I was working a stable job at a premium company for a good salary. I liked my work. I liked my peers. I liked my leadership. I had relocated to Boston for this job. I’d been brought on as a contractor and was about to convert to full-time, which was the single professional milestone I wanted more than anything; incontrovertible proof that I belonged.

During my interview prep, I became suspicious of the level I was being considered for. I was supposed to focus my answers on sourcing, submittals, ATS, and inmails. I knew something was up. My foot tapped obsessively, filling the silence with palpable anxiety.

“Is there a problem?”

I hadn’t slept for three days by now, and that is since I started counting; which was after weeks of not sleeping well, or possibly at all. I had started going on long walks every morning and evening to vent off some of the accumulated energy, at least 10-20 miles a day, just for maintenance.

“If I had past projects of bigger scope, would you consider looping at a higher level?”

“Why don’t you give me an example of what you mean, and I will let you know if it maps.”

I did. He said it didn’t.

He was going to say that no matter what I said.

“You operate as an L2 here.”

I was speechless. My foot stopped abruptly, I packed up my laptop, and excused myself without explanation. I couldn’t even argue with it. This job was a massive reduction for me. But what he was saying completely dismissed my previous experience. 

If I wasn’t manic, that wasn’t fair. But because I was, the injustice wasn’t just frustrating. It was incomprehensible. My brain couldn’t metabolize it. I tried to rationalize the situation, tried to reframe it, I tried to accept it. But I absolutely could not. It was a week until my interview, but I was too disoriented to stop or postpone it. I was on a slow collision course with an outcome I knew I wouldn’t accept.

They ran me through the full interview loop. I was manic as hell, talking too fast, veering off script, pushing too hard, but they knew my work. They had seen it. So they still wanted to hire me, not because I interviewed well but because I had already been doing the job.

Obviously, the offer came in at Recruiter 2.

I turned it down.

Not because it wasn’t fair, although it wasn’t. Not because I had another opportunity. I didn’t. I turned it down because I was so angry about the downlevel that I couldn’t accept it. And then I went further and quit the contract job entirely.

That moment sits in my memory as a fracture. My life divides cleanly around it. Before, Boston was a wonderland. New job, new city, new life. It was working better than anything had ever worked. I had gotten sober permanently.

After I quit, I became radioactive.

Companies saw nine months tenure and assumed the worst. I obviously hadn’t converted because I wasn’t good enough. Clearly I was let go. No one knew the real story, which was in some ways worse because I technically rage quit over a job offer.

I couldn’t exactly explain it. “Sorry, I couldn’t process injustice” doesn’t land in a professional interview.

The interviews I did get didn’t go well. I was still manic, still scattered, and still pissed. I couldn’t fake normal. I spiraled, alone in a city where my only real connection had been work, and now work was gone. I burned through my savings.

Eventually, I took a contract job in California.

A former manager did me a favor; there wasn’t a real hiring need.

As soon as budgets got tight, I was let go.