Survival Manual

Have your professional "go bag" ready

I used to work really hard, all the time.

I worked for the money. I believed, because I had been taught to believe, that enough money would insulate you. It would protect you and your family. And, since I wasn’t about to inherit money and no one was giving me money to do what I wanted to do, which was write books, I worked in technology and advertising companies to make that money.

I was a single parent with two kids. Their father lived in France, so I was a full-time solo parent, no every other weekend breaks for me. When they were with their father in the summers, I would travel extensively, to do all the work trips I could when they weren’t home.

While my story to myself was that I was only working like this to support my children, I realize now I was – and am - very ambitious. When I was treated badly at work, when I was pelted by gender-based discrimination, it made me that much more ambitious. Success is the best revenge, I thought.

For much of my career, a forty-hour work week would have seemed like part time. I don’t like flying, but I traveled so much that I had a bag with all my toiletries already packed and ready – I bought two of everything I needed, since I was gone so much. I had status on my airline of choice, like that amount of travel is a badge of honor. Status.

Lie #1 – if you work for a company that gives you and your family medical insurance, you are safe. If you have money in the bank, you are safe.

When my son was injured in a car accident, the big corporation where I worked illegally denied his insurance claims, and then fired me while I had FMLA protection. After that I couldn’t afford a private nursing home and so when he was 18 and could go on Medicaid I put him in a nursing home that took Medicaid patients. Because they were underfunded, they didn’t have the equipment they needed, and they made a mistake in his care and he died.

To financially survive a medical crisis in the American system you have to be very very wealthy. 65% of people who file for bankruptcy in the US do so because of medical expenses. Over half a million people every year file for bankruptcy because they can’t pay their medical bills. And the average age of those people filing for bankruptcy? 43.

Lie #2 If you are good at your job, you have some job security

I was good at my jobs. When I was a salesperson, I was proud that I almost always hit my sales goals, no matter how aggressive. It didn’t keep me from getting fired, laid off, or demoted. I believe many of the people who were recently laid off were strong performers.

In her most recent newsletter, Ruchika Tulshyan talks about how people of color have been disproportionately impacted by the tsunami of tech layoffs. Women, single parents, people with disabilities – the list goes on of people it is easier to layoff.

In our most recent podcast, Eugene and I talk about always having your professional “go bag” ready. Keep your resume up to date, stay in touch with your network, and never stop looking for your next job.

Lie #3 Your hard work will pay off at the end of the day

I had this idea that all the work I put in during my 20s and 30s would pay off in my later years. I’d work my way up to the top of the ladder and reap the benefits and I’d look back and think it was all worth it.

But now that I’m here, I’m not at the top of any ladder. While some of that is my choice, mostly it is ageism. There’s a reason there aren’t many women in their 50s and 60s in advertising and tech. The constant hostility is just too exhausting, and many of us choose to step back and do something else. White men have a different experience, there are more of them over fifty who still get to take up space at work.

Some things have paid off. I know so much about sexism and sexual harassment I have content enough for a one-woman show, done in 2019, a podcast, this substack and a book that is second on the to-be-written list. As an executive coach, I can relate to women in leadership at tech and adverting agencies in a way that can create a shorthand and seems to be helpful.

But the more I write/think/talk about work and our current work environment, the more wrong it appears. It’s inhumane to expect us to work the way we work. Capitalism is about extraction of value from us as human beings, it’s about maximizing profit. It is amoral. And yet we are meaning making beings who are hard wired for community, now expecting that our experiences will be mediated through small screens, and apps that extract our intelligence, humor and creativity to monetize our attention and data. We work for likes, not money.

To stop this from being more Bleak Blah Blah Blah, here’s some suggestions.

1.     Prioritize what has breath. You, your body, the people and pets you love, your friends, your community. When I look back on my life, I can’t remember all the jobs I had or who I worked with, but I remember every phase of my kids’ lives, and the time spent with friends, and the trips to other places.

2.     Be clear eyed. If your narrative about work and financial security is still the same as it was 5 years ago, you should check your assumptions. We are told lots of stories by the media, politicians, the establishment. Many of them are self-serving lies – see above. Do the valuable work of testing your narratives to make sure they still hold.

3.     Work for freedom. In a way, I am at the top of the ladder. Only it’s my own personal ladder. I work for myself, and only with people that I like, respect and value. I work in a humane way, with time for exercise and rest and plenty of play with my family. I have sacrificed some financial security for this, and I make my financial planner nervous. I will, most likely, need to work until I’m 70. But I can do that, since this is a sustainable pace. What does freedom look like for you?

4.     Make it better. Help the people who are coming up behind you. They might be your employees, your students, your children. Reframe their narratives so they don’t get caught up in the lies of hustle culture and personal branding and working for likes. Do what you can to leave the world better than you found it.