The Pandemic was a Portal
Six years ago, the world shut down. Americans hoarded toilet paper, eggs, and canned beans. We were scared. There was no playbook for how to survive a global pandemic. So we all relied on what we knew. And I knew work.
I had come into adulthood believing the gospel of Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In." Work was how I made meaning in the world. So stuck in my 560-square-foot apartment, I threw myself into my new role at a beloved developer tool company.
My days often started at 7 a.m. to collaborate with my European colleagues. Once it started, I moved through life in 30-minute calendar blocks. I skipped meals to make more time for work. I often ended my day writing product requirements documents (PRDs) until late into the night. With the outside world closed, my entire world shrank to my 15-inch laptop. But work did not love me back.
I worked for a VP who was openly derisive to people of color. He regularly mispronounced non-Western names. A senior director confided that she was worried about bringing a qualified West African candidate to him because he wouldn't respect them due to their accent. Rather than engage me in technical topics, my 1:1s with the VP were centered on his children.
To counterbalance his bias, I received feedback to work on my gravitas. In a team of predominantly men, my collaborative style read as less authoritative. After months of non-stop work, I got the dreaded surprise calendar invite with the VP. Despite managing three major products and receiving an excellent performance rating just two months before, he told me I was not meeting expectations for a senior PM.
My heart dropped. My world crumbled underneath me. I spent months in an inconsolable state of despair. Was I so bad at my job that I didn't realize? My source of meaning was gone. I was lost. I didn't know what to do.
Slowly, I rebuilt my life. I took the ceramics class I had always wanted to take. I invested in relationships outside of work. I began writing. And yes, I got another job. But I was forever changed by that experience. I was forced to create meaning outside of work.
"Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it." - Arundhati Roy
Early in the pandemic, Arundhati Roy theorized that the wide-scale crisis of the pandemic would lead to social change. In some ways it did. The US postal service shipped COVID tests to every household. We had mass social safety nets in the form of stimulus checks. We had widespread protests against the systemic racism underpinning American society. The improbable became possible.
But the pandemic did not result in the sustained transformation Roy had hoped for. It was a portal in a much more subtle and personal way. We learned what matters in a crisis. Mutual aid funds became more prevalent. We discovered the fragility of our global supply chains and our healthcare systems.
Now we are experiencing a different kind of global crisis. It's not as acute as the pandemic. Multiple wars are being waged around the world. Ecological disasters now happen with regularity that was previously unimaginable. News of layoffs is now a weekly occurrence.
Personally, I was laid off earlier this year. Unlike during the pandemic, I wasn't devastated. I leaned into the friendships to navigate the emotions of losing my job. The ceramic studio offered me a creative outlet. My job loss was not existential. The pandemic prepared me for this moment.
Six years ago, I entered the pandemic clinging to work as my only source of meaning. Now, as we experience cascading crises, both personal and global, I'm less afraid. If this moment is an invitation to reimagine my life, I am ready to accept it.
