August 2015, man, what a ride. I remember it clear as day, felt like a whole damn year crammed into four weeks. People always talk about “Pisces career month” or whatever, asking how things shook out. Well, for me, it was a proper kick in the teeth, but also, weirdly enough, the push I needed. I was stuck, see? Stuck in a job that was eating my soul, slowly but surely.
I was at this small design agency, a real grind house. We had this monstrous project, a rebrand for a pretty big client, nothing super exciting but it was supposed to be a solid earner. From day one, though, it felt off. The client, bless their hearts, were just… indecisive. Every meeting, it was a new direction. Every email, another set of “minor tweaks” that meant redesigning half the damn thing.
The Slow Burn of August
August rolled around, and it just kept getting worse. I was living and breathing that project. I’d walk in early, coffee in hand, trying to get ahead of the inevitable chaos. By 9 AM, the emails would start piling up. “Can we change the font again?” “Actually, we liked the old logo better, but maybe with a new twist?” It was an endless loop of making stuff, showing it, them hating it, then asking for something we’d already tried three weeks ago.
My boss, bless his cotton socks, was no help. He was a sweet guy, but just couldn’t say no. He’d nod along to whatever the client demanded, then come back to us, hands thrown up, saying, “Just make it work, guys.” So there I was, caught in the middle. The client breathing down my neck, the boss just shrugging, and my team looking at me like I had all the answers, which I absolutely did not.
I started pulling crazy hours. There were nights I’d leave the office and it was already dark, then come back before the sun was properly up. My diet consisted mostly of lukewarm coffee and whatever sad snacks I could grab from the vending machine. My weekends? What weekends? I’d spend Saturday just staring at the ceiling, dreading Sunday, which was just a prequel to Monday. My brain felt like mush. I’d try to relax, maybe watch some rubbish on TV, but all I could think about was that damn rebrand, all the moving parts, all the deadlines we were constantly missing.
Hitting the Wall
Mid-August, I hit a proper wall. We presented a set of concepts – like, the sixth set – and the client just stared at us. Blank faces. Then the main guy, he just sighs. “You know what?” he says. “This just isn’t what we envisioned.” My heart just sank. After all those late nights, all that pushing, all that trying to read their minds, it was all for nothing. We were back to square one, but worse, because now everyone was pissed off and drained.
That night, I went home and I just… stared at my computer. I typed up my resignation letter in my head about five hundred times. I thought, “This is it. I can’t do this anymore. This job is actually breaking me.” My career, which I’d always been pretty proud of, just felt like it was stuck in a really deep, dark pit. I pictured myself still there five years later, looking just as tired, just as defeated.
But then, a funny thing happened. I remembered an old friend, Sarah. We used to work together years ago. She’d mentioned months back that her company was hiring for a similar role, but in a totally different industry. At the time, I was too comfortable (or too scared) to even think about it. But that night, after the client basically told us our work was trash, something clicked. What did I have to lose?
The First Steps Out
I updated my resume that very night. It felt… empowering, actually. Like taking back a tiny bit of control. I jazzed it up, highlighted all the stuff I was proud of, not just the crap I was doing now. Then, I reached out to Sarah. Sent her a quick text, “Hey, still looking for folks over there? My August has been… eventful.” She replied almost immediately, “Always! Send me your stuff!”
The next few days were a blur. I sent off my resume to Sarah. Then, just to cast a wider net, I hit a couple of job boards. Applied for two other positions that looked interesting, just to see what would happen. It was all a bit clandestine, you know? During the day, I was still putting on a brave face, trying to salvage that goddamn rebrand project. But in the evenings, I was secretly plotting my escape.
Towards the end of August, Sarah called me. She said her boss liked my resume and wanted to meet for a quick coffee the following week. It wasn’t an interview, she said, just a chat. But man, it felt like a lifeline. A tiny glimmer of hope in a month that had been nothing but dark clouds and endless rain.
Looking Ahead
That rebrand project, by the way, it never really got finished properly. It limped along for another few weeks after August, then fizzled out with the client eventually pulling the plug, blaming everyone but themselves. But by then, I didn’t care as much. My August had been a wreck, career-wise, a complete shit show. But it was exactly what I needed to snap me out of my inertia. It pushed me to actually do something instead of just complaining about it. That coffee meeting with Sarah’s boss? It led to an interview, which led to an offer, and by October, I was out of that agency and into a completely new gig. So yeah, August 2015. Rough as hell, but wouldn’t change it for anything.
