I spent $32k+ to figure out whether I should leave or stay at my company.

Hand-wringing in every therapy session ($225 x 48 weeks x 3 years) — analyzing why I couldn’t make it work. Jealous of others who could just deal.

So here’s the needle-moving stuff that made my career decisions easier.

1. Write your eulogy assuming you’re 100

That sounds intense, I know. But stick with me, grab a drink, and imagine where you’d want your eulogy to be read.

Get creative here. A friend of mine passed away who was on the swim team growing up. So his memorial was at a public pool — all of us sat on the risers. There were synchronized swimmers, performing to the Golden Girls song “Thank you for being a friend.” It was fucking beautiful.

Now think of who you want to read your eulogy aloud. Who would be the best person to sing your song?

Next set the scene. Time to write. How would you open it? With a joke? With a challenge? A reflection? A petty clapback? Let it flow.

As you near the end, you’ll notice that work didn’t show up how you thought it would. It’s not in the spotlight the way it is in your life right now.

Because at some point, you get out of the messed-up-work-situation you’re facing. As you get older, you no longer have to lead with career when you meet new people. When was the last time you met a Grandma that told you about her career before her grandkids, amirite?

Post-career we’ll be meeting people at pickleball (or then it may be cakepaddle or potatofoot). We’ll have our pets! Book clubs. Mahjong. Y2K clubbing replicas. We’ll be crocheting couch covers. There will be so much to talk about. Career won’t always be front and center.

And you won’t always be in this shitty work situation. The eulogy exposes this. Your mind can’t unsee it.

Once you have your eulogy, you reverse-engineer from it. How will you show up differently now, knowing how you want your life to go? This is an inspo gold mine, especially if you pair it with a planning method like the 12-week-year.

Don’t chicken out. Just do it. Next up:

2. Default to how you typically get out of shitty situations

I’m not talking about spiraling and dissociating.

How do you typically navigate out? Not stayed in, but got out.

For me, I force myself to see art, watch documentaries, connect dots between news and trends. I ask my Granddaddy, in heaven, what’s in his heart for me.

The idea will usually come if I set out the welcome mat.

Once it knocks, it’s an adrenaline takeover.

I block the haters. I burn bridges. I make a Pinterest board.

I inventory who’s coming with me. Who of my people can help? I text them. They’re used to this. I’m elmo fire. And obviously a Leo.

Then comes my methodical precision in spreadsheets. My future is in those cells. And it hunt it down.

~So that’s me~

But when it came to my bad work situation, I hit override on my process again and again. The welcome mat was not out. The porch light was off. I was in denial and isolating. I was lost to my own self.

Part of coming-back-to-yourself is coming back to your process.

• Do you like plotting in secrecy? Do you need everyone to know? Or just your Mom?

• What does your future taste like? Smell like? Sound like?

• Do you prefer change that’s huge or incremental?

• Do you need a team to make it happen? Or do you want to go solo instead?

• Do you like having 1 big project or 2? Maybe 3+?

Think through these questions to start activating your default “getting out” method. Today. It’s the stream that will carry you down the river to somewhere better. Or at least to a new place.

3. Give yourself a juicy reward to look at the math

Think of a fun treat you’d be thrilled to receive. Look through your open browser pages on your phone. What experience or product have you looked up the most recently? What do you keep saving on your socials?

My favorite treats are lip gloss, jewelry, and books on The Cold War (ha!).

I want you to gift yourself that yummy treat as a reward for looking at the math.

As you know, indecision often comes down to our finances.

• Can I afford to make that change?

• What would it cost to do that?

• How much do I need to save?

We end up not looking, afraid of what we’ll find. There might be dead bodies in that credit card history. Or we punish ourselves by withholding a reward, but we end up not looking anyway. Cuz it’s annoying.

So we use the reward to actually get data to understand options.

Here’s a simple way to understand your financial runway in months if something were to happen to your job.

1. Add up one month of bare minimum expenses like rent, groceries, insurance, debt payments, etc. This is your monthly baseline.

