#29: Why "Chopping Wood and Carrying Water" Is Good for Professional Growth
Humble yourself to the work, grasshopper.
Laid Off Life is a place of respite for the weary workforce. Whether you’re unemployed, underemployed, or just trying to make it through the workday, let this be your 5-minute mental break from the grind of late-stage capitalism.
Why "Chopping Wood and Carrying Water" Is Good for Professional Growth
“Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” — Zen Kōan
One of my least favorite things about my previous job was the meetings.
Ohmygod, the meetings.
Meetings upon meetings. Meetings about meetings. All day, every day, full force, back-to-back, no pee or food breaks, and they were (surprise, surprise, mostly unproductive).
Whenever I would relay my existential pain about meeting oversaturation, people would ask me, “But when do you do your work?”
Therein lay the problem. My “work” was to be in meetings. Other things too — like managing lots of people, writing bullet points about the work my team was doing to justify our existence, absorbing the shock of org changes, budget cuts, and impending layoffs, and responding to hundreds of emails a day (while I was in meetings). Essentially, my “job” was to shield my team from the nastiness of corporate life so that they could they could do their work.
Most of us start our careers chopping wood and carrying water (I had one boss who made me fax all of their emails when they were traveling and P.S. I have no desire to do that ever again, not because it’s beneath but, but because it’s a complete waste of paper and I don’t think faxes even exist anymore, do they?), but once we ascend in our careers, not so much.
As I rose in the ranks from Director to Senior Director to VP, and went from having 2 team members to having 12, I was like a helium balloon, slowly floating away from the skills and talents that landed me the job in the first place.
The further away I floated, the more unhappy I became. And counterintuitively, the less confidence I had in my abilities. Using your fundamental skills is like riding a bike, you never forget them, but you can become very rusty if you don’t use them regularly. This disconnect between what I knew I was best at and what my day-to-day looked like led me to what I now realize was persistent imposter syndrome. My thought process was: If I wasn’t doing the hands-on, boots-on-the-ground work anymore, what value did I have?
Of course, I had a lot of value, but what I’ve since realized is that there’s confidence and joy that comes from executing tasks. And my professional life was ostensibly stripped of that confidence and joy.
Since my layoff, I’ve gone back to basics, trying to embrace a “chop wood and carry water” mentality. For me, this means taking satisfaction in doing work that I enjoy to earn a paycheck — even if it’s something I did early in my career (no, I’m not talking about faxing emails). I create something, I provide a service, I provide a deliverable, and in turn, I am compensated for it. It feels clean, it feels rewarding, and it feels more honest.
After being an executive, it can be humbling to go back to doing work that feels “junior” to you, but if you can set your ego aside, it can be tremendously satisfying to approach work with a beginner’s mind. Using your fundamental skills, with the wisdom gained from years of work experience (including leadership experience), can only make your work product sharper. This is where the professional growth comes in. Not in the paycheck, or the title, or the accolades you receive, but in the depth of understanding of craft that time, wisdom, and experience provide.
Worthy Time Wasters
My weekly recs to combat doom scrolling.
I’m so embarrassed to confess that I’ve been sucked into yet another Season of Love Is Blind. While it’s giving more drama than the previous seasons, I’m still aware of its problematic nature. ICYMI, there are pending lawsuits against the production company and of course, there’s all that painfully outdated cis hetero normative relationship propaganda. As I watch, I find myself asking, “Were these really the best single men they could find in Charlotte, NC!?” (Not including Trevor.) That being said, if you want to talk shit about the fallout from Chelsea comparing herself to Megan Fox, Matthew’s aura, “bean dip,” the bombshell that Jeramy was engaged just a few weeks before he applied for the show, or rumors that Jimmy had a girlfriend while on the show, I’m here for it.
📚 Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
Come and Get It is one of those books I deeply enjoyed reading but am at a loss when it comes to trying to explain the plot. The novel is set in 2017 on the University of Arkansas campus and focuses primarily on Millie Cousins, an RA, who wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house, and Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer. The book tackles money, race, indiscretion, bad behavior, and microaggressions with equal parts lightheartedness and gravity. It’s a reflection on the often tragic consequences seemingly small or insignificant decisions can have on your life and the lives of those around you.
