“$65-75,000 a year with benefits. That’s the ballpark range.”
One of my managers, kind, likable, and considerate, smiled as he said this.
“We are thinking of asking you to join our little marketing team here. How about it?”
I blinked a few times and hesitated.
“Just give it some time to think about and get back to me.”
We were on the roof, in the pet play area. Downtown San Francisco stretched out before us and the wind was strong. My manager, bespectacled, wearing a dapper hipster outfit (blazer, matching funky argyle socks, patterned tie flapping in the breeze) had followed me and my dog, Nikko to the roof. I had been working with his team in the last month, mainly learning how the team functioned, but had not thought I had done anything of great merit or import. At least not enough to inspire this conversation.
Why was I hesitating? This was a dream come true in so many ways. I had taken my second leave from Stanford precisely to pursue real-life work experiences that would secure me a more financially sustainable future. I had been completely on my own since high school and finding this internship before I took my leave was one of the greater windfalls of my year. With this money, I would no longer have to worry about the high living costs of the Bay Area, where I had just settled. The looming threat of having to live out of my car (which I’d done before) would be behind me, and I could feel the future years stretch out pleasantly before me. I’d take the job, save more and more money, probably move into the city to avoid the two and a half hour long bike/train commute from Palo Alto to SF, adapt a city lifestyle, and live in the Mission, or the Castro, or any other neighborhood which so many other young, educated Stanford and non-Stanford folks seemed to be attracted to. I would gain more than financial security, but the prestigious peace of mind that normalcy can bring. When I spoke with my peers, other graduates, my family back home, anyone in the Bay area, I would be able to say, “Oh I work at a tech company,” and they would nod their heads, because, most likely, they would be working in very similar spaces.
Beyond my own personal investments, I was also incredibly privileged to even be able to access and work at such a company, and I knew this. They provided every meal, commuting discounts, full benefits, weekly parties, quarterly trips, and all the other perks of working at a tech company. The people were kind enough, and the product, based in the health tech industry, had a more socially utilitarian mission and focus. I felt crazy for hesitating, blasphemous even. At the worst, I felt ungrateful and selfish. Coming from a low-income background, I knew that many would kill to be in such a situation, where their financial worries and concerns would disappear.
And yet, ultimately, I couldn’t take the job.
Instead I took time to reflect, all the while burning through my savings, until I decided to return to school to finish my coterminal master’s degree. Why, you may ask? Because taking the job felt disingenuous and unsustainable in the grand scheme of my own personal journey and growth.
It wasn’t the people or the company or the “tech industry” being __________(insert negative, cynical view here). It just wasn’t right for me. And that’s how simple the answer was. Waking up for work day after day had begun to feel like a slow death. Yes, there were some instances when I felt that the culture wasn’t right for me. Maybe my Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity background didn’t help me feel comfortable there (a whole other topic for a whole other article), but regardless, I knew in my heart that the space was not right for me. The work held little meaning for me or who I was, am, or wanted to grow to be.
That might sound ridiculous to some. It did to me at times. Trust me when I say there were days, especially in the months of limbo afterwards, when I bemoaned my decision. Why couldn’t I just suck it up and take it for what it was? Those were stressful months of wandering, and pondering, all the while watching my savings slip lower and lower.
And perhaps it doesn’t sound ridiculous to others. I did have an alternative and hardly a risky one at that. (A master’s from Stanford is most definitely a fortunate and extremely privileged option from any perspective). And yes, I did have to take out massive loans for the first time in my life (scary 10 year repayment plans), but I am still aware of how lucky I was to have a program I could even return to. But even if I had no other option, even if I knew I would have to scrounge around, tutor, take odd jobs, eat nothing but canned tuna again to make it work, I would have still declined.
Perhaps this is a testament to my individual personality; perhaps I’m not as risk averse as others or more independent (and able to be independent), but either way, at the end of the day I couldn’t be anyone but myself. It’s a cliché, sure, but as someone who knows what the cost of that could mean, I still stand by it. Do you.
Sometimes Stanford can seem like one more track to success, but whether it is school or work, everything is a kind of tool, one that as Stanford students, we have the privilege to utilize with flexibility when it comes to controlling how we want to grow and who we want to become. Expectations exist, to be sure. The expectation to use your newfound privileged education for a social good. The expectation to make tons of money, to invent something or to disrupt some other field or industry. Essentially, to do something big. But at the end of the day, everything has to align with your own sense of meaning or purpose.
I’m not villainizing comfort or money or success, rather I am questioning achieving those thing at the expense of your own sense of self. That’s the truest violation. I saw my life stretch out before me working in a corporation. Given my non-technical major, I saw the avenues open to me: marketing, HR, sales, customer support, etc. and while they offered great financial incentives, I couldn’t commit to the trajectory laid out before me. And that’s ok. If that’s all I ever take away from this experience, then that’s all I need. We need to honor ourselves, and by extension, others.
I still don’t know what I’m going to, or what I want to do most days. After I’m done with Stanford (sometimes I feel like I never will be), where will I go? What will I do? How will I live? How do I better honor myself and those I love? These questions continue to paralyze me at times, but hopefully, only for a moment. The rest of the time, I push myself to hold my head up, hope for the best, work hard, and move from within (and when I don’t know what is within, to have the courage to delve). I hope you do the same.