This landed in my inbox right when I'm trying to muster the energy to write my extremely tedious annual report to justify the minuscule raise I will get that won't account for any of the research I did last year nor adequately keep up with the rate inflation. BUT if I DON'T turn it in by Monday I won't get said tiny raise which we still need to pay for aftercare, summer camp, and life. I don't want to complain too much because I'm one of the lucky ones, but it's hard to get worked up about "women's waning ambition" when your workplace doesn't reward the fruits of your labor because they don't consider it "research forward" since it doesn't bring in big shiny grants from evil billionaires. So, rant over, and THANK YOU.
Absolutely. Thirty years ago, so many of us chased “having it all” like a finish line. We built careers that fed us and families that saved us and paid for both in currency we didn’t name: sleep, intimacy, pride.
My 30-year-old daughter? After having her first child last year, she called bullshit on that myth. The math is old, the demands are new, and women fall into the gap. Housing, healthcare, education—this isn’t a society built for one income, or for the mental load to be carried by one person without consequence. As a highly successful professional, she's had to make some hard choices.
I asked if I could have inoculated her against burnout or self-doubt. She wouldn’t indulge me. “Most of it’s societal,” she said. “You taught me: You can do anything, not everything.”
What many people don't realize is making those choices—where to put your energy—isn't not about abandoning ambition. It's about realizing you're trying to contort yourself into a story that was never built to hold you, and rewriting the rules on your terms. Not easy, but absolutely necessary.
I have ambitions, but now none of them involve work. I have a job I don't hate going to every day that pays my bills and that's all I care about. I was a super over-achiever growing up and I think my ambition maxed out halfway through college (I'm Gen X) when I realized I could stop working so hard and have a good/good enough life. The places in my life where I am very ambitious now are traveling, fashion, seeing art, spending time with my friends and family...definitely not work.
I worked at Yahoo in the Marissa Mayer years as well, and I was JUST talking about what was essentially a "stacked ranking" employee review system that she brought along with her. I remember how quickly company morale sank after that model was implemented. Such a disaster.
It was terrible and quite shocking that it was implemented, as it was already well-known by then that this system didn't work and killed morale among employees. Very odd choice! I was a manager as well, and it was terrible.
One plus is that I don't think companies really employ this system anymore -- I'd guess that Yahoo did away with it, too? It was already considered bad/old school when Mayer came on board. It was all so weird. I left not long after.
I spent a decade in marketing basically cosplaying as a girlboss. Loved my career. Loved the hustle. And then one day I just... didn't anymore. I don't think it was burnout exactly. It was more like I woke up and realized the ambition was never really mine. It was just the only acceptable way to be a woman with a brain in 2015. Starting over at 42 feels more honest than anything I did in my twenties.
"we need to not only get them out of survival mode but show them a professional future worth dreaming about." 👏👏👏👏 an honour to be beside you in the piece my friend!
This hit me right in the chest. I spent 15 years in marketing climbing that ladder and then my marriage ended and suddenly the whole structure just... collapsed. And honestly? Rebuilding without the girlboss script has been the most freeing thing I've ever done. It's not that I lost my ambition. I just stopped letting other people define what it should look like. The Bloomberg framing of this as 'regressive' feels so reductive. Like we can only be one thing.
This hits hard. I just don’t see any role models, or ways of being, that inspire me within my profession (medicine). I’m 41, hustled to get academic promotion, paid off those med school loans, and I look around me to see what’s next—no thanks to any/all of it. I feel left out of a lot of current social media “work life” balance talks, because everyone expects their doctor to be available all the time.
This is not meant to incite generational grudges but as a GenX over-achieved who has worked 200+ hours each month for the past several months, through holidays, I seen no reaping of my rewards like the way Boomers who are drinking their retirements away in Margaritaville.
Just survival. And I feel lucky because I know that my family will survive. And maybe if I am disciplined/lucky I will save enough so my kids have some money to live off when there are so few jobs.
[I am working a lot because my particular industry is top line news, not so much out of choice, but I guess I should go to a meeting. Hah]
I mean, OK, but that is also, of course, a gross generalization. First, many of the younger boomers are still in the workforce (the very youngest are turning 62 this year). Second, many retired boomers are living below the poverty line, existing on Social Security alone (approx 30%, in fact). There is, of course, a CLASS of boomers doing the "Margaritaville" thing, just as there is an upper class in every generation, including Gen X (I know many VERY affluent Gen Xers). And some boomers had certain advantages that, of course, they took advantage of, just as we Gen Xers also had some advantages over the younger gens today (college was WAYYYYYY more affordable) etc. But this is mostly not about generations; it's about the upper class/1%, etc., of each generation that continues to make things more difficult for the rest.
This landed in my inbox right when I'm trying to muster the energy to write my extremely tedious annual report to justify the minuscule raise I will get that won't account for any of the research I did last year nor adequately keep up with the rate inflation. BUT if I DON'T turn it in by Monday I won't get said tiny raise which we still need to pay for aftercare, summer camp, and life. I don't want to complain too much because I'm one of the lucky ones, but it's hard to get worked up about "women's waning ambition" when your workplace doesn't reward the fruits of your labor because they don't consider it "research forward" since it doesn't bring in big shiny grants from evil billionaires. So, rant over, and THANK YOU.
