I woke up this morning with this random song in my head, and as usual, I ignored it.
After trying to follow my daily plan for Friday and being utterly distracted, I got tired after 3p.

Giving up, I turned up that song with lyrics searching from a YouTube channel.

It
Must be
Exhausting
Always rooting for
An antihero

I am reflecting quite a bit these days, yet my mind is still disturbed by uncomfortable emotions that I used to repress. What are those?

I’ll stare
Directly at the sun
But never in the mirror

Ok, this hits me like a brick.

It’s me
Hi
I’m the problem it’s me.

Does Taylor Swift have some fantastic coaches and therapists? She is super reflective and vulnerable. Yes. It’s me—I loathe my ability or inability to manifest my ideas, and I felt seriously insecure earlier. I think of myself as small and invalidated by comparison to my peer group, and I feel intimated by that thought. Is this weird?

No,
it’s natural and expected.
I am still in a rehab phase for my deep-as-hell workaholism and urge to perform. I see that as almost an evil force driving people in my industry to kill themselves, being sick, mentally broken, or severely jaded emotionally. I am in the process of recovery - I will go through it and get better at it one day, as I have been in other shitty situations. I can be easy on myself about this.

After 20 years in Big Tech companies - I realized how the working experience there impacts its employees. (regardless of its role or position)

Working for tech blue chips presents another set of challenges, in addition to being fast-paced and constantly updated with new technology. It's not because of the brilliant hackathon to stop global warming, which requires many sleepless nights, a project to deploy innovative applications that stop dyslexia, or narrowing the technology divides of marginalized people in new markets. Generally, you need more time and soul to deal with those hard-to-achieve and hard-to-monetize problems with your monthly KPIs and quotas. With or without design, the network and work-from-mainly-home organization is being formed and managed into a maze of communications and directions. To keep them informed, you get on call constantly and must contact several more teams in faraway time zones. The asynchronous way of emails and messages sometimes creates misunderstandings and friction. Different working hours and holidays keep you on the clock at odd hours and days. Some former employees said, "It's like running a marathon every waking hour. Your brain needs rest, but it can be difficult at places like this."

Even though there are so many teams and people in one meeting, it takes a lot of work to get your voice heard while executives are struggling with their calendar, which is fully booked, with too many priorities. Usually, the time in the big meeting is the time for most of the employees with many dotted bosses and even more stakeholders to clean up their inboxes. Once the communication has been (almost) done and the collective context has been made, your work deadline approaches fast, and your personal time will be the resource. Your nights are spent filling up the system to ensure the monthly scorecard looks green, and you get to see that dashboard in your dream, too. A passionate employee is well phrased in the company. But I sometimes wondered whether the term passion in big tech work environment was rather from a biblical definition.