Latest / The Parent Tap / Toxic Tech Culture, Burnout & Why You Need to Take Your Leave | Jessica Lattif

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Toxic Tech Culture, Burnout & Why You Need to Take Your Leave | Jessica Lattif · The Parent Tap

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a working parent or founder who has ever looked at your calendar, felt a knock in your stomach, and wondered why you're sacrificing your health for a spreadsheet, you are not alone.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you are not broken.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is on a mission to expose how toxic corporate culture fails human beings and to offer a path back to our humanity.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jessica is the founder and CEO of Not Working in Tech, a platform and community built to dismantle burnout culture, challenge performative corporate policies, and help people set real boundaries.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Her core philosophy hits right at the heart of what we talk about on this show.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Burnout isn't a personal failure, it's the result of a broken system.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about the guilt of taking leave, what hustle culture is teaching our kids, and how to survive toxic environments without losing yourself.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would love to do like a survey of mental health professionals in the Bay Area to better learn and understand like what people are really grappling with because it's it is pretty serious, you know.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah, there's so many really high achieving people that get taken advantage of because they just give and give and give and don't, you know, don't prioritize taking a break because that's not what the industry tells them to do.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, nobody's gonna give you permission to to step away.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like what's tech burnout look like in the Bay Area for those of us not familiar with that area or like what the the work culture is like.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's I mean, it's really related to how technology keeps us always on.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can never sign off of work when your work is on your phone, you know, when you have all these apps for immediate DMing and you're checking your emails or you're getting a phone call or somebody's, you know, you get a notification that somebody has scheduled a meeting with you for first thing in the morning.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these the the hub of the industry is here in the Bay Area, but it's a global industry, of course.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're constantly working with folks in time zones around the world.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you're able to balance so that, okay, I have a meeting with folks in the Philippines, so I have to wake up super early or be up super late.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is you're not trading off those times, right?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: You're still having to work your normal time zone hours unless you're really doing some kind of shift work, which you know exists in the industry.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: But for most salaried employees, the expectation is you do what you have to do.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what you have to do is very subjective.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: But the the work environments make it feel like it's non-negotiable.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And because in the US overall, we don't have good labor protections, the people who get ahead are the people who give the most time and energy of themselves.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And just to to piggyback on that, you you read a campaign called Take Your Fucking Leave for a parent into entrepreneur who just can't quit and then overnight uh some someone whose business is their livelihood.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: What do small realistic acts of taking, you know, your fucking leave, reclaiming your life look like?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, give us a little give us a little insight into that.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think the the gist of take your fucking leave is this idea that nobody is gonna give you permission to step away or time off.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I've directed that campaign towards corporate tech workers because in in the big tech world, you do have paid leave available.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, most of these companies offer paid FMS when you have a family member, a child, a partner, an elder who needs immediate care.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: But they also tend to have short-term disability, especially in California, for example, it's a law.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have short-term disability.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: There's a statewide program, and companies can opt out of the statewide program, but then they have to offer a private short-term option.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it has to be uh comparable or better than the state program along certain measures, right?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: They have to pay the same or they take less to deduct fewer deductions, or it's more time, or you know, the flexibility is more generous.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so take your fucking leave is about taking the benefits that you already have available.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: They're there for people in these corporate environments, kind of because they have to be, right?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: If a company is working its employees to the point where they're physically getting ill or they can't sleep at night because their mind is racing, uh, because of all the work things that they have going on, or they're in a toxic situation and they're stressing all the time about what leadership is saying about your latest email, you know, nobody is gonna tell you, hey, this is a good time to take a month off.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it also shouldn't come to the point where you're so sick or so exhausted or so irritable with your children, or, you know, just so beside yourself with exhaustion that you can't function anymore.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what that really severe burnout is like there's your mind is racing, you have so much going on that it's just becomes literally impossible to even make a small decision or, you know, take a nap where you stop looking at your phone.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: It feels impossible.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, you know, I can't keep going like this.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for somebody who's an entrepreneur, it's a little more complicated when you run your own business.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I would say for myself, it's about radical prioritization and recognizing that maybe I need to build a little more slowly than I thought I would be building.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I can only work 20 or 25 hours a week because I have all this other stuff going on with my children that I need to prioritize instead of hustling and grinding 40, 50 plus hours a week, right?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and there are trade-offs.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: There is financial trade-offs to make, there's trade-offs around your own health if you're could if you're gonna prioritize exercise or cooking healthy meals or connecting with your family, playing a board game after dinner instead of go, oh, I gotta go back to my work emails, right?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's it's all these trade-offs that people have to make.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Jessica, could you tell us about your origin story of becoming the CEO of not working in tech and if you have any personal stories about burnout and maybe what it cost your family or your relationships?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: I started out working in tech to support my own business that I had been running with my partner at the time.