This week is my anniversary of quitting my lazy girl job to run Anti Work Girlboss full time. Welcome to a reveal of who I am and why I spend so much time talking about work. My story isn't just about hating work. In my just three and a half years of corporate america I have some life changing wisdom to offer you. While also diving into some more personal sides to me I do not share as often as I would like to.
I was writing an “About Me” Substack for all of you all last week. Something came over me and I wanted to share every moment of my upbringing and career that led up to me being the Anti Work Girlboss. As I began, the computer screen and keyboard were like a hypnotizing spell I couldn’t pull away from.
All of the sudden Substack notified me I had hit my character limit. It sprung me out of this trance I was in where I was recalling all these significant moments by going down memory lane. So I took it to Word Doc and realized I had written an entire memoir of the lessons in my career that shaped all of what I stand for today.
Writing the ending realizations to wrap everything up I started sobbing. After putting everything on a screen in front of me, I had realized I had turned into what I hated growing up. All of what I lacked as a child I was trying to get from my corporate jobs which turned me into a delusional workaholic. I found an editor immediately as I knew there was something to this
On Sunday night, I got the sudden urge to use a video of me quitting my job to release my new memoir to you. This video has just been sitting in my camera roll since I left and I had never watched, edited, or posted it since. After a lot of searching I finally found the video and looked at the date at the top of the video and realized my year anniversary of quitting was the day before. Spooky!
Today, I wanted to share an excerpt from the book. I hope you enjoy!
Ring in the new year with a resource I made for you to find a better job quicker using the latest career tips and AI recommendations! There is some bonus material on work life balance and ideas on your next lazy girl job.
The first no-code workspace for work, life, and everything in between! They have recently launched their AI product making work feel even lazier.
I was working on the company’s second biggest project they had ever done. I was getting all the visibility internally that a workaholic could only dream of. I had some of the most complicated client loads that myself and my colleagues all aspired to achieve when we first started two years ago. Yet, I was being paid the same amount as when I started. I didn’t understand how insane that was yet. I told myself, I just gotta get through “insert project name,” and then I will be happier! I learned at the end of every project that I would be assigned an even bigger project.
I started to really burn out. I always felt sick and angry. My director and I came to an agreement that I would take some time off in March. So, Matt and I went to Maui to visit my childhood best friend who had been living there for a year. When we got there, I was accidentally put in quarantine by the state of Hawaii. (They were strict about that at the time, but just know I didn’t actually have Covid, and it’s a really funny story!) Nevertheless, I had so much fun. Matt and I extended our stay and then also extended our stay at our layover in San Francisco. I had never felt freer. There’s a memory I have of telling myself I wanted to have this feeling forever, but it was quickly interrupted by my fear of my ever-growing workload when I got back.
I came back to work, and in a matter of two hours, I was in the same burned out state. Only this time, I had a nice tan from Maui. I strategically made my day back a Friday, naively thinking that would be a more relaxing day to come back. A few moments into the day, I was already on the phone with my most difficult client and had received a gigantic list of to-dos that would never be completed by the end of the day. We were right back where we started. I still didn’t know that I could just say no or re-prioritize projects for my mental health.
Throughout my first few weeks back, I noticed I had a weird meeting I didn’t normally have on my calendar. It included me, all of my leadership, and my client (a huge coffee brand you all know). I went into the meeting with zero context, which I quickly learned to never do again. The meeting consisted of a twenty-seven-slide slideshow that the client has prepped on every issue that has gone wrong since I have either been on vacation or prior to my vacation from making mistakes in my burned-out state. I looked at the screenshare and saw all the incidents with dates next to them, as well as huge, six-figure numbers under a column that read “lost sales.” The whole time, I couldn’t take it seriously. I remember thinking, You can’t measure hypothetical lost sales, because it was lost. How would we know?! I was encouraged internally via Slack conversation to push back on some claims. I am always one to speak up, but I honestly had my feelings hurt, so I did the bare minimum in responding with my case and the information I had at that time.
The meeting was to basically watch my second biggest client complain about working with me and my taking vacation. The amount of red I saw[PH1] when we got off that call is a feeling I hope I never revisit ever again. My thoughts were something like, I’ve given my whole life to this, and they’re still not happy!
When I make content for you, I call on these moments to best connect with you all. Not a lot of people use their painful moments to learn and grow from in front of an audience. That’s just my style! My work friends and I still joke about that meeting today by referring to it as “My 13 Reasons Why” Powerpoint.
Don’t worry it gets better! In Part 2 of this chapter I explain what caused me to find my Lazy Girl Job and how I went about landing that job.
Grab yourself a copy here and enjoy a special 50% discount for being a member of the Substack community!
I am finishing up my TEDx Talk final draft! I am thinking about reading it to some of you soon! I will keep you updated on how I will facilitate that because I would love to have some support with what I wrote.
I am currently…
Xoxo,
Gabrielle, the Anti Work Girlboss™
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