Was Covid Why I Left?

Women leaving the workforce — it’s all over the news. People continue to ask me — was Covid the reason you left your job? I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. I can never know for sure because I can never live 2020 over without Covid and see if I’m still there, but here are some of the reasons I believe I came to the decision I did:

1. Covid became a second full-time job at work. A whole new set of meetings, assignments and decisions with seemingly life or death consequences. Meanwhile, the pressure to keep the regular projects on track increased because of the (incorrect, from what I witnessed) perception people were not working as much from home. We sure weren’t working less at our house, and I definitely didn’t see it with my employees and colleagues. I worked with a lot of amazing people, and none of us wanted to drop the ball.
2. Momma Bear kicked in, and keeping my family alive and healthy beat all else. It wasn’t just my husband and kids I worried about. I was concerned about my parents, my grandmother, my brother and sister-in-law and other people I cared about.
3. I was trying to educate my friends and family on the science I was learning daily from all the scientists at work, while fighting the political mis-information. I don’t underestimate the impact of the political fight on my stress level. The anger inside me ran like a fault line everywhere I went and with any time spent on social media. I realized people I grew up loving my whole life felt very differently from me and didn’t trust or understand the science. I wanted to leave my home state.
4. Emotionally supporting my employees became my top work priority. I was determined to show up for them and be there. Our workloads increased significantly at work and at home, and we were doing our best to keep things held together and moving forward. Projects were not put on hold; new, big things were added. There was definitely the attitude that we would not lose an inch in business and move forward at all cost. Meanwhile, I could see how everyone was struggling. I did my best to be a cheerleader, counselor and friend. Showing up for my people became the only reason I was able to keep working.
5. My husband and I have not been in the same physical location for this amount of time ever. Over thirteen years of marriage, we have both been traveling for work and much of it global. We had to adjust to both being in the same place everyday. This meant negotiating how we manage parenting and living in our house on a whole new level. After being grounded for months, I had to face the fact that the place in which we live has been neglected and broken for years due to our choice to prioritize keeping kids alive while simultaneously building our careers and making sure we were packed and ready for the next trip. I could no longer escape to a beautiful, clean hotel room or eat healthy meals at nice restaurants. So I spent time and energy trying to make our home more of an oasis and less of a broken, dirty and cluttered nightmare, and I learned how to cook fish and homemade Asian cuisine. I learned how to cut and clean a leek and make about twenty different soups. And I learned no one likes split pea soup.
6. There was little to no support system I could hire or call for help. With our career and family balancing act, we’ve never been afraid to ask for help and hire help, but there were no resources when everyone is locked down at home. We were afraid of our parents getting sick or bringing Covid to us. Considering a babysitter meant running through a checklist of people they’ve been around and whether or not they were treating Covid at a similar threat level. We had to worry if the cleaning lady had Covid.
7. Meanwhile, work just kept going with constant, continuous Zoom and Teams calls. Without the global travel, trying to line up time zones meant starting very early in the morning or being on calls late in the evening for both of us. Every night we would compare calendars to see who had the 6 AM or 7 AM call and who would balance getting the kids ready with their 8 AM call. Never mind that we were required to have video on during the calls. And we would have similar conversations at night on who would be on a call and who was putting the kids to bed. And then, the final shoe really dropped when we had to do online school for the kids. I think that’s when I stopped showering or maybe when I started eating candy and crying around 2 PM every afternoon.
8. Let’s just say — we survived online school with minimal tears from all of us. I am thankful for our school district for keeping the kids in class for almost all of the 2020–2021 school year. It’s what worked for us. I don’t judge what anyone else had to do to survive. We had the nagging, serious concern for our son with the heart defect and what if he got Covid, but we balanced it with a few calls to the cardiologist and also the fact that, as time went on, they were not seeing any kid-to-kid transmission in our school.
9. Both of our cats died in 2020. One of them had a large tumor and suffered through surgery, several days of intensive care and never recovered. Our other cat fought cancer through the summer and into the fall and finally died in a October. This was a huge blow to our family.
10. As the year wore on, debating the financial merits of this project or that at work seemed hollow compared to the immediate needs of the people around me. Caring got harder and harder, and there was no emotional support from work. I had grown up in that system and I knew the expectations and had met them for years, but I was having a harder time compartmentalizing work and home. I felt very alone. None of my immediate peers were working mothers with a working husband, and I had built my career by showing that I could handle managing career and family in the constraints and norms that existed. I had been an example for others and was paving the way.
11. Sometime last fall, I cracked. I decided I would do everything I could to make it to the end of the year. I hired a career coach and wrote my resignation letter. It helped me to have a finish line to focus on. Every day I would mark a tally on the totem pole — 100 days left, 57 days left, 32 days left, 15 days left. There were days in December I wasn’t sure I could keep clicking on the meeting links, but I made it. My friend gave me a medal.

Things are looking up. We are on the last week of school. Bills are paid. Everyone is healthy. I’ve worked through five months of soul-searching and redirecting my career goals and life goals, and I’m starting to pick up steam. The house is less cluttered (on most days). We have two, new, wonderful cats. I’m showering and there is no candy stashed in my bedroom office. I’m ready for what’s next, and I’m designing it to fit better with where I’m at and where I want to go. I am wiser, stronger and ready to do some great things both personally and professionally. I’ll be back even better than when I left. I’m not done yet. Don’t count us women out. We are fierce and strong and determined, and we know how to rise again. But be ready, because we will be the change we want to see.