When I started in my industry, I was couch surfing and down to my very last couch – a shelter would have been the next step.
I worked hard and climbed over the next decade and finally find myself in a 6 figure mostly REMOTE job (!!!) with lots of perks, unbeatable client list, prestigious company, cutting edge products in a booming industry, etc etc. It's everything I thought I should be aiming for. I thought I was prepared.
It's a fucking viper's den. You can't win. If you don't know the answer to something, you are treated like a fucking idiot who doesn't deserve their job, even if there's literally NO WAY for you to know it or if the answer doesn't exist. But if you proactively ask a question, you're also treated like a fucking idiot who doesn't deserve their job. Every misstep, every question, every tiny sliver of uncertainty is used as currency in other people's political battles to show why their department deserves more revenue opportunities and resources than yours. And within one's own department, they're constantly scanning for weakness because you're a proxy for them in the aforementioned battle, like we're in goddamn Westeros. It's completely, utterly paralyzing. And then of course being paralyzed is thrown in your face. But all of this is presented “nicely,” in neutral “we want to help you succeed, you poor incapable fucking idiot we regret hiring” corporate doublespeak. But it would look bad to fire us, so indefinite passive aggressive torture it is. Hell is other people.
It's a small team, and I've had direct conversations with about half of them about mental health and how we're seeking treatment for clinical depression, anxiety, etc., and how we're using various substances to get through each week. We're all Type A eager-to-please achiever types so it's like a knife in the heart being treated like we're “failing” not matter how much effort we put in. At least our abusive jobs pay us enough to afford mental health treatment to deal with the impact of our abusive jobs; most people in the U.S. aren't so 'lucky.' One perk: I finally lost the 10lbs I put on during Covid because I can't bring myself to eat.
Oh, and what is this wonderful product that is worth all the backstabbing and heartache? It's part of enabling the AI dystopia that is barreling our way like a freight train. That's not at all what I thought it would be when I joined, by the way. What a great thing to sacrifice my time and health to.
Corporate America is an inhuman scam. Even if you “make it,” the cost is often unbearable. The ones who succeed are backbiting scum by necessity. There is no place for thoughtful, sensitive, caring people here.
“Why don't you just quit?” is… it's a reasonable question. I'm collecting the paycheck and trying to hold myself together until I figure out my next move. Stay strong, everyone. It's not us, it's the system. We are trying our best, and we have inherent value as human beings outside of the twisted value system of our late stage capitalistic hell.