Good morning, my chronically employed friend. This week in the make work suck less group chat...

👏 One good thing. Chinese firms can't layoff employees to just replace them with AI. So at least one country has recognized the need keep humans employed through this technology revolution... cause ya know, having a billion people unable to purchase goods kinda puts a damper on the economy.

📮State of the business. You remember MTV unplugged? Artists on a small set surrounded by candles, acoustic instruments and, a small audience. That's what today is like. But instead of Alanis doing Jagged Little Pill... I'm some moments that led to me leaving Amazon.

⏳Let me start by saying I spent 10 years at Amazon. In dog years (a common reference on the inside) that's way too many f*cking years. I knew joining the company in 2016 that it was a place high-performers went to feel like they weren't doing enough. And I loved it. The autonomy, control over my career, competent colleagues, and the badass string of managers I had through it all. It felt like a lifeline after the tumult of eight years at the CIA. And then something shifted.

August 2021: I return from my first maternity leave and am asked to build a small global team to improve employee satisfaction, or as I put it to my team, to make work suck less. We deliver. So much so, they expand our programs to a larger org.

October 2022: I experience a devastating pregnancy loss and return after just three weeks. I sensed rumblings and wanted to be there for my team.

February 2023: Amazon announces the first RTO mandate and intent to bring all those remote workers they'd hired during covid "back" to the office. I learn my team is going to be centralized (red flag) and our last act is to conduct hundreds of interviews to collect stories of the real human impact of RTO. Their stories... beyond the added daily commute and child/elder care costs? Here are just a few:

• A mom going through a vicious divorce and custody battle who cannot commute four hours one-way to the office or move her kid to another state closer to said office.
• Someone receiving cancer treatment at a local hospital system, who also could not commute hours in or move away from life-saving treatment.
• A new mom freshly back from maternity leave, whose husband also worked for Amazon in a regional role, told it was a "family decision" if they wanted both keep their jobs (and split apart with a newborn) or not RTO (and lose one income).

April 2023: I take on a new leadership role (but as an IC) and my team is split apart in the centralization. I'd dealt with assholes and harassers before, but now I have my first work bully. I wanted to leave, but we were still trying to have another baby and Amazon's parental leave is actually really good (for the US at least).

November 2023: Our team is absorbed into HR (huge red flag) and we're clearly on the path to deprecation. Amazon has abandoned the "Earth's Best Employer" principle. I am five months pregnant.

January 2024: I switch teams, back to comms. It's safer there.

April 2024: I give birth to my daughter. 12 hours later, still in the hospital bed after a c-section, I learn my whole prior team was laid off. I'm both enraged and relieved I wasn't one of them. I need the maternity leave. That was the moment I knew I was done with Amazon.

September 2024: I try to go back to work. By now the policy is RTO five days a week but I'm breastfeeding so I work from home. I'm experiencing postpartum depression and anxiety so bad I cannot function. I take short-term disability and call it "extended maternity leave." I start to job search and realize it will take a while cause 1: I'm going to be VERY deliberate about the company, title, and pay, and 2: the job market is absolute trash.

February 2025: I go back to work, medicated now. And commuting. The job I come back to is less than ideal but I love my team. All of my free time is spent either interviewing or helping feds who'd been DOGE'd.

October 2025: I give two weeks notice and feel the weight of 10 years of stress evaporate. I take a much-needed month off before starting the new gig.

Some places we outgrow. Some stop deserving our growth. 60% of employees today want to leave but feel stuck in their roles due to the market. They're calling it the Big Stay. Next week I'll share what to do if this is you, to alleviate the cloying feeling of being trapped in a place that clearly no longer values you.

💬 Coffee break gossip. Some news to share at the water cooler this week:

1. Mentions of "toxic boss" rose 6.7x in Glassdoor reviews in 2025. Just in time for Miranda Priestly to make her return as the ultimate boss. Which toxic manager archetype are you dealing with?
2. Spirit Airlines collapsed. But this dude is leading an effort to bring Spirit back as a co-op model ala the Green Bay Packers. I've pledged one share - the cost of the average Spirit flight - mostly because I want to see how this works out.
3. Pizza Hut is bringing back the summer reading program and I want my personal pan pizza.

Do me a favor - if you enjoy this Saturday morning drop in your inbox, forward it to a few friends.

Until next Saturday, you got this.
Cassandra

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