2. Add up the money in your savings and checking accounts (but not retirement). This is your total cash.

3. Divide total cash by your monthly baseline. This amount tells you how many months of basic needs you could afford if you quit today.

Did you do it? If yes, I’m proud of you. You’re pushing past fear of the unknown to understand where you are.

Now that you generally understand your financial runway, you can start calculating how much it would cost to do X. Or the amount of money you’d need to save for Y.

Rewards reduce suffering while figuring out options.

And here’s some lighter prompts too

These will get you thinking beyond the typical loops

• What do you stand against?

• Does your company pass your ethics test? (see quiz here)

• How would your child self (maybe age 7) advise you right now?

• How would your favorite older person advise you right now?

If you’re a tactical girlie…

Check out these more pragmatic tools:

• Golden handcuffs

  • The golden handcuffs calculator: are you underpaid for your misery?

• Healthcare

  • I stayed too long in tech, because healthcare

  • Feeling trapped in your job because of benefits? Read this.

• Layoff prevention

  • I’ll help you calculate your actual tech layoff risk

  • AI is getting sued. Here’s how to use that to your advantage while planning your exit.

In sum

1. Reverse-engineer a decision today from your eulogy

2. Use your default process to navigate out of the shitty situation

3. Give yourself a reward, so you actually look at the math

Most of these methods are psychological rather than tactical — that’s no accident. The brain craves predictability over all else. Sometimes you need to lovingly trick her to open up new pathways — of the neuro variety.

Rooting for you,
Rachel

P.S. what did you learn from writing your eulogy?

I used to work at a tech company with a maniac CEO.

At the time, he was considered a gEnIuS, and I convinced myself of that too. But a month in, I started realizing that something was off. Red flags were surfacing constantly, “so I could fix them,” I thought. I dove in head-first.

Things got progressively more disorienting, so I started going offline in my personal life: dissociating on Real Housewives and CNN. Buying clothes to make me more likable. Restricting my food, because being skinny felt like armor.

And, incessantly, comparing myself to my co-workers. “Why is she so successful here?” “How’s he making jokes when we’re in the middle of a shitshow?” “Why can’t I just get it together?”

But I noticed something.

Some of the company’s most effective workers had lived through a lot of trauma: abandonment, tragedies, drug addiction, etc.

So I wondered, Were they rockstars in this environment, precisely because they were so familiar with abuse and trauma?

Was she so successful because her smoke alarm had been missing batteries for years?

Was he so admired because his baseline was already set to chaos and neglect?

Did my company prefer those who were “pre-abused,” because it didn’t even register as abuse? But rather as any other Tuesday?

I think yes.

Part of me fit their mold. Part of me did not.

In 2009, when I was 24, I came out to my parents as gay. My Dad was a minister, my Mom was traditional. It did not go well. We were semi-estranged for 5 years.

So I turned to work to hug me back. I could get attention and power and acknowledgment if I did the job that needed to be done — and faster than anyone else could. And I was in the right environment, Washington, DC, which too-often runs on shame.

But realizing I couldn’t go much further without a master’s degree, I went to business school. There I learned about my future company and its gEnIuS. The mission was meaningful and humanity-centered. I wanted in.

And I did get in.

Professors, peers, and friends were amazed that I drove across the country without a job and got hired by a company with an acceptance rate lower than Harvard undergrad’s.

A prior boss once called an accomplishment “heroin straight into the vein.” It felt like that. My fingers clawed into that feeling — as if I found the only life raft in the ocean.

I went from that rejected pastor’s kid to an elite worker! The logo felt so damn good.

But you already know that I smelled smoke my first month in.

Before starting there, I had worked at a Fortune 10 company, a federal agency, and a fintech. So I knew what wrong looked like. And things felt wrong right away.

I was on a special projects team, and my charter was to “find problems and fix them.” I uncovered a lot of issues, dozens of which I consolidated into enterprise-wide projects. The first project was a slam dunk. The second almost broke me. The third did break me.

It didn’t help that I was witnessing sudden firings and workers sabotaging each other — many of us underpaid in an unaffordable place. Fear was the pulse of the company.

