Hey, Substack friends. Or if you’re one of my former colleagues who may have let curiosity get the best of you after seeing it pop up on your LinkedIn newsfeed…I miss you, truly!
It’s been a minute. I did the thing I seem to always do when life flings me into a tornado of stress and retreated like a cat in labor. Which is to say I pulled a disappearing act. Which is to say I haven’t posted anything here since the week prior to Mother’s Day.
So, let’s talk about it.
I’ve written about this in different ways over the past year. But basically: one day in 2025, in the depths of burnout, I woke up and realized I’d made my life small without meaning to. Just keeping my head above water—a demanding job, early motherhood—had left me no capacity for the parts of life that really fuel your soul.
I also realized my entire professional network existed within the four virtual walls of the company I had worked at for nearly a decade. Please note: out of respect for the company, I will not be using its name and will lovingly refer to it as Corporate in the rest of this essay.
I realized I had no idea what I would do if I wasn’t climbing the ranks at Corporate as I’d planned, and no idea how to translate everything I’d done there to a new context.
I hated that feeling of being on my back foot. So I resolved then and have invested so much since in meeting myself professionally outside of Corporate in the last year and a half.
I knew burnout had left me in such bad shape and that I needed to buy myself time and space to get clarity around my next chapter, so I declared Corporate my cornerstone of stability—the vehicle for funding my prototypes of a life outside of its ecosystem—knowing that launching myself into scarcity mode by removing my income would only make it harder to achieve clarity.
In other words, and in true millennial fashion, I chose to keep my job and detach from the politics. To disengage from the toxicity, to funnel all of my hunger for growth and development into work outside of Corporate instead of in service of the mission. Basically, to put Corporate on autopilot while I got my life and my spark back.
I believe we’re calling that quiet quitting these days.
Pretty quickly, I realized I don’t really want to be in a 9-5 at all. I started prototyping a portfolio career—trying on business ideas and models in a lower-stakes way. I even invented a physical product meant to foster healthy time and routine management skills in kids with increasing independence (but more on that later).
So when I returned from a long weekend to an 8AM call from my boss, sniffing around my bandwidth to take on an emerging “complex” project, I panicked and spent a week in a liminal paralysis. Which is where you last saw me on Substack talking about perfectionism as a scarcity response from the inside of my own scarcity spiral.
If you’ve ever worked a 9-5 of your own, then you know that sometimes a question is really a directive, and even though this new work was framed as needing only 10-12 hours a week, I knew from the pit in my stomach that I was being voluntold for a 50-60 hour work week to accommodate this new project. I knew I was about to say goodbye to autopilot, work-life balance, capacity to explore a side hustle, and getting dinner on the table for my family on time.
And I was right.
The following week I was officially and unceremoniously oriented to the new work on a half-hour call before my boss went on PTO for a week and was unavailable for questions. The clock started on a four-month project in which I was meant to “fix” an area of the business I hadn’t ever touched before. Had I expressed interest in growing in that business function? No. Was I a project manager? Also no. Have I ever even worked with the teams involved? Nope. Was I expected to hard launch the initiative on a kickoff call scheduled just a week later anyway? You betcha!
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take issue with the fundamental approach to the initiative (I definitely did), but I wasn’t afraid of the work—I honestly think I could have pulled it off. But at what cost?
Quick side note here: if you want my work to keep showing up in your inbox instead of hoping you’ll remember to check in on me, subscribe to Time Spent!
Getting back to the story:
Even though I knew and felt all of that in my gut, it turns out old instincts die a slow death, or whatever the expression is, because I found myself frantically trying to succeed in this new work that was wholesale not mine anyway. I learned that I have a stubborn refusal to fail and when I’m thrown into the deep end without a flotation device, I figure out how to swim.
I ended up beating myself up for about two weeks because I was stressed to the max and all of those mindset, work-life balance things I had been working on (and succeeding with) were suddenly not working at all. I felt like I was failing. Like if I just tried a little harder to disassociate, detach, white-knuckle, and pretend that the project wasn’t a red flag by every measure, then maybe my hair wouldn’t fall out, and I wouldn’t end up grouchy, resentful, on blood pressure meds again, and up all night with insomnia this time.
