Tag Archives: career

Career

The Roads You Didn’t Take

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There’s a part of me that still believes I have a big career in me. I could return to school for an executive MBA and find my voice and confidence to move up quickly on a high-potential path from junior executive to C-suite.

With my astute decision making leading to unprecedented revenue growth I’d no longer have to apply to jobs — jobs would apply to me. And 10 years later I’d look back at the last decade not as a smorgasbord of fake-it-till-you-make-it and no substantial work meriting pride but a full narrative around doing a whole bunch of great things. Maybe I’d be in one of those lists… despite no longer being young enough to make it into a 40 under 40. Perhaps a 50 under 50 but over 40. A 6 shy of 60. The one to watch. The one whose career is worth at least a couple of articles in respected trade publications.

Or – I quit the workforce entirely to write full time. A novel. A memoir. A TV series. A film or play or interactive art piece titled “pretentious” because it obviously is.  I create a storyline and cast and direct and edit something that goes on the internet and goes viral. Because everyone goes viral these days so why not me? I do something unique enough to capture some audience that wants more.

Or… I hand in my resignation and live off savings, moving to some town no one has heard of to live a life that won’t ever be heard of either. As a mom. Driving my kids to practices and classes and field trips. Volunteering at the school because there’s so much free time and I ought to use it doing something useful. 10 years of that.

Or none of these, more likely, just a schmuck doing some job half-ass not because I want to but because that’s all I’m genuinely capable of. Working for sociopathic leaders who at best are fake kind when you serve their visions well and at worst make you feel like shit until you land in a mental institution or die, whichever comes first.

There are so many roads and yet most of them seem so far away. Their starting point is a huge death defying leap across a chasm of diamond-tipped spikes just waiting to gut me alive. So I stay safely on the other side despite this wall behind me speeding up from a distance, clearly ready to nudge me off the ledge with no more space for a respectable momentum-building leap. So I wait until I fall violently to the end or I run and jump and try to make it across with my legs swirling at full speed in the air, like some long jumper who actually knows what the hell she’s doing — or perhaps not as gracefully but somehow I make it across, ready to take on the other side.

I don’t know and I’ll never know which is why I seem to just be waiting to be pushed off. Most people are here with me. Who says the other side is any better?

Career

Seven Recruiter Calls But I’m Not Interested

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The recruiter calls all go the same. Some company has some technology and then need someone on the business side to do XYZ for it. It’s a numbers game and at some point someone would believe I can fill the role they need (aka making magic) and I’d be hired. I’m told comp ranges $200k-$250k+, base. Don’t let that scare me away, they’re open to more for the right candidate.

The numbers are meaningless if I get hired and fired three months later, so I’m wary. After 15 minutes with a recruiter grilling me about my experience so hard I almost said clearly I’m not right for this role and hung up, she a second later said ‘you seem like a really good fit for this role’ (what?) and maybe I’ll speak with the founders soon. Ok. I don’t feel like I’m a good fit for the role, but a conversation can’t hurt…. or can it? Isn’t that what got me here, as in to this point in my career, in the first place?

I’ve said for a long time that this specific field I’m in isn’t right for me but it’s just so freaking clear I can see through it without noticing its there. It’s soul draining and yes it pays well especially in certain levels and companies but I just can’t do this anymore. I daydream of waking up excited about building something helpful in some way. But then again do I even have the energy for that.

I have the energy for nothing. Not even my typical long blog posts. Just this. A running log of where I’ll never be which is where I guess it is I am. Here. Still here. Always here.

Career

Where on earth do I go next?

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A short post, not so sweet, but short nonetheless.

I’m really struggling in figuring out where I realistically go next.

It does feel the time has come to move on in the coming months here…

But I’m looking at a $250k income next year, if I stay give or take. That’s a big “if” — because with a new boss that’s unlikely anyway. Even if I do my absolute best and never make a mistake.

That said… other roles out there just won’t pay as much. And they’ll probably throw some stock at me just to make it worth staying. But I know I need to get out for my mental health. There’s just — no where to go? I’m too senior for junior roles and too junior for senior roles. I am feeling really down about my prospects right now. I know it’s a job seekers market but the job postings out there really sting. I don’t want to go to a small startup unless I’m taking on a very senior time-consuming role and I don’t have the energy or time for that right now. But I don’t have the foggiest how to get into a legit large company with my background.

Feeling pretty darned hopeless. Grateful to have my job but hate the feeling of being so stuck. Maybe I could find a job for like $120k but is that really what I want? Is that really better than what I have now?

Career

Just Over 100 Days Until TBD Life

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For everything there is a season. And life constantly changes even if you try by lack of effort or relentless force to keep it all standing still. My fears compel me both to action and inaction, but things are in constant motion around me. My children are growing up a little each day. Work, in the great resignation with a tinge of additional leadership sociopathy, is hemorrhaging talent. And I’m leaning more into leaning out while leaning sideways in still looking for what the hell it is that might make me feel like I have purpose again. In no particular order.

I recently found out, through probably the wrong channels, that a key person in my org is leaving the company. I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m hurt by not finding out directly from this person. It just shows again how little I matter in this organization — and how others have managed to move up and gain prominence as I’ve fallen. I’m not jealous or even bitter anymore. Just questioning if I can ever function in a place like this. How can I go somewhere else and be them and move upwards instead of down? Is that even possible? I mean, after a series of wins and not rocking the boat I failed on some very basic task requiring follow through on booking a space with someone who told me they would do it and never did. So I’m ashamed about that and back to questioning my abilities and where I can actually be successful when my mind is extra mush as parent to two including one with ‘special needs’ and my own special needs and my own needs to be special.

