On leaving my day job

(and not yet freaking out)

I’m two weeks past leaving my day job to do full time comedy. It’s my first step outside office life since I was 19 and it is - as Aladdin would belt out - a whole new world. I never thought I’d exit a salaried life again and here’s why.

In my third year of law school, while on exchange at the University of Copenhagen, I made two goals: to work in the international refugee law sector and to get as far away from Perth as possible. All my friends could be lame and make money and get stuck in the boring day to day politics. Not me! I was off to save the world.

After graduating, I worked as an immigration lawyer. It took three years to crack an international gig. But once I got the first one, the next one rolled around, then the next. In my four years away, I worked in five countries with asylum seekers and refugees from so many different backgrounds that I lost count.

On assignment at the border of Burundi and Tanzania

I was young and idealistic when I started, stacked with confidence and soon to find out that I lacked many a practical skill. I was crestfallen to discover that saving the world would take more than myself and quite a lot of time. And that everything in the international development area operated utterly at the whim of both money and politics. I could have Googled that before leaving home, if my head wasn’t quite so busy up my own arse.

While my saving the world dream slowly came apart, I felt increasingly unmoored. It was hard to find a footing when I was half a world away from my family and old friends and my new friendships were transient. I kept meeting amazing people who would too soon be on planes to different assignments or to visit their family, friends or partners. I could count on a bed or a couch in most places around the world but no-one around the corner to hang out with every Friday night.

I started off my overseas stint in a committed, long distance relationship that in hindsight - unravelled at the same pace that I did. I didn’t thrive in the uncertainty of it all - I had so many questions about the world and the future that I didn’t know how to start answering. I stopped enjoying my job, then travel, then the company of other people. I didn’t want to make any more deep bonds with new friends that would be stretched when they - or I - got on a plane to elsewhere.

I put off coming home for as long as I could. I took so much pride in working for the United Nations - my work was my only identity and it shielded me from questions about the future. I bounced from contract to contract while my friends settled down, bought property, earned proper cash and dutifully contributed to their superannuation. In the beginning I could always say hey whatever, I’m out here saving the world.

After a decade in my chosen work space, I had one big backpack called Pumba and a head filled with interesting stories and secondary trauma. The world was actually worse than when I started. I needed a grounding, I needed to come home.

I came to Melbourne to do my Masters for a year - I can’t explain it, I fell in love with the city. It became home. You want the best of comedy, arts, sports, music, fashion, food? It’s here. Weather? Keep looking. I felt so guilty, to enjoy life so much while knowing everything that was going on out there, knowing how many people needed help. I kept telling myself, I’m just taking a little break, I’ll join my friends again soon.

I was lucky to later meet my husband in Melbourne, and that it was his home. It is sheer luck to be in a relationship where ‘home’ is the same place for both. There is a lot more time to stay still when you have the privilege of not having to board a plane to see a loved one. I found a lot of peace in staying still. After a lifetime of avoiding routine, I found out who I was when I had one. Someone I really liked when I looked in the mirror.

So, I joined the Victorian public service after I finished my Masters. It was far less exciting than my previous work but I gladly traded it for the stability of a 9-5 job and a pay check that hit my bank account every two weeks. It didn’t ask everything of me - I wasn’t overworked and under resourced and I wasn’t away from my love and my family in an always rotating community. The guilt remained but I thought, this is it, this is me for the next twenty years.

But the story changed again, as it always tends to do. I fell arse backwards onto the comedy stage and found a way to communicate all those stories from conflicts around the world. They’re often based on race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion - the five grounds on which you can claim refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention. I found a way to process the things I worked on and reach more people than any report, article or briefing I’ve ever written. The guilt abated.

I never expected it to go as far as it has. For the past five years, I’ve balanced the day job and the night job, stubbornly clinging to the stability of one and electricity of the other. But the increasing health struggles meant that I was forever running between the day job, night job and doctors appointments - something had to give. 

Health is a non negotiable and comedy makes me too happy. So by process of elimination, my day job - my beautiful lighthouse of stability these past five years, had to go. It’s a scary thing to step away from in my late 30s - because I can’t give up telling jokes?! Am I a certified moron?

My last day with the VPS

But I can’t not do it. So there, I’ve done it.

I think it’s different to the last time. My work is different - I’m making people laugh, not making people cry delivering news about the world. I’ll travel a lot again but my husband will come with me. Each time, we’ll return home to our family, our things and our community. I’m no longer unmoored. My port is in Melbourne and I’m heading out to sea for an adventure. I should insert some boat puns here but I’m not much of a punster. The word dock will always just be funny.

I braced for an anxiety spiral my first Monday morning without logging on to Teams. I woke up to a text from

Lizzy Hoo

- welcome to full time comedy, want to go watch Challengers at midday.

Yes I bloody well did. I had a grand time but the ending? Are you kidding me?

Hope all’s well where you are out there. Lets see how this goes!

Big hugs

Sashi