I Quit My Corporate Job to Write More About Sex — and Other Things

Brave creativepreneur or common midlife crisis? You decide!

Less than two weeks ago, my boss met with me over Teams to reprimand me for sending her an unprofessional email. I was genuinely confused. I pulled up the email in question, read it over, and asked her what language she found disrespectful — because I had no clue.

“The part where you let me know I’d already approved that copy,” she said.

I tilted my head to the side, unable to find words for a response. How in the flying fuck…?

That’s what I didn’t say. I’m sure “What in the flying fuck” actually is a disrespectful thing to say to one's boss. But I can’t agree that writing “You did approve this copy” in an email as a reminder to someone who reviews a shitton of copy every day is “disrespectful.”

I rarely push back on my manager's copy edits. She’s an incredible editor and far more experienced than I. But this time, the edit didn’t make sense to me. We were crafting copy for an invitation that had already been designed by our marketing department. She’d already approved the language in the copy phase a month prior, but after I showed her the designed PDF, she emailed me to say the copy didn’t make sense and she wanted to cut most of it.

Frustrated and hoping to understand the unexpected change (you know, learn and improve my work), I wrote back: “I’m happy to ask the client if we can change what they’ve already approved, but I’m a little confused. You did approve this copy, and the client is also happy with it. And we’re on a bit of a time crunch to get these mailed out on time…”

(That’s because our marketing department is so understaffed and we have a lot of turnover — everyone is overworked and things take forever.)

In my mind, there were at least three strong reasons to consider not making her suggested edits. That’s usually when I push back. I accept about 95% of my boss’s edits without question, even if I don’t agree stylistically. This was one of the 5% times I felt it might benefit the product if I gave my point of view.

If that’s disrespectful, I don’t want to be respectful.

I want to work in an environment where projects are collaborative and I have a voice. I want to be able to tell my boss when I don’t understand something so that she can explain it to me and I can learn — without accusing me of hurting her ego and challenging her authority.

Our one-on-one chat went downhill from there.

“You know what, Holly, I review so much copy every day, I’m going to be honest — I might not even know what I’m looking at.”

Okay. So it turns out she actually missed that second page of copy because she didn’t scroll down far enough in the Word doc. Understandable. Totally human mistake to make. I make plenty of mistakes all the time. We all do.

I can understand making mistakes, but I can’t understand me getting reamed for her mistakes when I’m just trying to learn how we hit a bump in the process in the first place.

She went on to tell me that I’m not on trial and I’m being too defensive when I was just trying to work things out with her in a professional and respectful way. She reiterated that my email was indeed disrespectful. I felt completely crazy at this point because I just didn’t see it, and the whole conversation left me super uncomfortable.

I felt like even when a conflict does come up, I can’t even talk about it. If discussing a work issue is defensive, I’m not sure what else I can do but offer a plastic smile and say “yes” to everything, even if it means not learning and improving.

Smile More

To my boss’s credit, I really don’t think I’m corporate enough for the corporate club. Aside from my “disrespectful email,” she also accused me of being unprofessional because I was unhappy at work, and people could see it.

I wasn’t smiling as much. I wasn’t engaging in small talk about my personal life as I typically did. On my exit interview, I was told that being engaged in a personal way is our team’s culture, so it’s a good thing I was leaving.

I wasn’t a fan of some of the things happening at work. We went hybrid after the pandemic and were allowed to pick which days we wanted to be in the office. But that meant that we weren’t there on the same days, which was the whole reason for being in the office. So all of us being there on different random days and not seeing each other defeated the point of our “in-person culture.”

My grumpiness had been building for a while. But one of the big kickers was when one of my teammates told on me for taking three hours to respond to a question she could have easily Googled in two minutes. (That’s how I found the answer for her.)

I can admit that I’m not a perfect employee. When I’m working from home for my office job, I’m just not as responsive or productive. True story. I’m not cut out for this, and in the past couple months, I wasn’t able to hide being disgruntled with my team and the pressures of post-Covid hybrid expectations.

I wasn’t smiling as much or engaging in small talk unrelated to work, but I sure as hell was talking in a very professional and engaged way about projects. I didn’t feel like my colleagues were my friends, and I didn’t feel like I could confide in my teammate about why I was feeling low, as everything I said to her and every small mistake I made apparently got back to the bosses.

So I focused more on work and stopped maintaining employee friendships. I made sure what I produced was high quality and that I met my deadlines on time.

This, I was told, was grumpy and unprofessional.

I’m really not corporate enough for corporate.

Not a Smart Financial Move

I secured a personal loan to tide me over for a bit. Then I put in my two weeks' notice without another stable corporate job lined up.

Not a smart move, most financial advisors will tell you. Even though I don’t have enough in my pitiful savings to support this move, I realize that having enough credit built up to get a loan is still a privilege. I can at least rob Peter to pay Paul while I take some time to explore my creativity and figure out how to pay the bills in a way that doesn’t drive me bonkers.

And I’m grateful for the opportunity.

I’m giving myself the chance to see if I can pay the bills with my own writing, with my own projects, on my own schedule. I have my bills covered for about 6 months. More if I can earn more income as I go.

I’m aware that this is a big lift. I’m aware I may soon be knocking on corporate doors, trying to secure a new 9 to 5 with benefits.

If so, I have four years of corporate writing and project management experience on my resume — with two promotions received during that time to boot.

But maybe it will work out. We can’t know until we try.

Joining the Great Attrition to Write More Sex — and Other Things

I’ll walk dogs, teach yoga, or make coffee on the side. I’d rather that than go nuts in cubicle land. Think of all the time I’ll save not being in hour-long meetings that could have been an email. Think of the time saved not evaluating my own performance and reporting out tasks every week for no reason.

Mostly, I want to write more about sex. I’m working on creative non-fiction about my own sexual journey (which has been quite eventful and eye-opening as of late). I also want to explore the world outside of myself as a sex journalist, asking others about their sexual views and experiences and sharing what I learn.

And I want to write dirty smut fiction that you can get off to in all sorts of genres. Contemporary, fantasy, vampires — you name it.

I’ll document all of this on Medium and write as much as I can here about anything and everything I’m interested in writing about. Zulie Rane makes it happen. So does Joe Duncan. There’s also Michelle Brown, Yael Wolfe, Elle Beau ❇︎, and more. These are just a few (not all) of the writers I follow and admire. The writers I see making a difference with their words and supporting themselves, at least partially, with Medium.

My dad, the responsible boomer with organized finances that he is, is gonna throw a fit. (Or at least express how worried and concerned he is for me, which feels just as bad because I don’t want to cause him distress.) Growing up, I felt a lot of pressure from him to be the best. The best at soccer, the best at school, the best at securing a full-ride academic scholarship to college.

And even though I did all that and met his high expectations back then, I still feel the pressure and the fear of disappointing him and being a bum Millineal now.

But I need to be true to myself. Whether my family approves or not, I’m going to take some time to rest, regroup, and live passionately. I’m going to try to support my son — and my new puppy! — in a healthier, happier way.

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