Don’t Take Creative Career Problems Personally
The systematic workplace dysfunction no one talks about — and how to navigate it without losing yourself
In the United States, 40% of workers have experienced at least one layoff. Nearly half of all adults worry they’ll be laid off in the next year. Yet browse any career advice platform and you’ll find the same recycled career “wisdom”: network better, optimize your LinkedIn, be authentic, find your passion.
This advice assumes your career struggles are personal failings that can be fixed with the right mindset and better execution. And what if you’re doing that already? What if the problem isn’t you? What if the systems we’re all trying to navigate are fundamentally broken?
More insidiously, what if the psychological damage from layoffs fundamentally changes how you approach work — even when you find a new job? People who’ve been through multiple layoff events often develop a type of brain fog or “layoff brain”: a risk-averse, head-down mentality that prioritizes survival over excellence. You become so focused on not getting fired again that you stop taking the creative risks that made you valuable in the first place.
Can you imagine having to explain five layoffs on a résumé? Ten? How do you think those people behave when they finally get hired again? Do you think they’ll be risk-takers? Do you think they’ll defend their work when challenged? Or would it be more likely that those people would just go along to get along, try not to make waves, and hope not to be noticed?
The cruel irony is that companies hire creative professionals for their ability to challenge assumptions and propose innovative solutions, then systematically traumatize them through layoffs until they lose the very qualities that made them attractive to companies. Meanwhile, those same companies wonder why their products are boring, customers are indifferent, and their teams lack creative courage.
My upcoming book BAD FIT argues that sometimes you’re not the problem — the workplace is. And trying to “fix” yourself to fit into dysfunction only makes things worse in the long run.
The Patterns Hidden in Plain Sight
I’ve experienced numerous layoffs throughout my career, and I’ve lost count of the total number. Three occurred within an eighteen-month period, which was unusually devastating. The pattern started much earlier for me and continued across industries. Working as a UX designer across startups, government contractors, and Fortune 100 companies, I started recognizing systematic dysfunction that no career guide addresses. These aren’t isolated incidents or personal bad luck — they’re predictable features of how modern workplaces actually function.
The CEOzilla Trap:
Executives who micromanage creative decisions while claiming they want innovation. I’ve sat through meetings where CEOs spend fifteen minutes debating font choices while simultaneously dismissing user research because “Steve Jobs never did user testing.” (Apple actually conducts extensive user research, but facts don’t matter when ego is involved.) These leaders create environments where every creative decision gets second-guessed by people who fundamentally don’t understand the work. They also tend to hire experts and then refuse to let them practice their expertise or just ignore them altogether.
The Team of One Conundrum:
Recruiters love to pitch solo creative roles as career-making opportunities: “You’ll be the first UX hire! You’ll lead the entire company’s direction! You’ll be able to hire more people!” This sounds empowering until you realize you’re being hired as a magic cure for years of accumulated product problems. The reality involves three crushing dynamics: engineering teams that see your research process as a bureaucratic slowdown, unrealistic expectations that you’ll fix everything immediately, and colleagues who interpret design feedback as personal attacks. You become the scapegoat for systemic problems that preceded your arrival.
The All-Nighter Hustle Culture:
Companies that celebrate overwork as dedication rather than recognizing it as a management failure. I’ve worked at places where designers regularly pulled all-nighters to meet sprint deadlines, producing work that was objectively terrible — full of typos and basic errors that created more problems than they solved. These environments mistake the performance of effort for actual results, creating cycles where poor planning requires heroic individual sacrifice to maintain the illusion of productivity.
Startups as Cults:
The Bay Area’s history with actual cults and its connection to Silicon Valley startup culture isn’t a coincidence. Having grown up in the Bay during the height of cult activity in the 1970s and 80s, I recognize the same recruitment tactics, isolation techniques, and devotion demands that characterized communes now defining “passionate” startup employees. Free food, game rooms, and office perks aren’t benefits — they’re tools to blur work-life boundaries and prevent employees from developing outside perspectives that might lead to critical thinking about company culture.
