Sometimes resigning from a job is the best you can do

2 weeks ago I resigned from the Greek basketball team I had been working for the past 14 months. Yesterday was my last day (it was a Sunday game) and I already know I made the right decision. It was time to move on.

One of the 2 owners of the team didn’t understand what my job was and clearly he wasn’t interested to find out. I have been waiting for over 6 months for the job descriptions he promised and the meetings we were supposed to have. Week after week I was promised the meeting we were supposed to have as a team and also for the individual meetings. I was waiting for 6 months (that is when the 2nd “owner” took charge of the team) to discuss my ideas and what my role and my compensation was going to be. (I write “owner” as he didn’t actually buy his way into the team or own any part of the team. He just named himself co-owner and the real owner didn’t object. Yeah, it’s complicated!)

3 months ago they decided to hire a guy to help the team with social media. I didn’t agree with what he did. His sole purpose is to solely increase the social media numbers when instead his first thought should be to sell tickets. Tickets is the main income for a basketball team after the TV rights deal and the sponsors. And a lot of mistakes were done and I disagreed with most of the choices. Don’t mind me, increasing the social media is good but you also need to make sales. If your social media following goes up and your sales go down then you are doing something wrong.

When I went to this team there was no website and all they had was a Facebook page with 8,000 likes. When I left 14 months later they had a popular website, a Facebook page with 25000+ likes and an active social media presence on Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Google+, and email marketing. And of course ticket sales were steadily improving.

Sometimes resigning from a job is the best you can do for your career and well being. I felt I was being hold down as non of my ideas were even acknowledged.

I send several emails to the owners that were completely ignored. At one point I was told that the team is a mess on purpose. That was clearly bullshit as the team is still a mess. It is easy to think that just because you have watched 10 basketball games you also know how to sell tickets or how a website and social media are run. But no. The people that came into the team only knew how to watch soccer. They didn’t know anything about basketball and didn’t really wanted to know.

2 weeks ago the co-owner was being ironic and told me that “you are killing yourself at work…”. That was after I had spent months working 14-16 hours per day, even on weekends.

Right then I decided what I was debating for more than 2 months. I resigned.

That remark came at a time that had finished creating and cleaning the newsletter database and preparing the first team newsletter.

I was also owed money (the little I was supposed to receive). Other people were owned money too, even athletes, and that is not something that helps a company or a team. After I resigned I was told that I would get my money because they HAVE TO pay me now. So if I stayed I wouldn’t have gotten my money?

Anyway I didn’t do this project for the money. It was very interesting at first but at one point it was obvious that it was not going anywhere.

It was a very interesting project for 12 months. The new direction the team took made me think that I didn’t have anything more to offer. Time to move on.

When I got there we had nothing. Nothing. No website, no email addresses, no offices, no laptops and no printers. No nothing. We built the complete online presence and the ticketing system and much more.

I made some good friends and learned a lot in just a few months. It was quite a ride. I am too tired from working day after day 14 to 16 hours per day. I only had a break last August.

I will now take a break from basketball for a few months at least and rest and spend some time with my daughter. I will seriously think if I ever want to go back working for a team… I will continue working on domain names and website development.

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I wrote the article in March 2016. Yes, that is correct. 3 years ago. Not 2 weeks ago like it says in the beginning. I just wanted to leave the original article untouched.

I didn’t post it then as I wanted to wait a bit to see if any of my feelings changed over time. Well nothing has changed on how I felt. I still believe I made the right decision. Of coursed I am still owned money from the team. That is money that 3 people in the team looked me in the eye (before and after I resigned) and told me that I will surely get. It is not a lot of money but it’s the principle of it. I really feel sorry for these people.

Since 2016 I have been involved in several other projects, both personal and for clients that have been a lot more fulfilling.