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: We had a background in food and uh food policies, sustainable food production.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: We were running a seafood business together.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And after about a year, we were breaking even, but we weren't earning money.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we realized one of us needs to get a real job.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And at that time, the tech industry was really growing.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: This was 2013.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to folks about it, I knew it would be me to go out and get the salary job because my partner was doing the heavy lifting with the seafood.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so many people told me the tech industry, oh yeah, oh, tech, women in tech, you should look in tech.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's so many great jobs.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I did, and it looked promising.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: I so I did a 10-week boot camp where I learned some basics of programming, kind of the full stack technology information.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: I learned the jargon that everybody needs to learn to be like an insider in the industry.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I got a job doing support for a startup at that time.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then we had our first child and we realized we can't run a business, have a newborn, and me have a full-time job outside of the home and still function, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have help, we didn't have parents around.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we had a part-time nanny who wasn't super reliable because that's what we could afford.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so we made the decision to fold the business and just have me working full-time to support our family.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: My partner stayed home with our son.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that worked for a little while.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say personally, I'm somebody who does put a lot of pressure on myself to provide.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And being the sole provider in a high cost of living area, I pushed myself a lot.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I left that first tech job.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: We learned that our son had some developmental delays.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was a lot of time spent for me feeling really guilty that I hadn't been with him those two years when I was working full-time.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And what was I missing?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, trying to scramble to get him some help and support to catch up to where he should be with his milestones.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I went back to work after taking a short break in between my first tech jog and my second one.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And at that time, I went to work at Facebook, which was purportedly more family friendly than a startup, right?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And at least there's infrastructure, there's HR, you know, there's other parents around.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're not alone in that sense of you have peers, you have folks going on leave.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And yet it's a place where the people who are showing up, who are having the most FaceTime, who are responding the quickest, who are saying yes to the biggest and most challenging projects are going to get ahead.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, setting boundaries around my time, saying no to projects that I was offered that I knew would interfere with my ability to be present as a parent worked against me and kind of set me as a more of a marginal performer, right?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was not a high performer.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I talk about this on my podcast.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there was a moment where I sat down with a good friend for lunch.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time we were coworkers for several years.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't super close friends.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: But over the course of that lunch, we realized, oh my God, we both feel this way.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And even though she wasn't a parent, wasn't married, you know, she was single, she was putting in, you know, 10, 12, 14-hour days or more, and a super high performer, you know, one of those people that you know leadership is looking at like a rising star, getting promoted quickly.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: She also felt the same way that I was feeling.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's never enough.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm, you know, I'm rewarded for doing good work with more work.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's looked on favorably to be like, when do you sleep?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and the reality was she was barely sleeping.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a really powerful moment because it made me recognize that the issue is systemic.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't me.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't her.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Somehow, even though we were both so different, we were both in the same place psychologically, emotionally of it's it's never enough.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's never gonna be enough.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that was sort of how the seed for not working in tech was planted was thinking about what are these systemic ways that this, the industry or, you know, corporate work at large was pushing us to feel so squeezed, you know, so under pressure, so always on, so it's never enough.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And with that grinding comes an incredible amount of stress.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that stress leads to all kinds of other health issues.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: My friend has chronic illness, and she talks about this when we, you know, spoke on our podcast, that it's invisible and it's scary to talk about at work because then that marks you, you know, similar to a parent, but everybody knows when you're a parent, do you have kids at home?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're saying I have a chronic illness and my doctor says I really need to rest, well, how am I gonna rely on you for my next biggest project?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you're, you know, managing a portfolio of a quarter million dollars or quarter billion dollars of work, you know, you kind of just need to suck it up, right?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's so unhealthy.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, personally, there was multiple times over the course of my working in tech when I needed to take leave because I was burned out or on the verge of burnout.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: The last straw for me was at my last tech job when I just kept getting sick.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't get over one illness before something else came up.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was a cold that became a sinus infection.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then once the sinus infection was running its course with antibiotics, I started getting a sore throat.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then the sore throat became bronchitis.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I was like, oh my God, I I can't get well.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really scary.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and do you think being a parent, because I I used to work in higher education and it was a little bit of the same where I feel like it was never enough sometimes.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like being a parent was a handicap to me personally because I couldn't work.