I’m gonna go ahead and call One Day my favorite series of 2024 so far (I’m not counting The Curse because it premiered in 2023). Based on a book by David Nicholls (which I hadn’t read before watching), One Day follows Emma (Ambika Mod) and Dex (Leo Woodall aka the grifter from Essex in S2 of White Lotus) and their love story that spans over 20 years — from 1988 - 2007. It’s one of those rare, magical shows where you experience the emotions of the main characters along with them. No spoilers but grab a box of tissues and make sure to check out the soundtrack. It’s EPIC.
📰 For all LOLers who’ve recently experienced a layoff (far too many of us!), I recommend
’s Substack, The Real Reason You’re Being Laid Off. Writer Maya Watson cites a staggering statistic: 700,000 people are projected to be laid off over the next 3 years. 🤯In her thoughtful piece, she digs down to the root cause of mass layoffs despite a strong economy. It comes down to the widely accepted late-stage capitalist philosophy that “the sole purpose and role of a business is to maximize profits for shareholders and nothing else.”
In a society where profits come first and people come second, how can there be inherent value in the people who help create a company’s profit? The short answer is, there can’t be. Companies are not entities and therefore, they will never love you back. As an antidote to this inconvenient truth Watson offers this call to action:
“As long as we are living in this system, this will be the case. We can choose to be frustrated and disenfranchised by it, or we can choose to move differently as employees and adopt a new mentality where we take our agency back and move in a more empowered way.”
I couldn’t agree with this more! Hence, why I have diverted my course towards self-employment for the time being. I do think there’s a sea change on the way for American employees that started with the pandemic, but it may take years to come to fruition. In the meantime, what Watson suggests is to be as unapologetic about what you need out of a company as they will be about disposing of you when they need to cut costs to look good for Wall Street. PREACH! ✊🏼
📰 How Tom Sandoval managed to land himself a celebrity profile in New York Times Magazine, I’ll never understand. “The most hated man in America” then managed to make everyone hate him more by comparing the fallout from Scandoval to O.J. Simpson or George Floyd. 😳 Despite the cringe factor of Tom Sandoval, this profile is extremely well-written and worth reading. It trolls him just the perfect amount.
I asked Sandoval why he thought the scandal got so big. “I’m not a pop-culture historian really,” he said, “but I witnessed the O.J. Simpson thing and George Floyd and all these big things, which is really weird to compare this to that, I think, but do you think in a weird way it’s a little bit the same?”…”I did what I did because I was in an unhappy place in my life,” he said. “I got caught up in my emotions and fully fell in love. Like, for real.” He sighed and drained his teacup. Then he got up, put on some upbeat music and went upstairs to get ready for a night out. “Sometimes he says too much,” Rylie [his 23-year-old publicist] said, “and the following day forgets what he says.” Then she went upstairs to have a quick word with him.
💔 The topic of divorce and a re-examination of the institution of marriage (specifically cis hetero marriage — I’m looking at you, Love Is Blind!) is in the zeitgeist! Two much buzzed-about memoirs on the subject are out this month —
Lenz’s This American Ex-Wife (check out an interview with Lyz Lenz on ’s Culture Study podcast) and Leslie Jamison’s Splinters. Emily Gould shares her own compelling story of going down the should-I-shouldn’t-I divorce rabbit hole in a compulsively readable piece in The Cut. I think there is much to be contemplated about feminism, domestic equality, and career equality in cis hetero relationships. I’m waiting for the viral thinkpiece that posits, Is Marriage Bad for Women?🤑 Working at a true crime network for almost a decade, I tend to be fairly non-plussed when I read about grifts or scams. This story in The Cut about a financial writer who was scammed out of $50K was a jaw-dropper and a proper cautionary tale for everyone who thinks they’re too savvy to be hustled.
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Keep up the fine work... I was laid off a year ago. I haven't been this happy in my career in years. Your experience is valuable. May the force be with you!
Love this! It is a refreshing way to think about resetting career goals and expectations.