Taking my time

Cause you took everything from me

I don’t know if I’m going to survive finishing Kristi Coulter’s Exit Interview. I made the mistake of reading in the evening yesterday (but not right before bed!) and still woke up with a jolt at 4am, ANGRY. Which called me back to chapter 16 titled “Inferior Alien Brain” where she rationalizes her anger to be any number of other feelings and thoughts because women aren’t allowed to be straight up angry in this culture. I made the mistake/had the pleasure of re-reading this chapter last night because it is SO relatable.

Clearly this is a morning reading book ONLY. And I will read one of my soothing minimalist lifestyle books before bed instead, so I can have clean, uninterrupted sleep filled with empty counters and shelves.

I quit my job 4 months ago. I don’t miss it, except for the regular paycheck. While we’re talking about anger, I thought I’d explain why I quit a “perfectly good”, fully remote, well-paying Big Tech job “in *this* economy”. Yes, tech companies are laying people off in droves. Yes, if I were to look for a job today I might not be able to find one quickly. But the anger was consuming me and I was just DONE.

Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash

1. We needed more parent bandwidth at home. This is what I told my team when I quit, and this is actually true. In August 2023 we decided to homeschool our 11yo, to specifically work on her executive function skills to get her ready for the increased expectations of the school we’d like her to attend for 7th-12th grade. But the transition was rough - she needed a lot more handholding than we expected because we were only thinking of the END of T’s homeschool period, where she was fully independent and we would only see her at lunch. We forgot it took literal YEARS to get there.
   
   The other thing was the lament of all 2 parent working families everywhere. We were splitting things like (so much) driving, attending school meetings and events, etc. and felt like we were doing a bad job at everything and could only half-focus on both our jobs and our parenting. Having one parent focus on most of this stuff would allow the remaining working parent focus on work a little better.

2. I was ready to quit, unrelated to parenting. I took a leave of absence in February 2023 for 6 weeks so I would not rage-quit. My excellent therapist suggested it to me because I never would have considered it. LOAs are for people on the edge barely functioning, right? I was holding it together fine, I just hated my job and was angry at everything. (Also PS that anger was also grief from losing my dad, and then later in 2023 our dog and my 20-year coworker/friend.)
   
   I had been frustrated at work for a while, stuck owning a compliance project where I had explicitly been told I would never get promoted while “only doing that”, despite it being a full-time job. However, all attempts to transition this item to someone else failed. It only happened 5 days before my leave because they had to have *someone* covering it while I was gone. 15 months y’all, from that first conversation.
   
   Our org was filled with toxic positivity, which was especially stark during the pandemic when we were literally afraid to leave our homes, and we’d get messages of “be grateful to have a job” and “just put your heads down and do good work”. I mean yes, the pandemic was incredibly hard on other industries and MANY people lost jobs and homes. I was never not-grateful. But to be told that by managers and VPs making several times what I do, to get us to work harder? Tone-deaf. That message continued through the post-pandemic layoffs as well, when they were delivering the message of no raises despite great company results. It’s a bad look.

   Add to that the mythical promotion. This is a theme in Coulter’s book too, and I will write a whole post on that. But the carrot, it was dangled for years. It took me 15 years to get my last promotion, which is NUTS for someone who never even got a mediocre performance review.
   
   This is not a new story, and why Coulter’s book shook me. So many women and probably some men too, have the same tales. I realized I was just DONE with <company name redacted> bullshit. I was able to make it through most of the vesting on my huge on-hire stock grant to get us through my time off, but abandoned the last one because I just COULD NOT anymore, after getting my 3rd manager (also brand new to management) in 4 years at the same job. Sorry, no.

   
   Meridian suggested Friday, October 13 as a great last day and I took it. As soon as I delivered the news I felt relief. And since then I have felt a calm I haven’t had, ever, as a working adult. I know this is a choice of privilege. I do eventually need to go back to work because college tuition for 2 kids isn’t getting any cheaper. But now I know my boundaries.