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I Was Trapped In A Soul-Crushing Corporate Job For 1 Reason That Keeps Too Many Others Stuck

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"I’ve learned that I can’t game the system, I don’t want to, and it’s not worth it," the author writes.
“I’ve learned that I can’t game the system, I don’t want to, and it’s not worth it,” the author writes.
FreshSplash via Getty Images

This story was supported by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

The breaking point came in a one-on-one. My manager looked distressed. He told me the issues had been building up: I didn’t unmute myself to say “yes” in a Google Meet call but instead nodded; I gave him briefer-than-expected answers during our last conversation; and, perhaps worst of all, he’d noticed I was looking away from my screen too much during meetings.

“If something doesn’t change, we’re going to have to consider a termination,” he told me.

By then, I’d grown weary of the absurdity of working in a corporate environment. I was hired to write review articles, and I did a good enough job to snag the role of senior writer. I frequently received kudos from my colleagues, and my editor said my copy was the cleanest she’d ever seen. Still, I was facing firing for my tone of voice, introversion and social anxiety — aspects of my gender, personality, and mental health that my manager failed to comprehend or accommodate.

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