Selfish Advice #1: the inaugural column

Shame, date night movies, and the T-Swift fatphobia issue

Welcome to Selfish Advice, beautiful people.

At the beginning of the month, I’ll send out this Q&A column… in which you ponder life’s mysteries out loud and I offer my thoughtful hot takes in return.

In today’s inaugural column, we cover shame about trying to secretly find a new job, date night movies, and Taylor Swift’s fatphobia drama.

Let’s begin.

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Hi Alexa,

My question is related to shame in interviewing. I’m privileged enough to have a placeholder job (a term of yours I absolutely love) and work diligently at but am way over qualified for. People on my team are very nice and encouraging but I have heard so many versions of “I’m living vicariously through you! Why are you still sitting here with us?!” that it’s making me insecure.

I know what a gift it is to have a paying, flexible job while I job search but I feel weirdly guilty and awkward when they ask why I’m “still here” as I actively work to find a new position I care more about and quite frankly challenges me more. I am absolutely dreading the conversation that comes in a few weeks when annual bonuses come out and my boss awkwardly asks me this question again straight up. I honestly have set it as a personal deadline to have a new plan by then so I can avoid it. How do I expunge my own shame/fall of ego that my job right now is a means to an end, but actively trying to find something new is okay?

I am proud president of your fan club, especially these days, and can’t wait to hear all about your next chapter in Costa Rica. If you ever find yourself near the Midwest, please consider this my standing invitation for margaritas and gossip. 

Best to you,
Weirdly Guilty

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Dear Weirdly Guilty,

You appear to be a genuinely kind person.

That’s what’s happening here.

You’re a genuinely kind person–meaning that you feel like you’re lowkey cheating on your apparently very nice colleagues. This is extremely normal, and *particularly* normal when you’re new to quitting jobs.

I consider myself lucky to have quit a lot of things. It means I got good at it, that I began to understand when it was necessary, when I was overreacting, when I was underreacting, and when it simply didn’t matter.

It’s hard for me to articulate just how not-a-big-deal it is to quit a job before you’ve done it yourself several times. When I was quitting TikTok at the end of September, for example, someone in my *direct* management line was like: “Fair enough, this place is weird. I’m not quitting, yet, but… yeah, I get it.”

That was their response.

But I feel for you, because I’ve also recently suffered from the guilt you’re describing.

When I was shutting down Entrylevelboss Ltd, the company, I put it off for roughly 15-18 months too long. I put it off because I didn’t know how I was “allowed” to move on from the first company I founded, and raised money for, and created from nothing. From a thing that helped people. From a thing that hadn’t completely burned to the ground yet and taken me down with it, because surely that was the price I needed to pay for….

….well, you get it.

I thought I owed it to someone out there to hold myself back. Or to actively harm my own career. For years. I really did.

A couple people were upset with my decision, but most were not. They got it before I got it. (This sounds like the situation you’re in with your nice colleagues, who are awkwardly rooting for you to move forward.)

This job, your first big kid job, will be one little line on your resume someday. It will likely even fall off your resume by this time 5 years from now, to make space to talk about the much bigger accomplishments that lie ahead.

You’re a genuinely kind person.

That’s what’s happening here.

But we can’t let our kindness be our downfall. That’s a disservice to generations of women who have been doing that, and will keep doing that, for a long, long while.

I hope that helps.

And if not: remember that you are a very valuable but ultimately very junior employee. They can find someone great to do the work you’re doing. The next grad will get their big break by you leaving. You’re basically paying it forward!

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Alexa:

If you were on date 5 and having a nice night in, what film would you pick to watch?

– Movies R My Life

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Dear Movies R My Life,

This answer came to me immediately. Like, zero hesitation in my brain.