So to stay focused during those challenging projects, I started a vicious cycle that gave my employer more control over me.

I grew up afraid to be gay, so I was predisposed to blame myself.

An expert at wishing I was different, I knew how to metabolize that pain. How to direct it inward, converting it into self-exploitation — the exact fuel my company preferred.

To deal with the pressure, I relied on these coping skills:

• Dissociating on workplace crushes, imagining that I was wanted amidst the firestorm

• Compulsive workshopping with co-workers — figuring out if we were safe

• Constant scenario planning to “stay ready”

• Telling myself that I was superior to people struggling at the company

• Addiction to achievement, always seeking my next high

• Co-dependency with co-workers, desperately needing them to tell me if I was okay and what to do

• Repetitive body behaviors like stroking my eyebrows until the hair was falling out

And the language that kept me swirling:

• “This is the best company out there. I’m not downgrading.”

• “People are in awe when I tell them where I work. I’m not losing that.”

• “I’m not one of those people who can’t handle this.”

• “I will make her like me.”

• “I’m the one suffering the most.”

All of this led to:

• Paranoia that people were out to get me

• Night terrors, insomnia, oversleeping at the wrong times

• Never-ending self-criticism

• Unshakable denial that everything was great

• Self-isolation, no more dating or seeing friends & family

• I even had a delusion that I was being followed

I was totally consumed by my employer, it owned me. I worked non-stop. I became more aggressive, more threatened. The culture was Darwinian by design. The gEnIuS thought it led to better, faster results.

So, like my rockstar co-workers, I too got vacuumed up — even without their severity level of abuse and neglect. Without realizing it, my company culture clicked into my coming-out trauma like a roller coaster clicking into its track.

But still, I thought I was entirely to blame for what was happening to me and how I was behaving. “Why can’t I make this work?!”

Yes, I was an active participant in workplace dysfunction. And yes, I’m embarrassed by my desperation and manipulation of others to survive.

But, it wasn’t that I couldn’t cut it. The issue was the “pool” I was swimming in.

The only thing I saw in the frame, then, was me failing. Now, I’ve zoomed out enough to see that the swimming pool (my company) was just another extractive mining company with a cult of personality add-on. But here, the employees were being mined.

Meanwhile, the dank film from the pool stuck to my skin and hair — it was in my eyes. I couldn’t see beyond my company, because it clung to me, suffocating and clouding my judgment.

So why am I sharing all this?

Because there’s a repeating pattern here that we need to dissect, especially as women.

I call this pattern “self-blame recirculation,” where an employee blames herself for issues caused by her company. She seeks self-improvement to “modify herself,” distracting from the root cause, the company culture.

This pattern is effective af.

A pool pump recirculates the same water again and again. That’s what my shame did too. Another day at the company, another issue I diagnosed myself with. It was the same grimy water over and over, but if I scrubbed myself hard enough, that water would finally run clean, right?

So I bought self-help books. I looked up boundaries. I worked out, even more, to reduce my stress. I stopped drinking alcohol, because my margin for error was so low at work. Surely, that would help!! I explored Buddhism. Yoga constantly. Joined Equinox. I thought to myself, I’m taking responsibility. I’m not making excuses.

But every ounce of that energy was pointed back at me or a scapegoat at work. Never at that muddy water.

And my company loved that. While I was drowning in my own shame and blaming others, I didn’t have time to ask why the pool was so gross. Obsessed with proving that I belonged there, leaving was not an option. Naming the culture out loud was too risky. I had already gotten my hand slapped for doing so. Now that I was visibly struggling, naming it was off the table.

So I kept trying to become someone who could finally handle the pressure. I scrubbed myself raw, instead of the pool, over and over. And thanked my company for the opportunity.

This plays out across the board and finds women first.

From the jump, our society tells us that we’re the problem. To apologize for existing. To scrutinize ourselves before asserting needs. We’re socialized to be caretakers, who can fix anything. Once everyone sees what I see, I’ll be seen. Understood. And a hero.

