The offer was real. The resignation letter was written, saved, ready. I had a submit date picked. This wasn't a fantasy or a maybe — I was going. Mentally I'd already left.
Then, two days out, my manager's father landed in the hospital. And I couldn't do it. Couldn't be the extra weight dropped on him during that. So I closed the letter and stayed, and told myself it was decency, which it partly was.
Nobody on my team knows any of this. They have no clue how close the whole thing came to falling apart, how one hospital admission is the only reason I'm still at this desk.
And some days — I won't pretend otherwise — I regret staying more than I'd ever admit to anyone here. The guilt kept me. I'm still not sure the guilt was right.