And then finally the voice of reason cut through all of that noise for me. My life’s lesson was no longer about how to stay and work through it. I had stayed and worked through so much in nine years.
No. My lesson was to trust myself. To trust that the work I had done in the last year and a half would point me to something new.
My husband was traveling for work somewhere in the middle of all of this—his flight canceled due to the Midwestern spring thunderstorms. He arrived home in the middle of my kickoff call and when it ended, instead of turning off my camera and turning to him to greet him with a kiss, I looked up at him and said flatly, “We need to start talking seriously about picking a day for me to quit.”
Flash forward to a week later.
The air in NOLA is thick and damp, and Corporate has arranged for all 1300 conference attendees to march from the event center to The House of Blues for the welcome reception. The weight of my resolve sits heavier here, among people I’ve known and loved working with for years, than it ever does over Teams, but I’m trying to use this rare in-person opportunity as a last hurrah. It’s a chance to say a secret goodbye to my cherished colleagues.
But it also kind of feels like I have a giant sign floating above my head that reads “SHE’S GOING TO QUIT NEXT WEEK” in big block letters. So, I’m trying to act natural.
Luckily, it starts raining as literally a thousand people are desperately trying to enter the building through a single entrance, and by the time I make it inside, my hair and my white shirt are completely soaked through. The perfect excuse for being a little “off” as I make my way through a few hundred Hey! So good to see you! Can you believe this is the first time we’re meeting in the flesh?! Yes, ha ha ha, I totally got caught in that rain, isn’t that so silly?!
Somehow, a friend and I get separated from our herd and we find ourselves in a room with a short line forming for a tarot reading. I’m immediately tugging at her sleeve and convincing her to wait in line with me—we will find the rest of the group later.
After about twenty minutes chit chatting as the line inches forward, it’s my turn.
“Is there anything you want to ask the cards?”
With a raised eyebrow and a smile playing at my lips, I lean into The Reader.
“I don’t know. Are you going to report what we ask back to Corporate?”
She gasps and quickly reassures me.
“No! Of course not. You wouldn’t believe how many people have asked me if they should quit their job with their boss standing right there.”
We both glance over to the line of my fellow 9-5ers. My dear friend and colleague that I had talked into waiting for this tarot reading is at the front smiling and waving at me.
I smile and quickly wave back and then return my gaze to The Reader.
“That’s what I want to ask.”
This time the smile is playing on her lips as she flips the little sand timer next to her and says, “let’s get to work then.”
As she sets the altar and prepares the cards, I take a moment to look around the room. It’s deafeningly loud and there are hundreds of people milling about, carrying small plates of lukewarm buffet food and drinks from the open bar. I see a group of colleagues I’ve only ever seen in the Brady Bunch boxes of a Zoom room before and squint a little at them as if that will help me reconcile the two dimensional version of them I’m used to seeing with the version in front of me now that includes visibility to their legs. One of them is an entire foot taller than I would have guessed.
I turn back to the table and The Reader is ready for me to handle the deck. I close my eyes for a second and take in a deep breath.
I already know I’m about to bring my nine-year career at Corporate to an end, yet I feel the weight I’ve placed on these cards to confirm that for me. I shuffle and split the deck decisively and push it back to The Reader.
She lays down four cards in front of me, beginning at the bottom of the diamond shape and moving counterclockwise. She literally throws her head back to laugh when the second card hits the table.
“Okay,” she says, “this is very clear.”
The Reader points to the first card and tells me to look closely.
“See how he’s holding onto, almost guarding his coins. This card represents stability.”
She points to the second card on the table, names it the eight of cups, and chuckles again.
“Do you see how he’s walking away from all of the golden cups there?” she continues.
“You can’t receive with your hands grasped so tightly around stability. You’re meant to walk away from that stability. You’re meant to go on a journey and see what else is out there for you.”