That’s the training talking. But it’s not like it gets any easier when we point out the larger issues.

When we do, we become a threat to the company culture. We start getting attacked, isolated, demoted, etc. Culture course corrects to its blueprint without honest evaluation and the machinery required to actually change.

Women of Color are especially policed and “put in their place” when they point out these issues or try to make things better. Their words and actions are interpreted as insubordination — a direct threat to the most powerful in the room.

Women of Color, especially Black and Indigenous women, are “lower” in the white supremacy hierarchy. They’re expected to apologize, optimize, and sacrifice even more. They’re villainized, labeled “angry.” Penalized twice: once for speaking and again for how they speak.

They have a sharper radar for culture problems, because that radar has had to work harder to help them survive. When a Woman of Color speaks up, we white women too-often watch them get punished and learn to just say: nothing.

In the absence of change, we default to blaming ourselves. When the water runs dirty, the scrub brush is already on our skin, queued to scour.

A workforce made up of women beating ourselves up won’t bother to leave or organize or hold people accountable en masse. It’s focused on blending in as “meets expectations.” Meanwhile, layoffs have become a consequence for nonparticipation in this system.

But it still doesn’t matter if you’re the most optimized, therapized, and boundaried woman alive. You’ll still feel disgusting swimming in a disgusting company culture.

It matters what pool you swim in.

Becoming a cleaner, better swimmer was never the answer. It’s looking for a cleaner, better swimming pool.

Instead of contorting yourself to fit into a bad culture, I want you to look for a better culture.

For me, that meant walking away from tech, contracting work, and starting my own business. Whereas I had to slash my budget big time, the water here is clean. Because I trust the pool girl: me.

I know not everyone can become a solopreneur, but that’s not the point. The point is blaming yourself for your company culture only hurts you further.

So please stop hurting yourself.

It was always the water.

If you’re here, you’re still human

You just took a deep breath, didn’t you? And you exhaled the moment you felt most used up at work, yes? Good. That’s what we do here. We get that stuff out by talking with each other. By realizing that we’re not the only ones suffering from employers taking more from us than they give back. We grieve the sacrifices we’ve had to make: our strengths silenced to survive the system. The stomach ache on Sunday nights. The commute home with the radio off.

Here, we ask the deeper questions about this system.

• Why am I giving more than I signed up for?

• Is this just what work is?

• I know exactly what’s wrong, but why can’t I get out?

• Why do the same issues find me no matter the company?

• And…how do they get away with this?

Asking the tough questions is not punished here — it’s celebrated. You don’t have to explain yourself here. We want you unfiltered. And we want you on the team. Just as you are, still human.

This is a place to come up for air

A place where you can hear someone say the thing out loud. The feeling of relief. “I don’t have to perform here. I don’t have to speak corporate.” Yes, exactly. We help each other stay human, while navigating systems designed to use us up. This system wants us operating in isolation. It doesn’t want us to talk or to even know each other. This system knows we can’t exactly opt out: we have to participate in order to take care of ourselves and our families. But that doesn’t mean we can’t question it. Critique it. Explore options.

Here’s how this conversation happens:

• A newsletter about getting ourselves back and keeping it that way — so whether you’re a mom staying in Big Tech to build generational wealth, plotting your corporate exit amidst a nervous breakdown, or stuck between a rock and a hard place.

• A moderated subscriber chat to meet and talk (or even scheme!) as we navigate these same things at work. If you need a place to vent during a shitty meeting, this is where you go. If you need a place to gas women up, this is where you go. If you need a place to be inspired, this is where you go.

• Pragmatic tools (calculators, trackers, worksheets) to see what the job is taking, loosen its grip, and help you choose your next move based on data, not just vibes.

Not one but two Elon Musk companies

I’m uniquely qualified to lead this conversation. Not only did I work at one Elon Musk company, but I went back into the fire by working at a second. I have stories, and I have scars. I got swept up in grandiosity and my own achievement addiction. I wanted work to hug me back. Instead I was used up and spit out. Yes, I was an active participant in work dysfunction, but also the system was designed to take as much as it could from me. And it did. I was scared — and that’s its fuel. This is what we’re here to talk about.