I’ve updated my LinkedIn. Again. For like, the 90th time this year. My last updated was a mass deletion of all the details under each job description because reading it late one night it itched me with all its horrific bullshittery. I revisited it and inputed words that aren’t bothering me much now and turned on “open to new opportunities from recruiters” because right now I’m on that 100 day stretch and given I’m knee-deep in high-profile projects and the key lead in my department has decided to walk — and I was told by the head of my department I’m “definitely not a 2/5” this year (which I think was supposed to be a compliment as well as some sort of assurance that I’m valued still?) I’m less concerned about getting let go in the near future. I’m more concerned about jumping too soon to the wrong thing or just staying because I’m too scared to let go of my solid 3/5 lifestyle that’s stressful but a known evil vs walking into something totally new and that grass might be dry dirt but the time I get to it.

But seeing this person leave the company is a solid reminder that things are just upside down here and it’s not just me even though just me is an issue as well. The level of sexism and sociopathy is higher than I realized early on and those in executive roles feel it most. I don’t know what is said behind closed doors but if my limited interaction with said leaders is any sign of it then it’s real bad. Impossible expectations paired with questionable judgement means that even the most capable must resolve to lower themselves to be clearly submissive yet is paired with a lacking of respect for anyone who happens to be female especially in a non technical role. It’s pretty upsetting to the point that I see even if I never had my own challenges with project management and communication I still would be looking for an escape hatch.

The leaving of this member of the team is a lot process. I’ve been held back in many ways due to this person but I don’t blame them for the decisions they’ve made to not provide support. But I also don’t think they ever really understood or valued what I bring to the table and in some ways purposely kept me out of projects where I could have added value because they don’t like me personally. I feel like this person really had a clear set of objectives for what to accomplish in this role and I do hope they’ve accomplished everything they set out to do. I get a sense that leaving was not a given but the torture of being constantly berated despite barely sleeping and working constantly with pretty much no vacation for many years straight–and not being able to keep the best members on a team because they quickly see how dysfunctional this place is — finally was too much.

But I fucked up my relationship with this person time and again to the point that it is irreparable so if I do decide to stay at this org getting a clean slate with someone new also changes my own trajectory a bit. I’m mildly hurt that I’m in the dark on all this while my colleague who stepped into my former role is interviewing potential replacements for this person, but I’m trying to not take it personally. Only factually as another proof point that I really don’t matter here and I never will. The head of the department is clearly concerned about hemorrhaging people so suddenly he has told me that I’m a valued member of the team and will be considered for refresh etc, but to me it’s just too little too late, and knowing what I know now about what’s actually going down (I didn’t have the context when we met earlier this week) I just feel like my time at this org is worth nothing and I’m living in my box with no opportunity for growth. I asked about managing a team and was pretty clearly told that’s not going to happen so that’s that. Of course I can’t actually get a role where I lead a team without team lead experience so who knows if I’ll ever make that transition. And all the jobs that pay decently outside of this one still seem to require team leadership experience. So I’m still feeling stuck. But I’m starting to transition to applying elsewhere. I’ll start having some conversations. I’ll see if anyone is interested in me. Get a sense for what I’m worth since I still feel so worthless. And who knows what next year holds but I do feel ready for a change. I guess. Not rushing out the door but certainly all my toes on one entire foot are wiggling freely on the other side.

 

 

Aging, Anxiety, Career, Depression, Married Life, Mental Illness

So Long 37.

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37. You’ve been… a year. Saying goodbye to 37 seems like closing the doors on an era. An era of grasping on to the last remnants of my fleeting youth that in actuality was gone long ago. I don’t know what it is about “38” because it’s still squarely in one’s 30s, but it feels so close to 40 it might as well be. And my husband is turning 40 early next year, so I feel whoever gets there first ages both partners in a marriage to the next official decade of life.

The last few years of my 30s may or may not include one more child, but I’m really torn on that for so many reasons. More on that in a bit. It likely will include changing jobs, because this one is getting worse and worse by the day and the compensation next year no longer makes it worth while to stay. I just feel like no matter what I do I am not capable of doing a good job in this role. I’m not sure where I am capable of doing a good job but it’s certainly not here. I’m not getting fired so I’m clearly not doing the worst job possible. I try my best and it seems that my work ethic and positive attitude keeps me gainfully employed. But I’m fucking tired. Tired of the craziness that is my job where I can’t focus on any projects because I’m constantly thrown new things that take a lot of time and won’t actually help the business improve but are just pet projects from leadership. Did I mention I’m tired? Like, emotionally, mentally, physically drained.

And it’s not just because I have an almost-one-year-old and a 3 year old going on 13.

… So. I was gung ho about the 3rd kid thing with wanting a girl and then lately I’m just feeling like maybe that’s asking for things to go really bad. What if I die in childbirth? What if IVF gives me cancer? What if I have a girl and she hates me from the moment she slips out of my womb?

Possible.

But also, logistically, I’m not sure I can handle 3 kids. Now that my youngest is becoming a little human with his own needs and my oldest is his own growing mind person monster I want time to spend with both of them, together, and alone, as well as time to spend alone and alone and alone with my husband and so far I haven’t been good at any of these variables. I’m not thriving at work. I’m not thriving at home. I’m not thriving at anything. Except maybe gaining weight from binging on carbs to fill this pit of fear and confusion I feel at any given time.

Well at least I’m not fucking manic at the moment. So there’s that.

I sink deep into the sheets of the bed below me and wonder all sorts of things and don’t know the answer to any of them. I worry about my son who can’t handle noise and puts his hands over his ears when anything hums or buzzes and I wonder will he outgrow that or if not how does he handle living in a world that is made for people who are able to tune it all out? I worry about my younger child who is growing up with less attention than my first, who is being shoved by my 3 year old at times, and all the conflicting parenting advice on how to handle sibling conflict (while also being committed to ensuring he doesn’t get seriously hurt.)