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do you did you feel like that?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I couldn't work weekends and I couldn't, I couldn't be the after hours person that they wanted sometimes.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I would say it's very common in the corporate world for somebody in leadership to have their go-to person.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that go-to person is usually somebody who can put in 12, 14, 16-hour workdays because they don't have caregiving responsibilities outside of work.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, often, you know, maybe you see that go-to person is a man with a wife who stays at home, but it's almost never a primary caregiving parent who has responsibilities outside of work because we just can't.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: You have to prioritize yourself, your kids, your family, you know, pick pickups and schedules.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have somebody else, like you can't leave your kid at school after school to just keep on working on a project, right?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, even though I was the sole provider and I did have a stay-at-home parent as a partner, I'm just a really involved, hands-on parent.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I always wanted to be a mom.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: How I raise my kids is very important to me.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm super focused on raising good people in the world who are caring and kind and respectful.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't just happen.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe for some people it does, but with my kids, it takes work.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, no, it does.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I try to be involved too as a as a dad.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like, yeah, those, you know, covering work, work, work weekend shifts, for instance, is not like something I was willing to do.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because my, you know, my kids are two and five.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, you know, within the last five years, I've had either, you know, a newborn or an infant or a toddler.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's it's just like, and now I have a you know, school age kid, but it's just like I'm not really willing to give up that time.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And also, yeah, I think what people don't realize is like having kids is like you're like it's all consuming.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you go to work, you're done with work, and you still have to work.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're still doing stuff as a parent.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not like you can really relax and unwind.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And people are always like, have a great weekend.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Oh, fuck you.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Cause like have a weekend.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: My weekends are like, yeah, my weekends are harder than the week.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it felt that way, whereas like, oh man, the weekends are rough.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, right.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when you leave and go to work, you don't have little people that are needing something.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're there's no diaper changes at work unless you're working at a daycare, right?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, yeah.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: On the weekend, it's breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack, you know, and diapers and bathtime and it's constant.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's constant.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it is constant.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for folks who don't who don't have kids at home, they just there's not the same level of mental fatigue because you're they don't have that constant conversation in the back of their mind of do we need more diapers?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Did this person reach their milestones?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: When was the last time he pooped?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: When was the last time, you know, she had a bath?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're constantly tracking all of those things for your, not just yourself.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, sometimes the ones for yourself just fall to the very bottom of the list, and you're like, I can't remember the last time I had a shower.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know, right?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's so true.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's yeah, so I felt that too, where it's like the fatigue and just the mental overload of everything.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then those that didn't have kids or either they had kids that were raised, were like they were kind of in a different realm where they could do more stuff, volunteer for more things.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: They were kind of, I don't know, I feel like I was overlooked a lot because of that.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and just I felt guilty to take like the FMLA, and I go I felt guilty to take the time that I needed.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: So even not not even being in tech necessarily an online university, I felt that.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I could I could see how it'd probably be much more immense in a tech, you know, tech environment.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Another thing, which is that you know, tech is a low-hanging fruit for me because I've been there and I see the amount of benefits that people have that they're not using.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: So take it's real easy, right, to tell people in tech, take your fucking leave.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: But the broader idea behind what I'm doing with not working in tech is eventually to zoom out and look at other industries in the United States where things aren't working.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And education and healthcare are two of those big other industries, right?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because teachers are so burnt out.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: There just is no great backup.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: There, you're always on.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: When you're teaching, it's exhausting.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And there's not, there's not like rewarding career paths where you're like, oh, when I get promoted, I'll get this new amount of vacation weeks and then I'll earn more money and be able to like scale myself or do this cool thing.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a lot of really good friends who are teachers, and it's not working in education in America.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of that has to do with overall labor policies.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: We just don't do a good job protecting workers in our country.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: How it it transcends across different, you know, like job, like job categories and in and industries, really.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um, yeah, and I was gonna just say, so how do you tell um parents to slow down, but without like, you know, kind of falling behind in in in, you know, kind of the the hierarchy or the the pecking order or whatever you want to phrase it, like because I felt like you know, it gotten for me and not be not necessarily being in tech, but in higher education, I felt that a lot.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a teacher as well in my life.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I so I felt that too, like where it's like you can't really you can't really call in sick because there's no subs.