Grit on Strike
Photo courtesy of Gratisography
Thursday, September 25th, 2025Last night I woke in the middle of the night, thinking about work. Earlier this week, I’d been working with my skip level on some pants I had no idea how to fix. The last proto round, I was working on them until 11:00pm trying to get them right. Even grit has a breaking point. A few styles have already been pulled off the floor for underperformance, and my ego was taking a hit. I knew these pants were going to be another failure.
The entire time I’ve been in this job, my position hasn’t changed. I was hired to revamp a large project, and it took me a little over six years to finish. I gained an incredible amount of knowledge from it and I’m proud of what I built.
But for most of this year, I’ve felt unmoored. I don’t even know what my role—or my job description—is anymore. In six years, I turned myself into an expert, and now I’m being asked to fill my time with grunt work!? No, thank you.
When I first started here, I was given someone to manage. A plebe. A protégé. A minion. An underling. A “Direct Report,” I was told to say—lest I offend someone *eyeroll*.
Shortly after I became his manager, we went on my first work camping trip: three days—paid—with 70 coworkers, in the woods at the base of Mt. Rainier, hiking, doing service work, just hanging out. My minion and I didn’t know each other very well yet, but one morning at breakfast he mentioned he had grown up in a small town in the Midwest. After some back and forth, prodding and evasion, we discovered we had gone to the same high school—albeit several years apart.
It was strange finding a connection to a little piece of the home I thought I’d left behind.
It's a small town of about 7,000 people - the largest in the county - with one stoplight, the Super Walmart, and the county jail. His family moved there just as I was moving away. My sister frequented his brother’s bar. My mom still loves his mother’s cinnamon rolls. Instantly, we understood each other. From that moment on, it became my mission to get him a promotion, a raise, and a salaried position—all so he would never have to move back there again.
Every week, I talked about him with my skip level. I got a list of exactly what he needed to do, what boxes he needed to check. He was mentored by a coworker. He offered monthly sewing workshops. He presented his projects in an All-Hands. A year and a half later, he was promoted to a senior-level salaried role with a pay bump. He worked his grit off! I was thrilled for him. And proud.
But here’s the thing: in the seven years I’ve been here, no one has championed me like that. I don’t remember the last time anyone even asked me about my trajectory. I’ve always sat in the upper corner of high performance/high potential. I think there was only one year where I wasn’t nominated for the company's major award. I’ve watched nearly every member of my department move up in rank—even those who came in after me. My role has changed, but my position has not. It feels like all the grit I poured into this project hardened into nothing but grunt work.
I spend a lot of time on Pinterest. It’s the only “social media” I keep on my phone. I don’t comment. I don’t create pins. I just collect and read. This morning, in the deep depths of the night, I came across a pin that said: “You don’t get to decide if you’re worthy enough to be liked by your friends. They do. They get to decide if you’re worth their time and energy.”
And I thought about how a year and a half ago, my life was upended when my thirteen-year relationship dissolved in a matter of months because someone deemed me not worthy.
My next thought was, I want to go back home. But, I don’t know where that is anymore—or when, or even what it looks like.
Stay Gritty