Plus this work is my bloodline. My grandfather ministered to impoverished coal miners, steel workers, and immigrants for 55 years. My Dad counseled families both poisoned by buried toxic waste at Love Canal and those families left with nothing, abandoned when industry left. My Mom took extraction to court at every scale — from a baker’s arm cut off in an industrial mixer to a coastline lost to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Different paths, same job: standing with people inside the machine. Accompanying them. I’m the third generation.

Extraction has a lot of versions: a miner's lungs, a poisoned neighborhood, a coastline, your Tuesday. My family spent three generations naming the first three. I'm naming the fourth: the one going after white collar women.

But I’m no hero. Whereas I chose to leave corporate, I’m still figuring out how to stay whole. I’m on the road with you, not lecturing from the front seat.

So get in. I’ll drive.

I’ve driven this route before. I know what to do and how to help you — and what to avoid too. The back seat’s open. The sun’s on your face. And you can relax your shoulders. You found us.

So get in. Let’s go. Subscribe.

Subscribe now

Love,

Rachel

I stayed too long in tech, because...healthcare.

I've since left tech and my wife has held down our benefits since. But in the past couple months, it became clear that she needed to leave her non-profit for a career reset and time to rest.

The problem: we needed health insurance.

Between the two of us, we’ve switched benefit ownership for years. But this time, neither of us could stomach another corporate/philanthropy job.

So we found a self-pay plan through the ACA marketplace that covers the bulk of doctor visits, urgent care, x-rays, etc. It’s not the Cadillac of health insurance, but it works.

During the sign-up process, I realized something big.

Subscribe now

The lever we miss

In a W-2 job, your employer holds several levers over you.

Compensation is obvious. Health insurance is the sneaky one. We take it for granted until something goes wrong at work. We realize we can’t just leave, especially with kids and dependents.

I stayed in jobs longer than I should have. Not because I loved the work, but because I needed the insurance. Few people say this out loud.

Self-pay insurance is not perfect. My wife and I have a lot of privilege to be on a “good enough” plan. But the freedom we both felt taking ownership of our own insurance, reduced the stress of staying or needing to find a new misaligned job.

I’m not saying you have to switch to self-pay. Rather, I’m pointing out that supplying your own insurance removes a lever your company can hold over you. Removing that layer can shift the dynamic, big time.

Tenure

I once asked a favorite professor, “Do you have tenure?”

I needed to know how she got away with open criticism of the university.

She smiled and said, “I gave myself tenure.”

Not literally, metaphorically. She built her career so that she didn’t need the university to survive. She had other income streams, which led to her refreshing idgaf attitude. Whereas professors seek tenure to feel financially secure, she did that for herself.

And because she had options, she could maintain her value system even in a dysfunctional ivory tower.

That’s what self-pay insurance is doing for me too.

Even if I went back to tech tomorrow, I’d keep our self-pay plan. The company would still control my salary. But they wouldn’t control that lever.

Eliminating even one lever, changes how you show up. How much you tolerate, how long you wait, and whether you speak up.

It reduces the chronic loop: I need to stay for insurance.

Rationalizing bad management, moral issues — even embarrassment about your company — quiets down.

You say, “I no longer need this place for insurance.”

This is a mindset shift; it’s not about being reckless. You still need income. You still have to pay the mortgage. But health insurance doesn’t have to be part of the golden handcuff equation.

Now that my wife and I supply our own insurance, no one holds that over us anymore. We’re free agents.

The practical part

If you’re curious, we used the ACA marketplace and a health insurance broker to understand our healthcare options. The process took about 5 hours, a to z. It’s not perfect and there are gaps, but our family is no longer trapped by this one variable.

Don’t brush this off.

Look into your options before assuming self-pay insurance is too expensive. You might pay less annually than your company-sponsored plan. Regardless, the cost of staying in your tech job may be higher than the cost of leaving.

Give yourself tenure.