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you're like you're screw you're like you're you either you're you're you're speaking your kids with someone else, like you know what's gonna happen, or you just you know, you you you you you have to show up because of that, and you feel like shit because it's like you're giving one teacher 50 kids, and you know, if you're really sick, it's like you're you just kind of like power and power it up and do it because it's like you know, it's just such a pain in the ass to like call out and get sub plans, and most of the time they can't get subs, and then it's like yeah, you're sticking it with someone else, and then you feel bad about that.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that that that aspect, but then also higher education was just like the you know, if if you're if you're racing to the top, you know, the race to the top of who's gonna get promoted because there's there's barely any promotions going on, you're gonna be the one that works, like you said, 16 hours plus of of, you know, and you're putting in the extra time and you're making sure everybody knows what you do.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was kind of that kind of culture where I'm just gonna do it.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, like I can't do that.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I just can't.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, yeah.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's a whole extra job on top of your job of communicating out all the things that you're doing and making sure your leadership sees the extra work that you've put in.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, there are a number of ways to address it.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: In my opinion, though, as somebody with a background in public policy, these again are systemic issues that are it's not on the it can't only be on the individual to solve.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: In the moment, yes, it's about reprioritizing and letting some things, letting some things fall off your list and recognizing taking a break can impact your career progression in the moment, but it doesn't have to, it doesn't have to impact your whole career in the course of your life, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: It it may slow down your progress towards a promotion.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: It may mean that you have to say no to something big, the a project at work that you know if you say no to this, your boss isn't gonna love that, right?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to be willing to disappoint other people in order to be true to yourself and be the parent or the caregiver that you wanna be.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, you know, one of the things that really stuck with me when I thought about work and I have, you know, take a wider view of what's going on for people.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: We are so expendable to our jobs.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: They just need a butt in a seat, you know, especially in the corporate world.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: But to some extent, like you're saying, right in education, too, like you can stick kids with a sub.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not ideal, but you can.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for yourself and your family, nobody can replace you.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: There is no substitute for a parent.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: There is no substitute for you showing up for yourself in a moment when you're stressed and overwhelmed.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that has to be the thing that we value above all, especially in this climate.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in this work climate, we see there is, you know, there's so many layoffs in tech happening.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you're gonna get laid off anyway, fuck them.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Take your leave, right?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like take your paid leave for three months and you the there's a layoff coming anyway.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Screw you.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let me get paid for the next three months to not work and heal.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, as someone going through a layoff right now in late June, I can tell you, just take take it because I'm I'm I'm still mad as hell about my situation and how you know I was one of the I I kid you, I shit you not.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like the night before I got laid off, I was working late on stuff.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I mean no incentive, no advantage.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you sacrifice yourself, you sacrifice your time, and then you're like, oh my god, why was I doing that?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like they didn't care about me.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nobody noticed, and and of course it didn't make any difference, and I was so laid off with you know half of my other people in my organization, and you know, I've been there for 10 almost 10 years, and you know, I I get a five-minute meeting with uh HR and the the the president of the university, and that's it.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no no no further communication, just you guys are gone by the end of the day, say your goodbyes and peace out.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, okay, cool.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's awesome.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: So what was your breaking point, Jessica?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like what what what caused you to uh sabotage?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: With Facebook and start your own business.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I left Facebook in 2021.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: I went to a different job at Salesforce and I was there for a couple of years.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: I would say the things that really pushed me over the edge, like I had mentioned, like I was sick over and over for a span of several months in the spring of 2023.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: For me, the last draw was I came back from a work trip that uh was really last minute that I was in charge of planning this big offsite for my organization across the country in a city I had never been to for 40 people who had never met each other, many of whom, you know, never met each other before because we were all hired during the pandemic.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, it was tough, you know, it was a short amount of time to do this planning for this trip and chaotic to execute.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I did my best.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I was dealing with these back-to-back illnesses.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started feeling like, you know, when you get like this weird feeling with your coworkers, like, like, why isn't that person responding right away when I like send them a quick question?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Or like, yeah, oh, like nobody like laugh emojied my joke that I made in like the Slack channel or whatever, where you just get those like weird things like, what's what is happening?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then I came back to work after that trip to an unexpected performance management conversation with a new manager who had been my peer.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Our previous manager went on maternity leave.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: She had been great.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: She had not expressed performance concerns to me.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there were growth areas for sure, like there are with everyone.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: But this person was somebody that I had trusted, somebody who purports to be, you know, an experienced seasoned manager.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are that in the corporate world, one of the big things in management is like critical feedback should never be a surprise, you know, or performance management should never be a surprise.