I had to be an OVERACHIEVER - John Keros

I had to be an OVERACHIEVER to land a six-figure tech job. Here’s what I think about quiet quitting.

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By Emi Nietfeld

Every time I see the words “quiet quitting,” my heart starts racing. The term, popularized by a Gen Z TikToker encouraging employees to do the bare minimum at work, floods me with the same panic I felt as an adolescent when it seemed like even one minute of slacking could sabotage my future.

In high school, I spent time in foster care, praying that an Ivy League college and a blue-chip job could catapult me into stability. Even as a teenager, I understood that getting into a slightly more exclusive university would make it easier for me to land a high-paying job right out of college—and that would mean the difference between shouldering the debt or immediate security. In the discourse about the death of workaholism, few are talking about the winner-take-all circumstances that make phoning it in an impossible proposition for many of us.

As a teenager, I exemplified hustle culture—not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I grew up in a chaotic working-class family. My parents’ mental health issues meant an unsteady home life. In high school, I bounced from sofa to sofa, slept in my car, and stayed at a shelter. College seemed like my only way out, but only a few elite universities offered full financial aid to low-income students. At a school even one tier down, I’d have to take out massive student loans that would’ve kept me tethered to the life I was fighting to leave. The pressure weighed on me constantly.

I’d never argue that this was healthy. But I wasn’t making these choices in a vacuum. They were calculated, based on the incentives at hand. And when admissions decisions came in, I felt vindicated: Harvard offered me a full ride, including a check every semester for travel and books. The other Ivies and liberal art schools I got into asked me to pay roughly $13,000 a year. If I had chosen to attend one slightly less-selective school, I would have graduated with more than $200,000 in student loans.

While I was overwhelmingly lucky to land a full ride to Harvard, I saw all around me the disappointment and cost of missed opportunities. After losing her job during the Great Recession, my mom tried to reboot her career by applying for a government job. But after failing a typing test—and not getting the job—she ended up working three gigs to pay the bills, none with health insurance.

Once I was on campus, I met international students terrified they wouldn’t land a job that sponsored visas and would be forced to leave the country after graduation. The line between success and failure seemed razor thin. And it was all so unpredictable: It was almost impossible to know if you succeeded until it was too late. The only solution I could think of was to work as hard as humanly possible at every possible moment. Hustle culture was ingrained not only in my mind but in my body, etched into my nervous system.

REST OF ARTICLE IN LINK BELOW.

Re-posted by John Keros

Original post by:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/had-overachiever-escape-homelessness-land-120000075.html