I don’t know anymore. I feel old and like I’ve managed to do a lot in my life leading up to 38 and yet not enough at all. Like at 38 one should be VP or at least have some serious skills they are confident about and able to go into a job interview and be like “I’m the shit and if you don’t want to hire me I don’t care.” But what would I even say in a job interview? I babble. What do I know? I know how to serve the needs of sociopathic executives who are convinced they have the most brilliant ideas. I feel like this is not a worthwhile skill and even if it is, it’s not one I particularly want to be known for. I can’t. Do. This. For. Much. Longer.

I did one project the head of my department liked but he asked for some changes then the head of my team gave me feedback and I made changes and she really liked what I had written (even though I knew it wasn’t actually good so no hard feelings there) and then the head of the department was like WTF is this and clearly was not happy with the changes and so now I’m scrambling to put something together they both like at the last minute when I’m supposed to be on vacation. Luckily this vacation = sitting at my mom’s house and trying to pack up my childhood home so I have some flexibility but still — I really needed the mental break. My plan was to take 2 weeks off but I thought if I got 1 then that would be something. But here I am still working and I don’t know when it will stop. I’ll get Thurs and Friday off because everyone does but then I’m back.

Hey, at least when I’m back it’s December. I’m 38, ok, that sucks, but better than not making it to 38, and it’s also the final countdown to my final vest and final significant employe stock purchase plan purchase and bonus and 401k match and then I can leave whenever I have the energy to do so and find something better. It’s all finally here. It’s not a life-changing amount but it’s the end of what I committed in my brain to stay for and here I am and there… I have 117 days until I really have no significant reason to stay. They will go by fairly quickly I think. I have a lot to do. Even if I fail at the things I’m doing I don’t think anyone will realize it until well into those 117 days as long as I’m trying. Which I will be. I never stop trying. Trying isn’t exactly getting me anywhere though.

Curious what my performance review will say. In past years I wrote these long self reviews trying to highlight everything half decent I did over the year. This year I just threw together a few bullets. I have a different boss this year so maybe he won’t notice but I realize what I write doesn’t actually matter and I don’t deserve a great review. I’m either a 3/5 because I’m good enough to keep but not good enough to try to keep, or a 2/5 because I pissed a few people off over the year by missing deadlines or not communicating well or both (been there, done that, don’t think I did it this year but who knows.) I’m pretty sure a 4/5 is impossible for my role and abilities and a 1/5 I’d be fired already and a 5/5 isn’t real so… yea… I’ll be surprised if I don’t get the 3/5 but maybe I sucked more than I know over the year and I’ll hear all about it in January when reviews come out. I got a pretty sizable bonus when I got a 2/5 last year somehow so I’m thinking I’ll probably get a bonus again this year… and then… I don’t know. I really don’t know.

I wish my husband would be the type of guy who said “wow you’re clearly miserable and I want to do something that will make you happy — do you want to take some time off work? Maybe we should consider moving out of a HCOL area for a while and see how that goes so you don’t have to work so much? Or maybe we stay here but I apply to jobs that pay enough where you can work part time?”

He’d never say any of that. And I don’t know how I would react if he did. But wouldn’t it be lovely to have a husband who would be willing to put himself out there, do something that makes him a bit uncomfortable, to try to help his wife out a bit? Am I asking for too much? I mean, yea, I know who I married. And I don’t expect him to be CEO or anything but there are a few reasonable options at this point that would allow me to be maybe slightly less miserable and I don’t think he’d be willing to entertain any of them. So it’s up to me as always. I think a new job could help, but I don’t know how I can be successful in any job since I’m not actually good at anything. I just want to sleep and exercise and try to eat healthy and take some time to recover from the last four years of being beaten down so much (not to mention having two babies.)

Anyway, I guess this is what it’s like to be almost 38. And then to be 38 en route to 39 and then 40. And maybe one more baby. Or maybe no more babies. And hopefully enough money to pay the mortgage and the bills. At least. And watching my investments crash and being sad about how as a normal human the only way to get ahead and beat inflation is to invest yet that’s so risky even though it’s supposedly not that risky as long as you’re diversified and don’t need the money for years but who knows what the future holds so yea it’s all a gamble and it feels pretty shitty to have to gamble what you’ve earned in order to have a shot at a half decent future.

And that’s for someone who is privileged enough to even have that option… I’m aware so few are.

So here I am. Well. Hello 38. Nice to meet you, I guess.

ADHD, Adulting, Career, FIRE, Mental Illness, Parenting & Motherhood

When is There Time for Enjoying Life?

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Another Saturday. Another October. Another fall. Wasn’t it just two years ago when I was going absolutely batshit in the middle of an undiagnosed mania, which was enjoyable only during a week in London when I wandered around and manically documented fall leaves against cobblestone on Insta? And mostly un-enjoyable when I was thrust into this alter-ego self who isn’t particularly acceptable by any standards of normal socialization. And now, back into fall, two years later, a world later, a pandemic still pandemic-ing later, an infant to toddler to pre-k’er and a new baby who is about to be a toddler later, $1.5M in net worth later, a house purchase and a health scare and a clean MRI later, here I am,  new place, same place, trying to be grateful for everything because I know nothing lasts forever, and failing miserably at embracing gratitude over guilt and grievances. So, same old, or same new.

Fall is a monster of melancholy. Autumn air exhausts exhaustion. I could easily lie in my bed for the following months and not notice how long I’ve been in hibernation despite how mild west coast’s seasonal changes are.

