Women in the Workforce: Beyond Burnout and the 'Lazy Girl' Job

Jul 04, 2024

Hello Dear Reader,

Well, this has been a week hasn’t it? With political hand wringing over the President and Prime Minister in the USA and Canada (should they stay, or should they go now?) and elections promising big changes in Britain and France, and Supreme Court rulings that could easily belong in the pages of a Margaret Atwood novel, the world is in a precarious place. I have no answers and I don’t think any of the pundits do either. I just hope and pray that everyone who can vote, does vote and we’ll keep our finger’s crossed democracy doesn’t fall by the wayside. In the meantime, we wait and we write.

With that out of the way, onto today’s topic…

There are some kick-ass women I’ve discovered on the Substack platform like

and

to name a few.

All these women have had big jobs, titles, careers and for all intents and purposes ‘arrived’ and achieved great success. There is also a theme that runs through many of their stories about being stymied, blocked or somehow held back simply for being women at the top of their game. They succeeded in spite of, not because of.

There is another theme that is recurring—women who are streaming out of the workplace due to burnout, stress, sickness or family obligations.

People who have put their head down and worked extra hard to prove they deserved to be there. And yet it still wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. To all the women out there who are feeling me on this, I see you.

A lazy girl job.

In a video I watched recently,

Celia Cain, PhD

of Intellect & Intuition is coaching a client1 about how to prevent burnout. Her client is struggling to move forward with finding a new job. She speaks of being unable to do a “lazy girl job” (emphasis is mine). A job where you show up, work your allotted time, you go home and that’s all. I recognized her sentiment instantly. I understood exactly what she meant. There is so much left unsaid and baked into that one description—lazy girl job.

In our minds if we’re not going “above and beyond,” both at the office and when we’re at home, we are calling ourselves lazy. Also, in our way of thinking, the job has to be something bigger—a calling, our purpose, or it’s not a worthy job. It’s a lazy girl job. This is messed up.

Celia advises, “a job is a job,” and explains how we haven’t learned the boundaries of doing a job and treating is as a job. Instead, thinking of it as a vocation, a calling or a passion. Which means being available and at the ready for whatever might be required, at all times and at whatever the cost.

Any of this sounding familiar to you? Ya, me too.

Contrast this with

Jen Hitze

’s post, Quitting, Sabbaticals and Meaningful Work. Jen describes the importance of dealing with workplace fatigue by taking take a sabbatical. A period of time where you don’t “do” anything. You give yourself time and space to allow what needs to surface. The whispers of our true selves that are drowned out when we keep ourselves so busy 24/7 that we can’t hear them. Something I highly recommend and wish I had done more of this during my working life.

I found myself nodding vigorously with much of what she wrote—until the end when she described finding your calling when it comes to work and pulls some inspirational quotes from various sources to bolster the point. Perhaps it’s my age, maybe I’m just cynical after decades working in what was my calling, but I found myself bristling at the notion that the only meaningful work had to be seen as a ‘vocation’ or ‘calling’, or maybe it was the word “duty” that was the trigger. I seemed to be out of step with most of the people in the comment section of this popular post.

V. Your Calling
If you’re familiar with my work, you’re likely aware that I advocate that we are all uniquely designed to do something that only we can. This thing is your vocation, your calling, your cosmic duty.
But don’t just take my word for it:
I’d tell men and women in their mid-twenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.
Phil Knight, Shoe Dog

This sounds good in theory, but in practice, I don’t think Phil Knight is taking into consideration the different playing fields these young women and men are on. Did he have to juggle his home life and children—not just raising them, but growing them and giving birth to them, all while pursuing his calling. I doubt it.

These young twenty-something women face much different challenges than the twenty-something young men. They just don’t know it yet, and I don’t think Phil Knight does either.

The fatigue isn’t really easier to bear, it just adds to the weight of the guilt the women feel because they’ve decided their calling is their career AND children. I always knew I wanted to be a mother, but I also knew I was going to have a career. That I needed and wanted something more. And, I was told it was possible, so I was determined to go out and get it—all of it.

“It’s just a job.”

Those words came out of my own mouth when I counselled an employee who was struggling with why things were a certain way, and not the way she wanted them to be. Why people weren’t doing what she wanted or expected them to do. Why I wasn’t changing something she wanted changed. She was pregnant with her first child and her job was much more than just a job to her. I recognized my younger self in her. I gently told her, that once her baby was born, I suspected her priorities would change—drastically. I don’t think she believed me.

I am well past the stage of my children needing me, so once I had an empty nest, my job really did consume me. To be honest, it consumed me even when they were little. Time I can never get back and a regret I will carry with me—although I couldn’t have imagined my life without my work either.

So, what to do? A job or career or calling?

Forty hours a week, and you get paid for the work you do in your forty hours. It’s really as simple as that. Why do we need to make it something more—a passion, something we were ‘born to do.’ I re-read my cover letter from when I applied for my CEO job and I cringe. It was a great cover letter, but in hindsight, the language was very dramatic. Emotional in describing how this was a ‘meant to be’ moment.

It’s either the right fit at the right time, or it’s not. That’s all.

If you are struggling with who you are outside of your work, or your job title, you are not alone. There are so many of us that are swimming in these waters. Likely because we were told we can ‘have it all.’ That is a phrase that needs to die along with “what to do for a living?”

You can’t have it all, at least not all at the same time. Something is going to give. It could take a few years, or decades, but having it all doesn’t exist in the real world. Perhaps in the world of magical thinking. A place I lived for a long time.

For those of us that have lived through some serious trauma, we have built a fortress of magical thinking around us that can take a very long time to penetrate. It will usually be your body that will break down before your mind, but if you ignore the warning signs from your body, eventually your brain will break too. Mine did.

I want to save you time and pain.

It’s just a job. Enjoy it, the people, the work, but it doesn’t have to be your life’s work. No one will care or appreciate the hours you spent away from your family, or the vacations you didn’t take, the time you didn’t spend pursuing outside interests after you are gone.

Someone else will come in, fill your shoes, and everything will carry on. That is a fact. And it’s the way it is supposed to be. Because it’s a job—even if it was your calling, and if it’s not you who’s doing it, it will be someone else after you.

Take a sabbatical, take a lazy girl job, or find your passion in something other than your work, but whatever you decide, take care of you. There is only one unique you and you deserve the best of life.

What say you?

Is (or was) your job a career, a calling or your purpose in life? Or is it just a job? Does it make a difference?
Is Phil Knight onto something or full of shit?
What’s your definition of a ‘lazy girl job?’ Did you recognize the sentiment, or was it just me?