Life has shifted in a way I couldn't have predicted - Ruff Puff Bakehouse and Ruff Puff Brownies have taken up so much of my time, but in the best possible way. They've reminded me of a talent I'd neglected, and given me a new respect for the craft that first set me on this path all those years ago,
After graduation, I applied for jobs in New York and got hired as an investment banking analyst. When I asked my boss if I could take one acting class a week, she told me I wasn't committed enough. Another time, as Hurricane Sandy approached and courier services were suspended, she insisted I hand-deliver a contract across the city. The group head ultimately suggested we fax it instead, sparing me the trip through the storm.
At Amazon, I was on the Amazon Q Developer team, building their AI coding assistant. You'd think being at the center of Amazon's AI developer tools would be exciting, but it was actually deeply frustrating. It was apparent to anyone outside the Amazon bubble that we were losing the AI game badly. The leadership was constantly playing catch-up because there was very little true product vision. They kept saying they wanted to move like a startup, but then had the risk tolerance of IBM.
"It's hard," Elyse said. "It's really, really, hard, ridiculously hard. You have to love it. For me, it's much easier than for some. I'm much happier doing those hard things, trying to find somewhere to live every month, figuring out travel arrangements and dealing with things like getting robbed at gunpoint. That's much easier and fulfilling than having a 9-to-5 job where I'm in one place all the time. Being in one place makes me feel like I am going to go insane."
In April, I went through my third tech layoff in two years, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back: I was leaving tech behind. I just got married this summer, and it made me think about what I want my life to look like in five or 10 years. I had thought about leaving tech to go into education before, but it was hard to justify leaving when I was making up to $110,00 a year with just a bachelor's degree.
Adorno, originally from Connecticut, left the US for France last October, and admits that this decision had been a long time coming. After going through a number of careers, including as a lawyer, a filmmaker and an artisan breadmaker, Adorno had become tired of the work, work, work culture in the US and was looking for an escape. She says she was ready to to explore a life without work and felt that it was the right time to leave.
I set aside extra money for my kids, mortgage, bills, and car payments. My original goal was to reach $12,000 in savings. That way, when I started my coaching business, I could jump right into it without affecting my family financially. I ultimately reached about $10,200 before my exit. I'm glad I did that because it gave me some peace, and I wasn't thrown into a scarcity mindset when I left.
Now, he's living in Seoul andbuilding a business that aims to create a community for the Korean diaspora like him. Getting here required leaving behind everything he knew. By his mid-20s, Cho felt like he could see exactly what the next 20 years of his life would look like. Good pay, long hours, and climbing the corporate ladder in finance. "I felt like a dead person," Cho, now 28, told Business Insider about his job at Goldman Sachs.
I signed in Raleigh you expect one thing. When [your play is not] showing up or the coach is not believing you, and it's always the bottom [pair]. Everybody has their own story and own career.
"At the height of my career in New York, I was probably making $100,000 a year [and] working eight months out of the year, which on paper sounds great, but..."
We are, globally, not super into our jobs. Gallup's 2025 State of the Global Workplace report showed a decline in employee engagement and wellbeing, with 79% either not engaged or actively disengaged.