The truth is I’m incredibly overwhelmed, behind, and unable to figure out how to get any of my Iife in order. Having ADHD with a heaping of perfectionism makes it extra hard. My house is chaos. I’m trying, despite not sleeping much last night, to muster up the energy to clean it. Organize it. Ok, so it won’t be a home as in a home that I want to live in, without a private bedroom and instead a living situation I should have never agreed to but let my frugal house-hacking hat take charge in a decision I can’t go back on. It’s not the worst case. It’s a house. We own it. I don’t like being a home owner. I knew I’d be bad at it given I wasn’t the best at maintaining a one bedroom apartment. But there’s still something good about owning. Not financially good. It just feels like a real accomplishment. I haven’t had any accomplishments. None that felt worthy of being called an accomplishment, anyway. I guess graduating college is an accomplishment. Getting a job is an accomplishment. But they never really felt like much of anything to be proud of. Everything was barely completed. A failure in the making. Maybe home ownership is too. But I feel really good about buying a home for my kid’s to live in. I don’t think it makes any sense but it feels good to own a house. I know plenty of parents don’t own and it’s fine to raise kids in apartments but for me that would be rough to accept. I blame growing up with a mother who frequently mentioned the kids in “the apartments” as being poor and thus bad somehow. Not that I believe that now. But still part of me felt like buying a house made it ok for me to have kids. Saving enough to afford them, whatever that means.

But now I have a house. And savings. Nonetheless, I feel incredibly behind. And every moment I feel like I might be getting ahead life plays a joke on me. Like just now. I put my wash up and was just admiring how nice my laundry room floor looks like without the huge pile of clothes on it. And then a big “bang” shakes the ground and my eyes question what they just saw as a giant container of Woolite my husband placed on top of the washer apparently leapt to its death, with the lid flailing off of it and spilling soap all over the remaining pile of clothes and the chord to the Swiffer. Nothing unmanageable as one thing, but life feels like a big pile up of a cluster where you take 2 steps ahead and 3 steps back.

I wanted to be a full time mom on the weekends, with the in-laws NOT taking care of my children, and yet here I am again, 11am, in-laws watching the kids as I attempt to clean up. I’m always cleaning up but never getting anything clean. I also am so tired. I stayed up late catching up on work because the only time I can focus on work is when my son is asleep on me from 9-1am. Which is when I should also be sleeping. I’m still far behind on work. Luckily my actual work requires about 20 hours a week to manage at this point, it’s just the issue of finding uninterrupted time.  I’d give anything for 6 hours straight with no distractions. But that’s impossible since I either have to feed my son or pump. And yes, I can stop breastfeeding at any time but I’m not willing to sacrifice that for work. There are some things I won’t sacrifice and that’s one of them.

(loud thud on cue. Another bottle leaps from the top of my washing machine. This one seems to at least have its cover on tight and no spillage is observed.)

I keep thinking if only I can just get my life together. Just get my house in order. Get caught up at work. Make lists of everything I have to do. Go through the list. At some point. At some point I’ll be able to breathe this breath of fresh air and spend time with my kids in a way that feels relaxing. I will be able to make the case that my in-laws (especially my FIL who lives with us) should stay in his apartment/room on the weekends so I can be a g-d darn mom. That doesn’t mean spending every second with my kids, they should have some boring down time too. I had plenty of that as a kid. I really don’t like that grandpa is with my son from 9-4:30 straight every day.. I’m glad my son started preschool but that’s only 2.5 hours 2 days a week. And I feel like a failure not being a mom right now. Yes I’m writing this blog post. As a break from cleaning. And now a break from cleaning up the spill of soap on the laundry room floor. Before I need to feed my baby around noon, probably, then breastfeed at 1 and put him down for his nap (he’ll only sleep on me or dad and dad is working today so that means I’m stuck in bed from 1-3 or grandma takes him and he doesn’t sleep.)

There is this overwhelming feeling/acceptance at this point that I’ll never actually be able to live the life I want so why the fuck try anymore. That is what led to this idea to quit work in August. I know I’d be ok for a few months without an income but I’m really scared I won’t be able to find something else or if I do that the job will require even more work and less time with my kids. For all the things I don’t like about my current job it really is super flexible while I can work from home (not sure when I have to go back but eventually) and I shouldn’t given this up, even if my income goes down year after year because I’ve been demoted without a pay decrease but I won’t actually get any stock refreshes so there is no way my income will keep up unless I go to a new company. I don’t have the energy to go to a new company. I can barely keep my eyes open.

I wonder if there’s a way to get my life anywhere near where I want it to be. I ponder hiring a cleaning service for the house, then find out cleaning services will cost $350 to come for a one time cleaning and $200+ a month and it seems like I should just learn how to clean my home.

(Another bottle flails off the top of the washer with a loud clunk. Not joking.)

I just want a kitchen table. A non plastic-folding kitchen table. A bedroom with a door. Grout in the kitchen that isn’t brown when it’s supposed to be beige. A refrigerator that holds more food. Sheets that aren’t navy with an olive green comforter my husband bought years ago for camping. A backyard that doesn’t have an accidental tree growing against the wall of my home and breaking the foundation. And trees that aren’t in various stages of dying that need to get looked at for another few thousand dollars.

It’s funny because the more money I have the more I get anxious about it. In investments it doesn’t feel real. But I just know that I need it there as a safety net. I mean, if I were to have $10M I could never work again because it’s impossible for me to spend more than $400k per year if I knew that was something I’d have forever. Not that I need $10M before FIRE, but just saying where I’m at now is not FIRE for me.

A friend I met on a social site for moms in the technology world told me she got hired at a company and will be making 500k a year, and her husband is promoted to a job making 400k a year. They will be making 900k+ a year for the rest of their careers and probably much more as they continue to get promoted. How do I compete with that? I don’t have to compete with THAT but that’s what people are earning here in the Bay Area. Or one-worker families with engineers making like $600k or more. In my current company had I not fucked up I could have been on the high-earner trajectory. I even magically experienced it for a few years (I’ll be making about $600k this year with my stock earnings.) But that’s not forever. That’s not even next year. So just quitting doesn’t seem to be the right answer either. Do I try to convince a FAANG to hire me (they won’t) or do I go back to school or do I give up and convince my husband to move to anywhere else we can buy a house and not have a mortgage so high and where I can actually be awake to see my children on occasion. I don’t know.

