6 Reasons Why I Turned Down A Job Offer From A Fortune 500 Company

After two summer internships at Boeing in Seattle, upon graduating from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, I turned down a full-time job offer from Boeing. I moved home to Kauai and I now work two restaurant jobs and cleaning vacation rentals. I must sound like a complete idiot for giving up a good job after graduation that most graduating seniors would be elated to have.

1. I couldn’t commit. I wanted freedom to pick up and travel that I know that I would never. The 7– 3:30 rigid structure. The finite number of vacation hours and sick leave scared the crap out of me.
2. Most people never leave Boeing. Employees are there for life. A vast majority of the employees have been employed there their whole life and have no plans to leave.
3. Their company culture was smothering me. At times I felt like I was a character in the novel 1984. Was everyone so adamantly behind the “values” of the culture? Or were they all just pretending to stand behind the corporate propaganda.
4. Seattle was suffocating me. Its not that it is a terrible city, I knew that if I had been from there I would have loved it. However my relationship with Seattle could no longer continue. I cut the cord.
5. The weather in Seattle. I was there in the summer and heard horror stories of when the months slowly faded to winter and a cold gloom descended upon the city. I couldn’t bear to end my lifelong love affair with the sun.
6. My heart wasn’t in it; I’m not in love with airplanes. My internships taught me that I could not apply myself when there was no passion involved. Planes don’t tickle my fancy. It was never going to work. Even though most of the people in my life were telling me to take the opportunity, I just couldn’t go through with it.

There wasn’t enough of a connection to make me pick up my life in Hawaii and start a new one in Seattle.

Sometimes I feel a painful twinge, thinking of how easy my life would be working at Boeing, but then I remind myself that I could never be happy with that life. I am currently working 24/7 at two restaurants, saving money to go on an around the world trip at the end of the summer. For now, a career will have to wait.