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My client Maya was in tears telling me how her mental health feels secondary to her spouse’s physical health.

She had wanted out of her corporate role for years, but stayed so her husband could continue expensive health treatments after a brutal car accident several years prior.

I’ve been in this boat too, and so has my wife. It’s painful.

Especially if there are issues at work.

Each time you fantasize about leaving your company, the need for healthcare clotheslines you. The fantasy evaporates and you’re back to your horrible meeting.

But Maya couldn’t take it anymore; she was at risk of falling into depression.

So I helped her decide to quit her job using simple math.

First, I asked her to get a quote for private market healthcare.

She called the number and worked with an agent to find the best possible plan for her and her husband, prioritizing the cost of his pain management shots and physical therapy.

She got the quote, telling me “it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.”

Then we made the key move.

We subtracted the unsubsidized monthly cost of her current healthcare from the private healthcare monthly cost.

It was $576. This means she would pay $576 more per month in insurance if she went with that private insurance policy.

Then I said, “Is leaving your job worth an extra $576 per month?”

“Yes, 100%.”

Immediately, she started breathing deeper and made a joke about crying.

Her body started relaxing, because she saw a way out.

This basic math made her path clear.

And it works both ways.

A different client recently calculated a $1258 difference, which she deemed a “hell no.” Again, her path was made clear: she needed to find a new job with benefits before quitting.

But what if you can’t afford to leave but need to?

I recommend setting up a separate savings account for these emergency monthly healthcare costs and double down on putting savings there.

Build that financial exit (as you can).

So here’s what I want you take away from this article:

don’t assume you can’t quit (because of benefits) without first getting a private market quote.

Do you feel any lighter after learning about this simple approach?

Here’s some instructions on how to get such a quote for yourself.

1. Go to healthcare.gov and click “Browse plans & costs”

2. Enter your zip code, household size, and estimated income to see subsidy eligibility and some available plans.

3. And/or call 1-800-318-2596 to work with a free navigator who can match you to the best plan (I recommend this route over online only, because they’re more knowledgable).

4. Explain your specific needs (ongoing prescriptions, specialist visits, etc.) so they can prioritize them when assessing plans.

5. Get your monthly premium, then subtract what you currently pay via your pay stub.

6. That difference is the benefits’ cost of leaving without another job lined up.

“Cozy.”

That’s how my new client described her ideal Saturday, two years from now.

There’s a dopey golden retriever. Waking up naturally. A heated blanket. Cooking food from her garden.

She’s been in tech for eleven years. She hasn’t felt cozy on a Saturday — without the work stuff running in the background — in a long time.

I help women leave tech by doing something very simple: imagining their life as if they weren’t in tech anymore.

What does your Saturday look like when you’re free?

We have to start there, because tech is good at making you forget you wanted something more than tech itself. It replaces your desires with KPIs. It replaces your instincts with performance reviews. It replaces the version of you that had a self with a version that has a job title.

And then it offers you more money to stay, and you do, and another quarter passes.

But imagine not having to play that game anymore.

No more looking for direction from a maniac CEO’s social media. No more lying to yourself that one more quarter should be fine. No more ignoring the part of you that’s been quietly begging you to walk toward something better — and more fun. No more pressure to look hot-but-not-too-hot, all while being handed dead-end projects dressed up as opportunities. No more hearing “This might not be the right environment for you” when you were simply trying to name a real risk.

Here’s the truth: overruling your body’s exit cues doesn’t build your future. It builds theirs. The billionaires and their yes-men get richer. And when the time comes, they lay you off by referencing your total comp. You’re a row on a spreadsheet.

So yeah. We need to talk about your ideal Saturday. It’s the first step to rebuilding a vision.

At first, it’s hard to answer. The imagination-for-fun muscle is atrophied. But my clients start thawing within minutes.

“I walk to the farmers market because I ran out of honey.” I love the specifics.

And every time I guide a client through this exercise, the same thing rises to the top: softness.