I feel really sad is all I know. I should keep cleaning and I probably will. I need to get that soap off the floor. My husband is busy with a project he took on to earn $5k extra a year. That’s good for him. I always complain that he doesn’t take on any extra clients so I should be incredibly supportive. But then I wonder in the extra $5k worth it… $2.5k after tax. For all the work he puts into this project. Especially three days when he needs to be available full time and works into the night. I don’t know. Money is so weird. I know we have more than most people in the country but I’m in this weird bubble of Silicon Valley where money doesn’t make sense.

And I’m just. So. Tired.

 

Career Change

How Long Can I (Should I) Keep This Job If They’ll Keep Me?

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Four years ago, I joined a much smaller company in a role that didn’t have a job description. The total expected compensation was more than I had ever made and I threw myself head first into the excitement of the new opportunity. The energy at the company was great then. Some people were clearly not top performers, but everyone joked a lot together and got along. It wasn’t a well-oiled machine yet in my department, but it was getting there.

A few months later a number of those fun, joking people were shown the door and others who joked in the corporate-appropriate way were let in to take their seats. I managed to come in with the new wave, despite not fitting with the rest of the group, and I flailed through the following years putting out a few good projects and being pregnant, twice (my best projects of all), enabling me to somehow still be gainfully employed to this day, despite plenty of reasons for me not to be.

Covid turned everything upside down and I also owe my current employment to the pandemic. Being able to work remote, heads down, and hide my awkwardness much more efficiently helped a lot. So here I am. Just months away from achieving my initial goal of surviving through my first vesting cycle. It’s a huge win. My net worth growth in the past 4 years has been strong due both to my existing investments and my stock in this company that has proven itself a rocketship.

So now the question is — when do I leave? If I have that choice, anyway. My ego is tore up all sides of Sunday (is that a saying? If it’s not it should be) but maybe that’s fine. I’m not getting any raises or stock refreshes or promotions — EVER — at this company — but does that matter? So what if they’re showing me the door. I can say “see the door, not going to go through it yet, you’re going to have to shove me through it.” And maybe they won’t shove me. Maybe they don’t care enough to do so, especially if I’m getting my basic work done and not causing anyone harm.

Looking ahead to next year, assuming I manage to last at least through April 1, when I plan to likely be heading out that door… I can stick around another year and it would be pretty darn lucrative and probably a decent situation for me as long as I don’t have to go back to the office. Going back to the office is likely a requirement if I want to have any sort of career growth in this company but as I’ve already covered that’s not really possible anyway so the best I can do is focus on getting my projects done, communicating effectively, and hiding as much as possible.

What I don’t want to do is get fired. And it’s hard to not get fired when I’m this bitter. When I see where I thought I’d be and where I feel I have things to contribute being handed to my peer (who happens to be a friend now but still.) A peer who was supposed to report to me when I went out on maternity leave, who was hired to fill in for me when I was having a baby, then who went on to surpass me in so many ways. These things happen but it still hurts. It hurts that he is the go-to trusted ear for my former boss, who I respect a lot, and she prefers to have nothing to do with me these days. I get it, I understand it, but it sucks nonetheless.

My new-ish boss, well things are awkward with him. I’m sure they got more awkward the second he saw how much I’m making. It was weird going from peer to report knowing he likely was making – a lot – less and then having him see how much I was taking home just – well it didn’t really set up our new relationship for success. He hasn’t been an asshole about it but I’m sure he would fire me in heartbeat if I slip up. Luckily I have a few high visibility projects no one else wants that I’ve historically managed well so I keep doing that and maybe… I’m ok? As long as I want to be.

I’m committed to. seriously applying come February. If I can get a better job that pays >$250k with base >$200 I think I need to leave. But it’s all sorts of questionable if I can do that. I’ve had 5 quick rejections from roles I applied to last month, so it’s surely going to be an uphill battle to find anything that is a fit. I might be stuck anyway. So perhaps I ought to try to focus on liking this job and doing my best and all that.

I just wish this job had any legs. Where do I really go from here? Any comparable role requires technical skills I do not have, nor can I gain these technical skills without going back to school and spending a lot of time becoming an expert to be competitive at my level. I’ve been specifically kept out of the projects that actually make sense in the broader industry and am allowed to work on projects that are pretty company specific with no results other than surviving them. So it’s a challenge in building up a story for what’s next, without an opportunity to do anything worthwhile.

Maybe for even $260k that doesn’t matter. Or does it? I have no career. I have no future. All I have is the next two years. It’s not enough to retire on. I still need to figure out what’s next… and how I get there.

Career Change

Trying to Find a New Life as the Fall Air Breaks Me Down

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Fall. It’s the season I struggle most with. I seem to either slip into depression or mania around this time, depending on the year and life circumstance. There’s something about the air. It’s hollow and scratchy. Each breath in on inhale feels icy and empty and yet not filling enough so I open up my lungs to take more in, only to have it attack me subtly from the inside.

But this time, which definitely feels more like the end of one year and beginning of the next (Rosh Hashanah got it right) is one that brings about reflection. And in this self reflection I feel how another year has passed and part of me feels like I haven’t taken any steps closer to whatever satisfaction is and yet the reality is I’ve produced an entirely new person AND increased my net worth substantially since last September. So time feels short but it was certainly filled with a lot of existence and growth.

I want to get to this point financially where I can stop worrying about money so I can pursue something I would love to do. The trade off is always time, because I want time with my kids, and I’m afraid even if I had all the money in the world to go back to school and try something different. I certainly don’t trust my anxious ADHD mind to get through coursework in a way that would make the investment worthwhile. And yet – doing something I love where I have purpose is the feeling burning in my lungs today. It’s no longer a nice to have. It’s a must. Money also is, but what if — what if I could live a life where my income could pay the bills but where I no longer had to aggressively save? What if instead of spending money on things to make me happy I actually found what makes me happy is the work I do. Because Amazon Prime purchases, however much dopamine they fill me with when I punch open a new box that arrives in under 48 hours, are not really making me any happier than I was prior to purchasing them. They’re just adding to my misery, also known as the pile of toys and crap on my floor.

