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

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.

“I’m ready to send my two weeks’ notice,” I said.

When I got the corporate gig eight months earlier, it felt like a godsend. My husband and I had been struggling to make rent. I had a weak grasp on the middle class as a freelance content writer and sometimes health journalist, while he was struggling to bring in income as an investigative journalist. The most important work we did paid the least.

The salary I was offered — about $78,000 plus benefits — gave us the financial security we had never had. We bought a new mattress, bed frame and couch. We fully furnished our apartment with Facebook Marketplace finds. We scheduled doctors’ appointments. I did a consultation for a dental implant. Even with