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: You should always be, as soon as you notice something, saying, Hey, I noticed this thing.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me more about what's going on, right?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And a good manager leads with empathy and curiosity, right?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you know, hey, this person really screwed this thing up.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: The opening to that conversation can always be, hey, tell me what's going on for you.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is everything okay?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and that is not what happened.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, hey, we really need to talk.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's like some pretty big things going on that you like missed or screwed up.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: They like ascribed ill intentions to me in a couple of situations that were just miscommunications.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of saying, hey, what happened there?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so-and-so told me that you guys had talked about this one thing in a meeting, but then it seemed like you, you know, did something else that wasn't what you agreed on.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: What happened?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was like you deliberately went against blah, blah, blah, that you guys had agreed on.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that was so shocking to me that they would think I'm that person after working with me for two years.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and I thought, recognizing that I'm a person of integrity, that I just was like, you know what, at this.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like these people don't care about me.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: They don't see me.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they don't value my contributions.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Cause if they did, they would be leading with that empathy and the curiosity of what's going on for this person, right?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: And in that that time that I, you know, was back from this work trip, I was still sick.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I came back to this really surprising critical feedback that felt very personal.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just was like, you know what?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Fuck this.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take medical leave.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm really sick and this is super stressing me out.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And these people are not seeing me than what I'm going through in my life.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was also going through a divorce at that time.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's really stressful.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I needed to take leave to be healthy.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was, I could not get well from these illnesses.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And luckily, I had a great doctor who I had been in communication with.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so she was supportive to sign off on my leave paperwork.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I took several months of leave.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And as I was away and had perspective from the job and could consider that time, you know, the span of time that I had been in that job and in the role, what was expected of me versus what was actually happening.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't, I can't go back to that job.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know what I'm gonna do next, but I I need to prioritize myself, number one.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it would be untrue to myself to put myself back into such an adverse environment.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's crazy.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say a listener out there like really identifies with what you said and and can, you know, maybe circumstances are a little different, but they can be like, oh yeah, that's me.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: What what advice do you have for them in terms of knowing whether to restart or to kind of just like stick it out?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say, first of all, make sure you have a supportive relationship with a healthcare provider because my next recommendation is take leave, take some mental health leave, which falls under short-term disability.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you speak with your doctor or your psychologist, a therapist, a counselor to say, I am so underwater, I don't feel healthy, right?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: You talk to them about your physical symptoms.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it was like respiratory illnesses that I couldn't recover from.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: But for some people, it's tension headaches or digestive problems or anxiety, you know, emotional, mental health where you can't sleep and you're dreading work every day.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Those are real physical symptoms that like the World Health Organization recognizes burnout as an actual collection of illnesses, right?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so doctors care about people's health and they will sign off on, you know, mental health or physical health short-term disability paperwork to allow you to heal.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if for some reason your doctor doesn't, find somebody else who will, because there are tons of healthcare professionals out there who see what's happening and recognize how important it is for people to take time off to heal.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing is just taking time off and stepping away to give yourself a perspective.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: And just having that perspective and taking your daily workload of a full-time or more job off your plate to be like giving yourself that mental space and clarity makes a huge difference.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and I can't say in specific what each person's next step would be, but I am a really strong believer in just like we have those answers inside ourselves if we're gonna be willing to slow down and be quiet and listen to what we're telling ourselves.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Figure out a way to connect with that voice inside of you that's like knows exactly what you need.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's scary.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that voice might be telling you, get the fuck out of this industry.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Or you really need to, you know, to change jobs, or hey, that new boss is never gonna click for you, right?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: It might not be easy to hear what your internal, you know, conscience is telling you, but it's really important to pay attention to that voice.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: I just, I really believe that that's we already have all the answers for ourselves.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's just hard to hear them.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and Jessica, if but tell us about being the CEO of not working in tech, the podcast, where to find you on the internet and and where people can connect with you that, you know, like again, just hearing you describe your story.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's people out there that are like, oh, that's me.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's me.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is what I need to do.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is my next step.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: So how do they connect with you and and and learn from you and find all your resources and all that good stuff?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, they can find me online at my website, not working in tech.com.