Hey! I hope everyone had a nice holiday yesterday :) It was dark and stormy here for part of the day, but ended up being really nice in the afternoon.
Sorry for the semi-clickbaity headline lol, but this is the issue about career updates I’ve been alluding to for a few weeks now. In issue #32 I mentioned that I started seeing a career therapist this spring, and so far, it’s been wildly productive. Even though that experience is still very much a work in progress (some weeks I feel like I’m close to a breakthrough, and other weeks I end up feeling like I’m caught in a hamster wheel), I made a big leap “officially” over a month ago as a result of my journey in therapy. It was a bit risky, but has also been rewarding and really fucking great so far.
Here’s the deal: I’m no longer an employee of cupcakes and cashmere, but I still work there. I know that’s probably confusing news, but both things are true! I made a huge change to how my work life is structured just over a month ago, and technically now I work for myself.
This issue is behind a paywall because I’m about to go into detail about some pretty personal stuff, even if it’s mostly work-related. At this point I’m obviously used to spilling my guts online about the rollercoaster that is my life (🥴), but I feel the need to protect anything regarding my career a little more carefully. I’ve been through a lot mentally in the last year with work and what I do for a living (especially the last six months or so) and have a ton to say, but sharing the headlines with everyone and more of the details with just paid subscribers feels right to me (ILY!). Please note that everything that follows in this issue is reflective of my thoughts and feelings only as it pertains to my personal experiences with work. Thanks again for being here no matter how you interact with this particular corner of the internet!
I’ve been very excited to share this story; writing it all down over the past few weeks has been unexpectedly cathartic. Work is weird right now! The Great Resignation is kind of over and became something they’re calling the “Big Stay.” 39% of us feel that work is an important part of our identities, but only half of us feel satisfied with our jobs overall. Women are less satisfied with how much we’re paid and are more likely to say work is stressful or overwhelming than men are. Things have started to look up recently, but we’re still in a strange post-pandemic transition period. I know I’m not the only one who has made a big career change recently, or at least thought about it, so I hope this story is relatable or maybe even inspirational in some way to somebody out there. I’m a confusing case because I both quit my job, and kept it. Maybe this is the sign you’ve needed to make a career leap (or not?) of your own; I hope you take it as such if that’s what you need right now. I’ve always been the type of person to research the hell out of something, then just hold my breath and make a running jump into the pool, trusting that I’ll remember how to swim once I hit the water. It usually works out for me somehow.
So this is the story of how (and why) I “quit” my job, was immediately re-hired into the same position at the same company but only two days a week, found another company I thought was really cool and approached them with the exact same idea (by first stalking them on LinkedIn and then sending a cold “fan” email, which landed me an interview), got the job, and now I work for two different companies at the same time, in the same role. I didn’t have to take a pay cut, and now I have Fridays off.
So how exactly did I get here?