So.

I’m still not sure what the math is. But it seems at the end of this year it’s realistic for our net worth to be about $2M if calculated without 529 and home equity which I should probably start doing since that offers a realistic picture of how much income we can one day have when we start to spend it down.

Now, I may have to dip into this savings a bit to find my way in the right direction. School is not cheap. If that’s the route I need to go. But also I know myself and I’m not going to stop working for an extended period of time. I just want to be able do work that is fulfilling. And luckily the kind of work I want to do pays reasonably well enough that after a few years I could probably get back into earning enough to pay the bills. I’m not sure how much I’d have to cut into my savings, or if I could stomach that, but let’s say somehow I manage to not cut into it too much, or at all…

$2M in 30 years at 5% average gains is $8.4M. And while $8.4M in 30 years won’t equal what it equals today, it’s still a sizable amount for a retired couple of 67. With 3% inflation rate that money will equal about $3.4M in today’s dollars, still a sizable sum to retire with at 67. The NerdWallet inflation calculator says that it’s actually worth $4M today (guessing their inflation rate is a bit lower than 3%.) So, if we never invest another dime, we will have $3.4M-$4M if we retire at 67, as well as most of our children’s educations paid for (with $300k saved this year for 2 kids)

Yes, we still need to afford $10k-$14k a month in expenses for the next 30 years, which means earning at least $200k-$250k per year  (together) total to “Coast.” And we’ll probably still save a bit because once my kids graduate high school and go to college our expenses will drop within that 30 year period. If I change careers to something I love perhaps in those 30 years I can move up again and make decent money as well.

There are so many unknowns it’s hard to plan for the future or be willing to take any sort of risk, especially with how little I trust myself to follow through on things. But I also know I’m miserable now because I don’t feel a greater sense of purpose in life.

I’m also feeling a pull to freelance work and the flexibility it provides. I have no idea how to get enough (or any) freelance work to start with, but if I could actually pick up a handful of stable clients who pay me reasonably then – heck – I could go to school and maybe not lose too much money and pivot and figure out life.

So I’m trying really fucking hard to be optimistic. I’ve got to work on a few things, the work that has purpose, building a small network of friends because let’s be real this introvert is capable of socialization like once a month (and then realizes how much she likes it and is sad when it’s over), having more time to spend with my kids and be there for them as they grow up, maybe having one more kid (yea yea I’m crazy) and… I mean, I do, deep down, think things will all work out. Having the money there really helps with that inner sense of – you know what, thinks are actually going to be ok. And as much as this job grates at my weak ego, it has given me the greatest gift in life — the freedom to know things will probably be ok. Things will probably be more than ok. Even if my kids decide to join some crazy extracurricular that costs $10,000 a year. Or god forbid someone gets sick. Or my husband, who refused to get life insurance and now probably can’t get it, ends up god forbid dying before the mortgage is paid off and our kids are out of college. We have the cushion we need where as much as I worry, I don’t have to worry. Not about running out of money, anyway. I mean, I may have to sell the house and move to a LCOL area. But we would be fine.

I have to keep reminding myself that. And while it makes sense to hold on for the next few months in this job to ride out the year, hit $2M in non home equity/529 net worth, and start planning for what’s next, it isn’t worth staying in this job — or even this field — when I know I have so much more to offer. At the end of the day I know I feel good and proud when I’m part of creating something that adds value to other people’s lives. That can be pretty much anything — I’m not so particular. It has to be something new or improved that makes lives better. I want to build things. Fix things. And so, that’s where my heart is. Yea, I’m a mom. But I want to work too. I just want to do something that isn’t so soul draining. Where we all kind of roll our eyes at our work because none of us really believe in it anymore, we just do it to make it to the next vest and the one after that. I’m tired of the golden handcuffs. And ready to call the shots in my life. I just need to find the courage. And the focus.

Career, Mental Illness

The Path to Not Feeling Like a Mess is Not Necessarily a Lower-Earning Job

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If I could be handed a job that makes $100k less than my current role where I knew I would be mentally well in the position, I would take in a heartbeat. But the reality is that no matter the pay of the job I struggle. In fact, roles that tend to pay more where I can focus more on strategy and less on execution are ones that I tend to feel overall better in (though I still have work on interpersonal skills and comms to get to a point where I can be successful in these roles.) And the reality is I can’t just get a job that pays less — those jobs are hyper competitive as well and will likely go to someone from a top school with less experience.

Early this morning I ran the numbers again regarding my potential earnings and when I can / should leave my current job. This as the head of my department sent out a shoutout to everyone who worked on a project that I oversaw as part of the pool of work that I theoretically own and while everyone including my boss (who hasn’t touched the project) was given a shout out, guess who was left off?

I’m just tired of having a job that doesn’t make sense. I want to have real ownership over something so it’s clear what success is. The only success metrics that exist for my role right now is if everyone else likes me or not. Apparently no one else likes me. Which I’d like to fix. But I would like some other metrics to be included in whether or not I deserve a “below expectations” or “meeting expectations” on my performance review.