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: We have a really wonderful page of free resources that people can find books or they can look up connecting with mental health providers or career coaches, you know, authors, other podcasters or TED Talks that are sharing, you know, related messages.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: I work one-on-one with folks to do short-term kind of crisis consulting.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do I offer free consult to people if they wanna just come and have a quick chat with me to say what's going on in their lives, and I can make some suggestions or, you know, we can decide, let's work together for a series of maybe four sessions over the course of six or eight weeks where they're gonna come out with a concrete set of actionable steps every time of things that they can do to rebalance what's happening in their lives.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm on Instagram at not working in tech.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then I also have a podcast that's available anywhere people listen to podcasts, also called Not Working in Tech.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I talk to guests who mostly are not working in tech anymore, but who share their experiences and their journeys of when they were in tech.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, some folks are talking about their experience with taking leave or chronic illness or sexism, racism.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I also speak to therapists who talk about burnout and prioritizing mental health.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: In the future, I'm really hoping to also bring in the legal and HR aspect for people to hear and learn more about their rights and when to kind of understand is this legal or, you know, is is my work or my boss doing something that's like literally against the law.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's awesome.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a really great conversation and I just really appreciate you coming on.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'd I'd love to kind of stay in touch and maybe do more episodes in the future.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: I would love that.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that's great.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm I'm making so many connections on this podcast, and you know, you're definitely one of them that I'm like, okay, this is definitely this is a this is an this is an issue.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: If I if I felt it being I wasn't even in management, I was just a a regular like dude that didn't get promoted at all and was stagnant in my career, and I felt I felt the pressure of like, okay, you need to put more hours in, you need to like give up being a parent, like a like a parent that not a not being a parent, but but giving up being a parent that's hands-on and like a picks up their kid from school, like yeah, drops them off from daycare and all that stuff that that was a non-negotiable for me.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not gonna give that up.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt that at times too, and you know, I'm sure a lot of people out there in corporate America feel that, um, especially as the job market kind of gets tighter and there's more layoffs, and you know, people are like, oh man, I gotta hold on to my job.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know my wife right now is like thinking that too, because it's like I was just laid off.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, of course it's more important than she keeps it.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is really scary.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that's the systemic piece that I hope people will recognize is it's not a personal failure, right?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: We across the board, you know, we don't guarantee paid sick time.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like we just expect, I don't know, employers are gonna be benevolent and let you have paid sick time, but like not everyone does, you know, and you hear these horror stories of, you know, grandmother of seven keels over on the her job at Kohl's because she couldn't call in sick because she wasn't feeling well that day.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like you're working in a retail environment, it's not life or death.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone deserves to be able to take time off when they're sick.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And other, you know, there's plenty of other countries where this happens.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And companies are still in business, stores are still able to serve customers, right?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not impossible, but I think systemically, where we are at today in the US, there's there's this pervasive idea that's like, oh, we couldn't possibly fill in the blank, right?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: We couldn't possibly give people a year of paid maternity leave.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: We couldn't possibly give everyone four weeks of paid vacation or, you know, unlimited sick time if you have a documented illness from your doctor.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: And those are just things that like erase everyone's humanity and create this sort of artificial, this rat race, right?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: This competition of like, oh my God, well, I have a chronic illness, so I'm never gonna be able to do as much as my neighbor over there who is at work 14 hours a day and just grinding and hustling.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a level playing field.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something that we all really need to figure out how we're gonna advocate for in our own little time and place, right?
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: For some people, maybe it's advocating for public policy on a federal or a state level.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: And for some people like me, it's, you know, starting a podcast and a platform where I'm talking about these issues and bringing in folks from all other, you know, kinds of jobs and industries to say this is a real problem.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for some folks, maybe it's climbing the corporate ladder and being a person of great influence in your company who says, Hey, I want to make a difference.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like everyone deserves XYZ benefit that's not guaranteed, but it could lift all boats as a rising tide, right?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jessica Lattev, that is beautiful, and you're doing the good work.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for that.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: You too.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Big impact.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I'm doing such a good job that I'm just I'm sorry.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can't let it go.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pissed off right now.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what the fuck is going on?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'll be good.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be good.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this was a little bit of therapeutic for me, so thank you for that.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody, we've all been there.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: I have been there too.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, especially when your kids are young and the demand is so high for your time and energy.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, it's a it that is one of the most draining seasons of life.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I totally get it.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Hang in there.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: It will pass, you know, it's not forever.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: And try to enjoy those tender moments with your toddler and your little one.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I know also prioritize yourself and sleep and your health.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're so sweet.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being on the show.