These women are exhausted by the hard exterior and interior they’ve had to maintain to survive in tech. When all they actually want is golden retriever cuddles and a garden with too many zucchinis.

So their ideal Saturday becomes our baseline. The north star we starting toward together.

Then I help them turn the table: use the hardness to get the softness. Relentless pursuit, ruthless prioritization, and running through brick walls. All of it, in service of the garden.

So now: your turn.

Below are some prompts from my Ideal Saturday exercise. Grab something warm to drink. Find a quiet corner.

There’s one rule: in this vision, you no longer work in tech.

Don’t worry about how you pay your bills yet. Just walk through your perfect Saturday two years from now: here.

For a couple years now, AI has been the wild wild west.

But the sheriff has arrived, and that sheriff is litigation.

I’ll show you how to cash in on this new era, so you can find a more stable role while you plot your exit — including a worksheet to help you figure out your best path.

Every new technology has a honeymoon period. Capital flows and competition intensifies. But the rules aren’t yet fleshed out.

AI has been in this phase the past couple years, but the honeymoon is wrapping up. Litigation, reliably, is the next phase.

By design, litigation lags new technology, because enough harm must occur to incite lawsuits, which then play out in court for upwards of a decade until legal precedent is set. All of that takes time.

Right now we’re in between these phases: honeymoon and litigation. The wild wild west is about to get some law and order. The sheriff is here now.

And therein lies career opportunity for women who want to leave tech, but need a safer role while they plan their exit.

More stable roles can be found at this intersection, while building tech exit plans. Doing so will likely reduce layoff anxiety, so you can get some breathing room to plan.

So how do you do put this in motion? Spoiler: I have a worksheet for you :-)

It includes these steps:

1. Diagnose how AI is used or sold at your company, which will inform —>

2. The lane you can pursue as you become “litigation-adjacent” leading to —>

3. Your positioning statement.

So check out this free worksheet here.

Do you feel more optimistic given these new career options?

I’ve been working with a UX designer at a major tech company.

She came to me wondering why she felt so damn awful.

She passionately listed off reasons why her company is not okay.

Especially since her CEO is mentioned in the Epstein files.

Her income now feels “dirty” and “filthy.”

She started crying.

Hard.

“It sounds like you’re ethically misaligned.”

“Exactly,” she said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

I knew we had to convert these emotions into data.

So I made her a tool to get data on that misalignment.

This morning, I shared it with her and clear-eyed, she said, “Okay I’m done.”

Seeing that her tech company misaligned with her ethics 66% of the time was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

We’ve spent weeks trying to understand how she could make it work at her company.

But with this data, she broke through the paralysis.

We scheduled her “what’s next?” session then and there.

We’re going to get her out of there.

Because that misalignment is too taxing for her to stay.

So, today, I’m sharing this tool with you too.

This quiz will show you if your company aligns with your ethics — or at least enough to feel good or to stay.

Click this link to access the quiz. Make a copy for yourself in the “File” menu and have at it.

This will help decide if you want to stick with the golden handcuffs you know or find something better.

Rooting for you,

Rachel

Should you be worried about layoffs? Take the test.

You keep refreshing Blind. You even look at it before bed. Because you’re just trying to know: will I get laid off and what will happen to me?

When I was in tech, I easily spent a thousand hours worrying whether I would be affected. My layoff rate was 7:1. Survived seven. Impacted by 1.

So I built a tool to help with this very issue: the tech layoff probability score. I made this after watching some clients get blindsided by layoffs. The signs were there. They just didn’t know which ones mattered most.

What this calculator tells you

We’re pattern matching, not fortune telling.

I’ve compiled 12 factors that typically come before layoffs at tech companies. I assigned weights to these factors to adjust for the degree of risk. Some things that seem scary like stock price drops or executive departures are less predictive than you may think, while other things that seem minor (like your projects getting deprioritized or a hiring freeze) are red flags.

Where will your score fall?

0-20%: you’re probably fine. Keep track of your work results and start networking when able, but don’t lose sleep.

21-40%: it may be time to update the resume and start taking informational calls. It may not be urgent, but reserve some time each month for this.