What I do know is that I failed to come in to the org when I had the chance to build a scalable function properly. But I also was given a role that was multiple roles with no clear job description. I can’t believe that was FOUR YEARS AGO but somehow it looks like I’m making it to my final vest date. Even getting to the end of this month is a huge win as I get the third of four ESPP periods bought and the second to last RSU vest. There was a long time when getting through this September was my victory. The next final big income moments are icing on the cake — December for RSU, Feb for bonus (if I get a bonus), and March for final big ESPP and a much smaller RSU vest. December is maybe not “icing” as it’s an extra $139k (pre tax) give or take… which is more than my husband makes in a year… but after this month is over I’m looking at ~$300k income for 12 months that drops significantly the following year, which means finding a role that pays $250k more consistently might be an ok move. Or I interview for a long time and really wait until I find the right thing, but if the right thing happens to pop up sooner than expected I can leave and feel good about it.

For me what’s important is feeling like I’m appreciated. I know if one is appreciated financially then who cares about the rest. But to me appreciation means being given opportunities that make sense on a resume with clear ROI and objectives. Being trusted with the things that matter. Of course my projects are high visibility in many cases, but they aren’t seen as core to the business success. And I’m also being pushed further and further into a project management role where my creative and strategic insights aren’t needed anymore. And trust me, I’m the last person who should be project managing anything as a full time job.

I really can’t figure out if I should leave or stay. Staying means feeling like shit all the time because there is no room to grow and I’m in a role that is ill defined. Leaving means starting over and needing the energy to show extremely well for at least 6 months while still not getting enough sleep as a relatively new mom. I also struggle with wanting a job that’s remote for the flexibility (which has been wonderful) and knowing that I really am feeling disconnected from my peers and the inspiration that helps me do my best work by never seeing them in person. Not that most jobs are back in person yet anyway but I go back and forth between looking for a job that is always going to be remote vs one that when covid ends will be back in the office a few days a week.

And I really don’t even see how I can get another job so there’s that issue too. Who really wants to hire me anyway?

Career, Mental Illness

Stay or Go or Stay Then Go? Deconstructing the last 4 years.

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It’s hard to look back at the last four years and feel good about much of it, other than managing to remain employed through some serious close calls to being fired (not to mention two pregnancies.) My ego gets the best of me time and again so it’s hard to fight through these last months to get the remaining shares of my main vesting period. But outside of the good compensation, there’s a whole lot of maybe not-so-ok experiences that happened to me in the last 4 years and I just want to hash it out because I’m hurting a lot and I want to make sense of it.

2017 I join the company with an offer from a senior exec who knew me from working together years ago. The role wasn’t defined clearly but he was also very excited to have me join the team. It was a much smaller company at the time. I didn’t negotiate my compensation, but felt it was fair. I was also coming off a pretty bad situation at another startup where I was running a department and didn’t know what I was doing so I lost my job and was having trouble finding another one. I was grateful for the opportunity.

I joined the team and there wasn’t clear direction. I was given a headcount but not enough budget to hire someone with experience. I didn’t want to hire anyone so I was waiting until the right person applied and I lost the headcount because it took too long to hire. I was able to hire a freelancer to help out but still because of the comp level that person was junior. She was good for being junior but still I was figuring out the role and then trying to manage a person who was junior and that wasn’t going well. Soon after joining I was leveled and reported to a new boss. I actually got along with her at first. She didn’t want to give me any guidance on what to do, so I continued to try to figure it out on my own. But I really didn’t know what to prioritize because there were no clear goals on the team. When I asked for goals to help determine what to do I was told that I should figure out what they are with people who then would not want to collaborate with me on this, they were very territorial over setting the goals and all the things that went with achieving them. Hard to explain without revealing too much about who I am but the main point was no one was willing to be collaborative and it made me look like the bad guy who wasn’t collaborative but I couldn’t get the information needed to do the work. Maybe I wasn’t leading enough or influencing enough but because my role wasn’t clearly defined it was really fucking hard to convince anyone to work with me properly.

Meanwhile, I was pregnant with my first child all through the first year of the job. I was given a whole bunch of random projects that didn’t make sense for one role and yet I delivered on them. Then when I came back after having my first child (and my father passing away and a long bout of depression) I really struggled. What was possible to fake it through before became like walking up a hill covered in sludge. While they gave me an acceptable performance review the year I was on maternity leave, the next year I fell on my face time and again. It was a mix of not sleeping, anxiety, depression, and imposter syndrome, and still not understanding my role. Meanwhile as the company grew others were hired around me and they seemed to just fit the corporate culture better. They weren’t necessarily more talented or able, but they knew how to play the game. It was that year that I was put on a performance plan. I was devastated because I felt horrible about letting my boss down. But I was given six months to shape up or get out.

In those six months I managed to pull it together. Those six months were actually the early days of covid. And when I got pregnant with my second child. I didn’t tell my boss I was pregnant for a long time. I wanted to show her I could be a good employee without her feeling like she had to judge me lightly since I was pregnant. And I actually succeeded. Despite being exhausted in my first trimester, I managed to earn recognition for my work done in those first six months. Things were starting to look up.

But then I took on a project that seemed like a good idea. I created the plan, pitched it, and everyone seemed on board. It was going to require collaboration from the larger team. Well, once we set the plan and we were moving forward an important person was put on another project and said never mind we aren’t doing the full project, just a piece of it. I felt strongly about why we had decided to do the full project to add value to the business so I pushed on and took on more than I should have on my own. I wasn’t able to do it as good as it would have been with the support of others, but I still got something similar to the original concept done. The problem was I got it done a month late. Well, it wasn’t even month late, the date that I had given to finish my part of the project was a bit arbitrary. The whole project still launched at the deadline that was committed to the leadership team. Nonetheless, I was in major trouble over missing the deadline. I was told I’m not a leader, not a team player, etc, etc. My boss was so frustrated with me and I felt horrible.

But then we launched the project and everyone saw it as a success. Even now they refer to this project as an example of something we should do more of.

That wasn’t enough, clearly. At that point my boss had already decided to demote me and move me to a role that has a smaller scope.  While that sucked, it didn’t come with a pay decrease, and I thought the scope was more clear (that I own a certain function) so I was happy about that. My new boss, despite being a white man who thinks he knows everything, at least cared a bit about the actual tasks I would be doing and wanted to be more involved than my former boss who had given up on me. This was all during the end of this pregnancy as well, which ended up being high risk. I was a mess and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it but it really sucked.

