Category: Burnout
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Why I Dread Performance Reviews Even When They Go Well
It wasn’t the feedback itself. It was how reviews managed to make every achievement feel like proof of worth rather than a moment of reflection. Performance reviews are supposed to be evaluative. That’s the…
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How I Struggled to Adjust When a Coworker Changed Their Gender Identity
I didn’t realize how much my internal rhythm of conversation depended on constancy — until that constancy quietly changed. I remember exactly when it started to matter in a way I couldn’t ignore. It…
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How I Became the Middleman for Everyone’s Problems
It wasn’t a role I asked for. It was a pattern that gently wrapped itself around my days until I barely noticed I was carrying everyone else’s weight too. I didn’t set out to…
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Why It Felt Like When My Boss Came Out as Transgender at Work
I didn’t expect a personal revelation to become a workplace moment I kept replaying internally. I hadn’t thought much about gender identity before it came up in a meeting that wasn’t about gender at…
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What It Feels Like to Never Know If You’re Doing Enough
It wasn’t that I wasn’t doing a lot. It was that nothing ever felt like enough. There was a time when finishing a task meant something settled inside me — like closing a loop…
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Why Talking About Pronouns at Work Makes Me Uncomfortable
It isn’t disagreement. It isn’t resistance. It’s the feeling that every sentence suddenly carries risk. I remember the first time pronouns were brought up at work in a way that felt official. Not casual,…
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Why I Always Feel Behind No Matter How Much I Do
I’m not behind because I’m incapable. I’m behind because the pace I feel is never the pace I’m measured against. There was a time when I could track my progress — task by task,…
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How Unspoken Expectations Made My Job Feel Unsafe
It wasn’t the explicit demands that weighed on me. It was the quiet pressure to meet expectations no one ever defined. There were rules at work — explicit ones — about deadlines, workflows, and…
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Why I Started Feeling Invisible After a Promotion
Getting promoted wasn’t the problem. What happened afterward made me feel like I was standing in plain sight but still unseen. The day I was promoted, I felt a quiet blend of gratitude and…
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What It’s Like to Work Somewhere With No Clear Direction
The work kept moving — just never toward anything I could truly point to and say, “This is where we’re going.” I didn’t realize it at first. When I joined, I assumed everyone was…