At the top of the diamond is the Six of Pentacles , which depicts a man holding a scale, weighing coins between two kneeling men. The Reader asks if I’ve felt undercompensated or like my work-life balance has been out of sorts in my current role, and I give her an emphatic “yes” to both.
She explains that this card represents a recalibration of sorts, and that the journey I’m meant to go on should restore a sense of balance for me.
“But,” she cautions as she points to the final card in the spread: Temperance. “This card here is asking you for patience on this journey. And to beware of binaries.”
I feel that in my gut and will replay her words over and over in my head no fewer than a thousand times in the weeks that follow The Reading.
Some more of my work peeps have found my other colleague in line when I’ve wrapped up. They see me beaming as I walk back over and my colleague takes my place. One asks, “what did your reading say?” and I give her a cheeky expression and respond, “it said I should quit!” and we both pause for a beat before erupting in laughter.
The following Wednesday, I’m back at my desk at home, and back to my business mullet which consists of a dress shirt up top and soft pants and slippers on the bottom out of view of the camera.
I’ve just hit send on my resignation email to my boss, with HR copied and I’m cracking my knuckles, limbering up to send the heartfelt letter I’ve prepared to my department colleagues announcing my departure.
My Teams app sprouts a little red circle letting me know I have a message waiting for me.
Just got your message. Can we chat?
My boss asks if there’s anything we can do to get me to walk back that resignation. I guess in addition to being allergic to failure, I also learn I have a hard time closing doors without peeking my head inside to see if I might like to go in.
It takes three business days for me to receive their counteroffer: more pay, more resources, finally feeling heard about my concerns with the project and how we were operating. But I know in my gut when they call with the offer details that I’m not going to take it. I text everyone in my inner circle and tell them the news, but I don’t share that formally with Corporate until I log back on after Memorial Day Weekend.
The truth is, I was going to quit no matter what those cards told me that night. The truth is, even if they came back with an offer too hard to turn down, my staying would have only been temporary. All roads were leading to separation.
Saying goodbye to the place I feel raised me, in a way—the anchor of stability in my life for the past nine years—was not easy. My Corporate journey had many ups and downs—many long stretches where I flirted with leaving. Long stretches where I felt things couldn’t get worse there. I kept enduring because of the people and because I’ve seen things turn around and chaos yield new opportunities.
I started as an intern when I was just 25 and only halfway through my graduate program and worked my way up to management. Corporate and the community I built in it were there for me for pretty much every significant life milestone.
About a year in, I submitted my final graduate school paper, earning me a Masters Degree and the freedom to pick up and move to Chicago with nothing but a luggage full of clothes, a luggage full of books, my little dog, and my Corporate laptop.
“Corporate will be a stable force for me as literally everything in my life is new and I’m getting settled in Chicago” I told everyone.
I didn’t know then that it would also be the stability to get me through the world shutting down, bringing my baby into the world, and raising her up through the toddler years. That my timeline for leaving would be pushed out so many times by new growth and opportunities or by my own need for something predictable and familiar during times where the world around me felt so uncertain.
And I am so grateful I had that when I needed it.
But now I’m walking away from that stability and it’s time to start my journey.
I can’t receive with a hand grasped so tightly around stability.
I hope you’ll come along for the ride as I figure out what I’m meant to receive in this next chapter.
So, that’s a wrap, friends. If you feel this was time well spent, give this a little heart or leave a comment below. If you think you might want to spend more time with me each week, subscribe to Time Spent.
And if you’re new here, thanks for being here!
I’m Tiffany—a multipassionate mom, living in Chicago. I spent the last decade climbing the corporate career ladder, but now I’m officially off the clock and spending my time on the things that light me up the most. Like writing this newsletter. You can learn more about me by visiting my Substack homepage or by visiting my website.
Bye for now.
A note for my longtime readers: you subscribed to It Takes a Mom, and this landed in your inbox as Time Spent. Not a glitch. It Takes a Mom was always really about time anyway: how we spend it, how we lose track of it, how we live whole years on autopilot. The name just caught up to what it was always about. You're still in the right place.