Absolutely. Thirty years ago, so many of us chased “having it all” like a finish line. We built careers that fed us and families that saved us and paid for both in currency we didn’t name: sleep, intimacy, pride.
My 30-year-old daughter? After having her first child last year, she called bullshit on that myth. The math is old, the demands are new, and women fall into the gap. Housing, healthcare, education—this isn’t a society built for one income, or for the mental load to be carried by one person without consequence. As a highly successful professional, she's had to make some hard choices.
I asked if I could have inoculated her against burnout or self-doubt. She wouldn’t indulge me. “Most of it’s societal,” she said. “You taught me: You can do anything, not everything.”
What many people don't realize is making those choices—where to put your energy—isn't not about abandoning ambition. It's about realizing you're trying to contort yourself into a story that was never built to hold you, and rewriting the rules on your terms. Not easy, but absolutely necessary.
I have ambitions, but now none of them involve work. I have a job I don't hate going to every day that pays my bills and that's all I care about. I was a super over-achiever growing up and I think my ambition maxed out halfway through college (I'm Gen X) when I realized I could stop working so hard and have a good/good enough life. The places in my life where I am very ambitious now are traveling, fashion, seeing art, spending time with my friends and family...definitely not work.
I worked at Yahoo in the Marissa Mayer years as well, and I was JUST talking about what was essentially a "stacked ranking" employee review system that she brought along with her. I remember how quickly company morale sank after that model was implemented. Such a disaster.
whoa! I wrote about that stacked rank system in my book—I think it’s ultimately what made me never want to be manager again.
Stacked ranking is the most evil bullshit in corporate middle management.
It was terrible and quite shocking that it was implemented, as it was already well-known by then that this system didn't work and killed morale among employees. Very odd choice! I was a manager as well, and it was terrible.
One plus is that I don't think companies really employ this system anymore -- I'd guess that Yahoo did away with it, too? It was already considered bad/old school when Mayer came on board. It was all so weird. I left not long after.
As a burnt-out, Gen X feminist taking a break from Tech Land, I applaud everything here. Well said.
LOVE. And thank you.
I spent a decade in marketing basically cosplaying as a girlboss. Loved my career. Loved the hustle. And then one day I just... didn't anymore. I don't think it was burnout exactly. It was more like I woke up and realized the ambition was never really mine. It was just the only acceptable way to be a woman with a brain in 2015. Starting over at 42 feels more honest than anything I did in my twenties.
💕💕🥹🥹😭😭
my hero!
"we need to not only get them out of survival mode but show them a professional future worth dreaming about." 👏👏👏👏 an honour to be beside you in the piece my friend!
that last paragraph. yesss
This hit me right in the chest. I spent 15 years in marketing climbing that ladder and then my marriage ended and suddenly the whole structure just... collapsed. And honestly? Rebuilding without the girlboss script has been the most freeing thing I've ever done. It's not that I lost my ambition. I just stopped letting other people define what it should look like. The Bloomberg framing of this as 'regressive' feels so reductive. Like we can only be one thing.
yes yes yes exactly!!! "stopped letting other people define what it should look like" A MANTRA!
This hits hard. I just don’t see any role models, or ways of being, that inspire me within my profession (medicine). I’m 41, hustled to get academic promotion, paid off those med school loans, and I look around me to see what’s next—no thanks to any/all of it. I feel left out of a lot of current social media “work life” balance talks, because everyone expects their doctor to be available all the time.
That absolutely sucks and of course medicine in particular is currently so messed up in this country. Ugh.
This is not meant to incite generational grudges but as a GenX over-achieved who has worked 200+ hours each month for the past several months, through holidays, I seen no reaping of my rewards like the way Boomers who are drinking their retirements away in Margaritaville.
Just survival. And I feel lucky because I know that my family will survive. And maybe if I am disciplined/lucky I will save enough so my kids have some money to live off when there are so few jobs.
[I am working a lot because my particular industry is top line news, not so much out of choice, but I guess I should go to a meeting. Hah]
It was easier for Boomers/"Generation Jones"! We missed the money boat by like 8 years — this is just a fact.
Preach. For real and true.
I mean, OK, but that is also, of course, a gross generalization. First, many of the younger boomers are still in the workforce (the very youngest are turning 62 this year). Second, many retired boomers are living below the poverty line, existing on Social Security alone (approx 30%, in fact). There is, of course, a CLASS of boomers doing the "Margaritaville" thing, just as there is an upper class in every generation, including Gen X (I know many VERY affluent Gen Xers). And some boomers had certain advantages that, of course, they took advantage of, just as we Gen Xers also had some advantages over the younger gens today (college was WAYYYYYY more affordable) etc. But this is mostly not about generations; it's about the upper class/1%, etc., of each generation that continues to make things more difficult for the rest.