When I came back to work this year my new role was clearly not as well defined as I thought it was. Others were doing what I thought was supposed to be my job and no one cared. I wasn’t actually owning the function at all. I was just going to work on one-off projects, pretty much only the one-off projects that no one else wanted and that would make no sense on a resume in applying for future roles. The actual good projects (in the area I supposedly owned) were being managed by other people on the team. And that hurt a lot. But I didn’t say anything because it wasn’t worth complaining at that point. Clearly they wanted me to leave.

In fact, when I went on maternity leave my former boss said she would join my performance review (with my new boss) since she was my manager the year before. But then she bailed on that meeting where I was given a 2/5 and no stock refresh or raise. While I wasn’t surprised about the low score due to missing the deadline, I also was hurt that she didn’t join this meeting. I finally got up the guts to ask her to meet to discuss the review and consider changing my score to a 3. She met with me and in so many words told me that she wasn’t kicking me out immediately but to look for another job soon. So that was that.

Meanwhile, the (single male) guy who took my former role (who happens to be a friend) is doing a good job but I’m not certain he’s doing a better job than I was doing. He tells me that he misses deadlines too. He was handed a lot of better organization already so he was able to move forward and make progress in a way I never was. Not to sell his talent short, he’s really good at his job. But so much of his success is tied to how well he speaks and how he just has this confidence that I’ll never have. And really I should have managed this guy (we hired him as my fill in when I went on maternity leave the first time) but I was never allowed to manage him so instead he now has my role. And as he’s my friend I’m happy for him but really I wonder did I suck so much at the job and is he that much better?

The reality is that I know how to manage budgets (he is self-admittedly horrible at that.) I took on some of his projects before he was promoted into the role because they should have been mine to lead in the first place and he was ignoring them and I thought they were important for the business. He didn’t care so I took over and I took on too much so that’s on me. But if I was actually set up for success in my role (where I was supposed to be leading the broader function) he would have been my employee and I would have had another employee to manage this area that was important and being ignored. That was a big mistake. But I just wanted to fix the things that mattered. Do meaningful work and add value.

I also hired a bunch of freelancers towards the end that he’s using now… if he didn’t have them I don’t think he would be able to successfully find freelancers to do the work. But I managed to get everything set up well for him to take over. So nice of me. Good thing he’s my friend. I’m rooting for him. But still, man, I feel like a sucker. And that sucks. Sucks to be a sucker.

And the kicker is that even though he was given my former role, he’s actually doing work that should be part of my new role. I’ve never had a clear job or clear objectives so there’s no real way to measure my success outside of if people like me or not (spoiler alert – they don’t.) It’s all sorts of a shit situation and I want to get out. But I also want to get out to somewhere I can start over and really go in and be a new person from the start.

I’m scared I won’t be able to find another job and I’ve started applying but I’m not getting any calls. It’s going to be a long and painful climb to get to my next position. It will probably pay less and who knows if it will be any better. I’d like to believe that a job with an actual job description and clear success criteria will be a little better.

I know I should stay until April. It’s not that far off. I hate the projects I’m working on now and part of me wants to leave before I get too into them and see how the team manages these assignments that no one else wants to do because they suck. I can’t complain really because they pay me a lot so of course I’ll do them. But I’m so over being assigned the work that no one else wants. And I hate it even more when the head of the team tells me I’m doing good work when it doesn’t matter, when I know my boss wants me out. And when I get invited to other meetings that aren’t related to my main role because now it feels like she’s just trying to motivate me enough so I might stay to finish the projects that no one else wants to do.

I know why she doesn’t like me as I’ve been the worst version of myself in this company. In meeting I get frustrated and interrupt people. Because the people who get ahead in this company are the ones who can sound like they know what they’re talking about and be “leaders” but often they are just better at talking and sounding confident. They don’t look at what makes our company different and our unique problems to solve but instead rattle off what other companies do things and seem to be caught up in being just like everyone else and that makes them so smart. Well maybe sometimes it makes sense to copy others but I love to look at problems and figure out how to fix them in a way that makes sense not just how everyone else is solving them in a generic way.

Every time I feel a tinge of frustration now I apply to another company. It doesn’t actually help since no one is calling me, but it feels good to send my resume out to the world. Unfortunately the last four years have done nothing to help me build a resume or make me a desirable candidate. This is why I’m stuck. I mean, maybe someone will hire me eventually. It seems to always happen when it feels like it won’t. When I’ve sent out thousands of resumes. Someone gets confused and thinks I’m a good person to hire. I’ve never gone more than 4 months without a job in the last 15 years. So I guess tenacity gets me hired. But each job seems to be more of a mess than the last one. Yes they may pay more, but I’m more and more suffocated.

I just want to do go good work. To solve problems. To do things in a logical way. To not have to put all of my energy into trying to be anyone but myself.

And at the end of the day I don’t have anyone to talk to about this, other than anonymous people on the internet. Because… my husband doesn’t get it. He knows I’m a hot mess and so it’s clearly my fault. Well, maybe it is. But what do I do about it? It’s my fault but it’s not getting any better. And then I feel depressed, like this deep, horrible depression that’s like a wire ripping through my gut every day because I feel guilty and like a total fuck up at the same time. But what total fuck up has managed to save $1.6M in 15 years? This one. This one right here.

So I can’t breathe again. I sometimes question at what point I call it quits for good. But I have kids now so I can’t make that choice. It just sucks to feel so alone in all of this. I try to tell myself I need to suck it up and just be better. Maybe I can be better. I don’t know. I don’t think I can be. I seem to have proven the hypothesis that I always end up sucking plenty of times over.