues for help with things they could easily Google or just… look at. We’ve all been there, but me? I like to take the initiative. Plus, being shy, I usually try to solve it myself before waving the white flag.

Like this one time: a lady asked me for a product upstairs while we were still on the ground floor. I pointed her in the right direction, and she asked me how to get upstairs. Uh… escalators. Right. At. The. Entrance. Or customers who barely step inside the shop and go, “Where’s this?” while flashing a blurry pic of an item that displays EXACTLY where it's sold.

Come on, guys. Can we please put on our thinking caps once in a while? Or do people really expect retail workers to be mind readers?

Maybe common sense isn’t dying. Maybe we’re just ignoring it on purpose...