A client said this to me recently, verbatim, without flinching. She said it the way you’d mention the weather.
And she’s more than right.
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I learned it the hard way. I was grinding through a thankless Partnerships role at a fintech startup: long days, longer nights, while my wife and I ran the “hot potato” childcare shuffle with two young kids. I gave that company everything I had, and then some.
Then the VC funding market dried up. The sales numbers weren’t coming fast enough, and leadership kept saying “faster,” like I had a lever somewhere I’d just forgotten to pull.
Then I got laid off.
I wish I could have all those long nights back.
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The job was never going to give back what I gave it. That’s not cynicism, it’s just the actual shape of the relationship. Companies, despite what the Supreme Court says, are not people. Even the decent ones, the ones with real values and good people running them, will prioritize their bottom line over your (relative) happiness the moment those two things stop pointing the same direction.
That’s not a betrayal. It’s just what a company is for.
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TLDR: What would you do differently if you stopped centering your life around your work, and instead made your work work around you?
#careercoaching #careercalibration #careerdoldrums #worklifebalance