It Wasn’t Personal. But It Was.
When The Work You Love, Stops Loving You Back
You ever have something take the wind out of your sails so thoroughly it rocks everything you thought was steady?
That happened to me.
I felt like I was finally in a rhythm. I loved the work I was doing. I believed in it. I was building something meaningful. I was helping shape opportunity for a younger generation while also rebuilding parts of myself outside of work. It felt aligned.
And then — it shifted.
No dramatic firing.
No public fallout.
Just a quiet removal of purpose.
Same title. Same pay. Different reality.
It wasn’t personal.
But it was.
When You Realize the Relationship Wasn’t Equal
I’ve worked for the same company for 15 years. Long enough to feel invested. Long enough to feel loyal. Long enough to care about the mission and the people attached to it.
I was recruited into a role that didn’t exist before. I built it. I grew it. I delivered measurable results. I did what I was hired to do — maybe even better than expected.
And then one day, the duties were gone.
Not because I failed.
Not because I underperformed.
But because the goal had been met.
And suddenly, I was reminded of something uncomfortable:
Institutions protect themselves first.
We don’t realize we’re in a toxic relationship with work until it stops loving us back.
The Pizza Party Economy
I look around and I see so many of my coworkers and friends exhausted.
Overworked.
Underutilized.
Underappreciated.
They hit the goal. They crush the metric. They sacrifice weekends. They miss vacations. They push through burnout.
And in return?
A congratulatory email.
Maybe a pizza party.
Then immediately — onto the next demand.
No pause.
No sustainable structure.
No real investment in their growth.
Just expectation.
That culture is so normalized that we don’t question it anymore. Extra hours are assumed. Personal plans are flexible. Family time is negotiable.
Because that’s what loyalty looks like, right?
Except loyalty used to mean something different.
Loyalty Isn’t What It Used To Be
There was a time when you stayed at a company for decades and it rewarded you. Stability. Pension. Advancement. Protection. Community.
Now?
Turnover is high. Retention is fragile. People switch jobs every few years. And increasingly, people are willing to take pay cuts to work somewhere that aligns with their values.
I was once asked to look into retention trends.
What I found surprised some people.
Compensation matters — of course it does. But culture matters more than leadership wants to admit. People will trade salary for respect. They will trade title for growth. They will trade comfort for alignment.
When I explained that, I realized not everyone even knew what “company culture” meant.
And that told me more than I needed to know.
Women Who Overperform and Under-Claim
There’s another layer here.
I see talented, educated, capable women in shadow roles. Underutilized. Under-positioned. Doing the heavy lifting while someone else holds the title.
We overdeliver.
We overprove.
We assume our work will speak for itself.
And sometimes it does.
Until it doesn’t.
There are still leadership models shaped in a different era — built on hierarchy, legacy, familiarity, and who fits the mold. Not always consciously malicious. But certainly not always equitable.
And if you’re effective? If you build something too well?
You can become inconvenient.
When Passion Turns Procedural
The hardest part wasn’t losing responsibility.
It was losing meaning.
I wasn’t angry because I lost a title.
I was grieving the purpose.
For weeks, I went through the motions. I did my job. I met expectations. I operated by my own moral standard because that’s who I am.
But the passion?
Gone.
And that’s when I had to sit with a harder truth.
I realized how much of my identity is tied to being effective.
Busy is better.
Productive equals valuable.
If I’m moving, I matter.
When the movement stopped, my nervous system didn’t know what to do.
It’s Just Business (Except It’s Not)
We’re told not to take work personally.
“It’s just business.”
But we’re not machines.
We pour energy into what we build. We care about the people we serve. We believe in the mission. We attach meaning to our contribution.
When that contribution is sidelined, it doesn’t just hit your calendar.
It hits your confidence.
Your loyalty.
Your trust.
And yes — sometimes your worth.
Not because you aren’t valuable.
But because you were valuable only as long as it served the system.
The Grief. The Anger. The Clarity.
When it first happened, I was hurt. Deeply.
I wanted to quit on the spot.
But I didn’t.
I processed.
I evaluated.
I came back to center.
And what surfaced wasn’t rage.
It was clarity.
I will not shrink my competence to make it more comfortable.
I will not dim my output, so it feels less threatening.
I will not sell pieces of myself for a seat at a table that benches me when convenient.
Sometimes the wind leaves your sails so you realize you’ve been rowing someone else’s boat.
Reflection
This isn’t a resignation letter.
It’s a reckoning.
If you’re reading this and something in you feels heavy — ask yourself why.
Are you staying somewhere out of loyalty that isn’t reciprocated?
Are you overperforming in a system that sees you as a resource instead of a human?
Are you compartmentalizing parts of yourself just to survive Monday?
We don’t have to hate our jobs.
We don’t have to burn bridges.
But we also don’t have to stay where we are tolerated instead of valued.
You are not a cog.
You are a contributor.
A builder.
A thinker.
A human.
And if the place you’re in has stopped loving you back — that’s information.
What you do with it is yours.
And as for me?
If you’ve wondered where I’ve been the last few months — this is part of it.
Sometimes life lifes. Hard. And when the wind leaves your sails in one area, you have to sit still long enough to remember how to steer again.
I needed time to process. To feel the grief. To sort the anger from the clarity. To make sure I wasn’t reacting, but responding.
The blog paused because I paused.
But here’s what I know now: when one space sidelines you, you don’t shrink — you build elsewhere.
So I’m getting back on track here. With intention. With perspective. With a little more edge and a lot more clarity.
Grace for the detours.
Grace for the processing.
Grace for the seasons when we go quiet.
Life be life-ing. But we keep building.
Together.
Love always, your Builder,
Lauren