41-60%: if you’re not actively job searching, you may be gambling. Start now while you have time to be selective. And build up your emergency savings to at least 3 months.

61-80%: treat this like you have 90 days. Full search mode. Talk to recruiters. Activate every relevant contact. Increase emergency savings to at least 6 months.

81-100%: assume it’s coming. You may want to disengage from work to focus on your search. Or take PTO. Reduce spending and add any remaining cash to your savings.

What to do with your score

If you scored 40% or higher and you’re thinking “well, maybe I’m the exception” - you’re not. That’s the golden handcuffs talking.

Here’s what that voice costs you:

• 3-6 months of unemployment because you waited

• Accepting a lateral move instead of a step up because you’re desperate

• Burning through savings while you figure out what’s next

• Missing the window when your network could have helped you land somewhere better

The women I work with who navigate layoffs well have one thing in common: they trusted the data over wishful thinking.

So, here is the link to the tech layoff probability calculator. If you scored 40% or higher send me a dm. We’ll dig into your score together.

This is the calculator I wish I’d had before my Tesla layoff in 2018. It would have saved me six months of anxiety and a fire sale job search.

Don’t wait for the “quick call” meeting notice to land on your calendar.

Rooting for you,

Rachel

If you feel trapped by the golden handcuffs, I’ll help you cost that out.

Because for every high achiever, there comes a time when compensation stops feeling like enough.

You followed the path: a fancy title, a six-figure salary with promising equity, stellar benefits.

But you’re also exhausted. Offline. You’ve stopped learning. You have to remain disengaged just to get through the day.

You want something different and better. And you may be willing to take a hit on compensation to do something else. But you need your current comp. Maybe a spouse and/or kids depend on your benefits. Leaving may mean pausing what you’re working toward financially. The thought of walking away feels impossible. Just too difficult. Too much stress.

There’s those golden handcuffs.

But fortunately, I have an exercise to help you cost the price of staying. So rather than relying on vibes, let’s get data.

This exercise was made for the women in my life who feel trapped by their own success. It takes 10 minutes and shows you exactly how much staying costs you.

Here’s How It Works:

Make your own copy of the free Golden Handcuffs Calculator here

Step 1: calculate your 5-year compensation

Enter your current annual salary, bonus, and equity value. Estimates are perfectly okay. The sheet will calculate your total annual compensation and multiply it by five to represent your 5-year compensation.

This is what you’re actually getting paid to stay.

Step 2: price your misery

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Write down the minimum dollar amount your company would need to pay you — as a lump sum — to endure everything that staying would cost you for five more years.

Be specific and think about:

• Your physical or mental health

• Time with your partner or family

• Your creativity and sense of purpose

• The career pivot you keep putting off

• Your ability to take risks

Step 3: assess your misery tax

The sheet automatically calculates the gap between your “cost of staying” and your actual 5-year earnings.

If your “cost of staying” is higher than what you’re actually earning, then you’re likely underpaid for your own misery.

That gap is your misery tax: what staying is costing you.

What This Exercise Reveals

Most of my clients discover that their stay price is 2-3x higher than their actual compensation. One Head of Product told me she’d need $3 million to stay five more years. Her actual five-year earnings? $1.8 million.

After she saw that discrepancy, we started building her exit strategy.

This exercise doesn’t tell you whether to stay or go. Rather it quantifies what your gut may already know: you’re trading too much of your life for not-enough compensation.

Want to talk about what to do with your results? That’s exactly what I help my clients figure out. Comment below or DM me on LinkedIn and let’s talk about what comes next for you.

You don’t have to stay stuck just because you’re well-compensated.

Golden handcuffs are still handcuffs.

Rooting for you,
Rachel

What’s actually keeping you in tech?

The salary? The prestige?

Subscribe now

Next Tuesday, I’m launching “How to Leave Tech” a weekly newsletter with a spreadsheet and/or frameworks to help you figure your way out and toward what’s next.

The first issue will be “The Golden Handcuffs Calculator”

Rooting for you,
Rachel