When The Chips Are Down

In collaboration with Urban Outfitters and Dickies, we comissioned a series of stories that feature creative leaders who offer their insight on the “new” work world.

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Seven months ago, I quit the best-paid job I’ve ever had with nothing waiting in the wings. From the outside looking in, it may seem that this was a thoroughly well-calculated plan of action—after all, since entering the workforce at eighteen, I had always been exceptionally responsible regarding my livelihood.

I made it out of high school by the skin of my teeth. I remember visiting the college counselor's office and telling one of the surly, wizened old creatures there that I planned to submit applications to all the top colleges in the country despite my poor grades and abysmal test scores. Spurred by teenage hubris, I would submit a short yet compelling piece to each school in which I would explain that while I didn’t have a report card to write home about, I did have good old-fashioned, home-grown intelligence. I would demonstrate that I was an exception to the rule, a free-spirited genius they’d never seen. Given the chance, I would excel within their fine establishment and go on to become a literary giant, blackening pages with the kind of work that would secure my place on the shelves of future classrooms alongside the greatest writers of all time.

In a cinematic turn of events, the person reviewing my application would be so impressed with my courage to fly in the face of decency that they would accept me on the spot, thinking to themselves, “Well, on paper, she’s not much to look at, but by god, this one’s got moxie.”