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.
Love,
Rachel
Rachel!!! OBSESSED!!!!!!
Wow. This has me in tears on a Wednesday morning at work. Powerful lineage.