Outgrowing the Career Survival Built

We’re opening Am I Off Mute with Kassidi Stynnett.
A Los Angeles native, multi-genre writer, and People team professional, her nearly decade-long career in mission-driven organizations informs a powerful reflection on work, survival, and reclaiming agency…

I’ve been working since I was 17. In the summer of 2009, I started off as a ticket taker in DTLA and cashier at Smart ‘n Final while going to school full-time at Santa Monica College. Eventually, I worked my way up through the prongs of customer service for big named brandsand even became a retail supervisor briefly–never again. With that, I’m a true blue Millennial who would party on Sundays until the sun came up, would go home to shower and nap (maybe) and clock in at work on time, every time. From there, I was able to fall into great opportunities in Sales Management, Operations and then right into People where I had the space to gain so much institutional knowledge about talent & HR from working at startups. That in itself is such a different learning experience than entering a company that’s solidified in all of their processes, spans and layers and pretty much everything.** Startups at any age come with impermanence which translates directly to how life operates once you’ve lived enough of it.

Being a black woman in this space really brings your already learned hyper-approach to life into full focus.

Having straight A’s for the majority of my life greatly prepared me for performing at work. The overly regurgitated phrase “You’ve gotta work twice as good and work twice as hard” is what many of us heard growing up; but at some point this ideology has to come to a screeching halt because our nervous systems have simply had it with the tightrope of falling in line, being likeable, anticipating how your words will land and really every room having a temperature and you being the thermostat–simply put, being enough and more than enough at the same time. Inevitably, this comes up because everything we were taught about how to navigate the adult world has shifted radically and at our expense.

What I’ve found is that every day or every week can be different; but you have to learn to leave everything at the close of your laptop. If you do not, it simply trickles into every interaction. Sort of like the Apple TV show Severance, but a scosche more ethical. Every facet of our lives trickles into everything we participate in. How we grew up is how we manage at work. Full stop. The person you are at work often mirrors who you were as a child—trying to be good, rebelling, or eventually deciding you no longer need permission. You learn early how to play the game to get what you need, and you carry that into adulthood. If you grew up competing for attention or approval, it can resurface with coworkers, bosses, or anyone holding power. What we lived through then, we reenact now—especially at work, which became the first place we learned to survive.

When this finally comes into focus is when you start contemplating, whether actively or passively, what you really want out of the time you have left working, or otherwise, and how you actually want to spend it. The Henry Ford 8-hour work day is no longer necessary, working in office every single day is no longer necessary, tying healthcare to work isn’t either; and staying somewhere out of fear, complacency or loyalty does nothing for you in the long run–unless you’re a Boomer with a pension.

I am a very spiritual person who truly believes that quite literally anything is possible and everything is spiritual no matter what you believe in. We’ve just been conditioned to only approach work with an over abundance of tangibility. Don’t you remember being a kid, a teenager or a young adult and things just flowed more effortlessly into your orbit? I mean things you really wanted like elusively expensive concert tickets, a crush, a pair of shoes, a trip? And one day all of that slowed down because things got too serious.

We lost too much of our whimsy in vlookups, town halls, and heads down time drenched in blue light, KPIs and metrics.

We all must stretch our brains consistently, but not under the eclipse of the now heavily fragmented American or corporate dream. The playbook was illustrated by people in a world that no longer exists. By no means am I telling you to quit your job, but once that light bulb flickers on and you start seriously thinking about how we spend the majority of our lives “at work”, thinking about work making ends meet, planning for the future that is not guaranteed, you realize you shouldn’t have to wait that long to live–again? The workforce, as a whole, is undergoing an extreme metamorphosis and no one in our lifetime can quantitatively predict the outcome; so I leave you with this: the world and being hyper-anything needs to be sunset or life will humble you into understanding that being laid-off may feel like the end of the world, but there are other horrors that exists in the years we don’t have access to yet, if we even get the privilege. The invitation right now isn’t to work harder or be less scared, but to notice who you are when survival mode finally loosens its grip.

With gratitude.

Thank you to Kassidi for trusting us with your words and for offering such an honest, resonant reflection. Am I Off Mute? exists because of voices like yours, voices willing to name the things many of us are thinking but rarely say out loud.

If you are reading this and thinking, I have something to say too, we want to hear from you.

We are currently accepting submissions for future installments of the Am I Off Mute? blog series. This space is for thoughtful, brave, and nuanced perspectives on work, identity, equity, culture, and the moments that ask us to speak up, even when it feels uncomfortable.

👉 Submit your interest here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScePrWFj-DMJCgHpueyywUqFqXHlvx23tx5MWcjFCqd12P-kQ/viewform

Because silence was never meant to be the standard.