Less Doing. More Quitting.

The smartest move is subtractive.

These five roles are open right now. Which one do you qualify for?

• In the Department of Unquestioned Reliability (DUR), there is a new manager role. You are a fit if you always complete every assigned task on time without creating unnecessary complexity, such as asking clarifying questions. Candidates who don't make it a habit to ask for extensions preferred.

• In our Overachieving Unit, there is a role designed to increase general confusion between worth and output. To be considered, you must be both a self-starter and a self-finisher, comfortable working alone. Good writing abilities are required for frequent updates on your progress to be sent to the whole office. Benefits include frequent recognition for always being the one to save the day.

• Manager of Operations in our Office of Making Others Feel Good (OMOFG): Consider applying if you thrive on never letting others do for you what you can do for them. No experience is required. Generational martyrdom a plus.

• Always Available Individual Contributor: Consider applying if you have no boundaries and need no recovery time between sprints. A good disposition is essential for success here.

• Head of our Complaints Department: The ideal candidate for this role is one who will never leave of their own volition but will simmer as they stay.

If any of these sound familiar, congratulations, you're already overqualified.

Sound ridiculous? Unfortunately, for many, these roles are all too real.

If you're currently holding down one of these roles:

Quit. Stop. Walk away.

Go cold turkey.

Stop being the default helper.

Stop saving the day.

Stop running the emotional operations of your team.

Stop being the only one who can.

However great you've been at it, it’s not your job. It is exhausting, and your employer doesn't really care.

It's getting in the way of liking what you do. It's invisible work that increases the chances of burnout, leads to a lack of focus on your core responsibilities, and makes you feel resentful about the lack of recognition.

Most importantly, liking what you currently do may be the shortest path to designing a work-life you love.

How to quit invisible work

No one is coming to save you. You are in full control here.

Write a resignation email to yourself and forward it to 3 close work friends you trust to keep you accountable.

I created a template you can copy/paste:

Dear me,

I regret to inform myself that I am resigning from the position of [insert exhausting role here, e.g., Team Therapist, Head of Proactive 'No One Else Noticed’ Problem Prevention].

Effective immediately, I will no longer respond to or initiate communications outside of business hours. I will say no without explanation to every unreasonable request for my time. Some very reasonable requests will also be deprioritized by even more reasonable ones.

I am excited to start dedicating even more energy to the role you hired me for, taking better care of myself, setting better boundaries, and letting others down instead of letting myself down.

I will do my best to stay in touch with a different version of me — one who is boringly consistent instead of continuously impressive.

Please feel free to call me in an emergency. I’ll leave the ringer on.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

[K]Now You: What about me?

Looking back at my own corp days, I recognize myself in more than one of those roles. I may have been the go-to person in the Department of Unquestioned Reliability, a frequent firefighter in the Overachieving Unit, and I often absorbed the emotional energy in the Office of Making Others Feel Good.

I don't regret any part of it that went towards helping my colleagues navigate complexity through 1:1 chats and listening sessions. That part of the work fed me. It's the reason I write this Substack.

Did any of it help my "professional” growth? For a time, yes, it did. And then it didn't.

Something's shifted in the workplace as we've entered this new era of, shall it say, a lower level of kindness. Several factors are at play.

Glassdoor's most recent monthly Employee Confidence Index found that only 45% of employees feel positive about their company’s outlook over the next six months. Their lead economist, Daniel Zhao, writes that employee sentiment is being dragged down by economic forces “such as tariffs, federal funding and workforce cuts, and general business uncertainty disrupt investment and hiring plans.”

The nerve centers of corporations worldwide, the people whose job it is to protect the interests of their shareholders, are dealing with the same anxiety, which necessarily leads them into cost-cutting mode.

Lucky for the companies, they have a new tool to navigate this uncertainty: Artificial Intelligence is the new backbone of operational efficiency across every function.

Motivated employees, not so much.

All to say: if you are so lucky to have a job right now, try everything you can to fall in love with it. The first step is to quit all work that is not adding value. Second step: double down on cracking how you'll make AI your strategic ally to do more, with less.