Innovation Theater:
Companies that stage elaborate “design thinking” workshops and collaboration sessions that fail to address existing hierarchies while creating the appearance of democratic decision-making. These sessions inevitably result in implementing whatever the highest-paid person thinks is a good idea, but with the added cost of making everyone else feel like their input was considered. Real collaboration requires psychological safety and genuine power-sharing, not sticky notes and forced enthusiasm.
Your Body is a Shock Absorber
Many professionals will recognize this moment: driving home from another dysfunctional workplace when you feel your teeth literally shifting from years of stress-induced grinding. The dental bills that follow become an expensive reminder that “desk jobs are healthier than physical labor” is a myth when those jobs involve psychological warfare.
Your body often recognizes toxic environments before your conscious mind catches up. The hypervigilance that helps you survive one toxic workplace can become a chronic condition that follows you everywhere — constantly scanning for threats, preparing responses to hostile behavior, and maintaining emotional armor against systematic gaslighting.
This anxiety serves a dual purpose: it’s both a protective mechanism and a destructive force. On one hand, it helps you develop early warning systems for dysfunction, recognize patterns in toxic behavior, and prepare exit strategies before situations become untenable. Your stress response becomes professional intelligence that helps you navigate environments designed to exploit workers.
On the other hand, chronic workplace anxiety exacts severe costs. When threat-detection becomes your primary professional tool, you develop physical symptoms (grinding teeth, tension headaches, digestive issues) and emotional exhaustion from constant vigilance. You become so skilled at navigating chaos that healthy workplace dynamics can feel boring or suspicious rather than nourishing.
During one job interview for example, my stomach made embarrassingly loud noises during a role-playing exercise. The hiring manager’s feedback was that I was “too easy to rattle.” But my stomach wasn’t betraying me — it was protecting me from a workplace that would have systematically eroded my professional dignity. Learning to distinguish between helpful intuition and trauma responses becomes crucial for long-term career health.
The Economics of Enforced Silence
We’ve created an economy around workplace isolation. Severance packages come bundled with non-disclosure agreements that literally pay people to keep quiet about toxic experiences. Companies purchase silence from former employees, ensuring that dysfunctional patterns never get publicly documented or challenged.
Meanwhile, companies that invest most heavily in design practices see 32% more revenue and 56% higher returns to shareholders. Yet these same organizations often create environments that systematically destroy their creative talent’s effectiveness. The irony is profound: the conditions that make innovation investment worthwhile are the conditions most companies actively prevent.
Beyond Individual Solutions
BAD FIT isn’t another book telling you to network better or find your passion. Traditional career advice assumes that workplace dysfunction is either rare or manageable through individual adaptation. We all know that it’s not. This book provides frameworks to recognize systematic problems before they damage your career and health.
You’ll learn to identify the crushing dynamics that destroy solo creative roles, spot the cult-like patterns in startup environments, and understand why “design thinking” workshops often become expensive theater productions. The book also addresses recovery — how to rebuild professional confidence after toxic experiences and detox from survival behaviors that no longer serve you as you move on to better roles, including:
- The Gut Check Protocol: Learning to trust your physical responses during interviews and workplace interactions as valuable professional intelligence.
- Strategic Misfitting: Understanding when conformity prevents you from doing your best work and how to resist organizational pressure without destroying your career.
- The Coach Approach: Practical techniques for educating colleagues about your value without falling into the “magical creative person” trap.
Who This Book Serves
BAD FIT is written for creative professionals, but the insights apply to anyone who’s felt like they don’t quite fit traditional corporate culture. If you’ve ever been told you’re “not a culture fit” despite competent performance, or if you’ve wondered why your workplace stress manifests in physical symptoms, this book provides both validation and practical strategies.
The target audience includes:
- Designers, writers, and other creative professionals working in corporate environments
- People who’ve experienced multiple layoffs and wonder if they’re the problem
- Anyone who’s felt gaslit by workplace dynamics but couldn’t articulate why
- Professionals in technical fields who value innovation but work in risk-averse cultures
The Real Solution
The most radical thing a professional can do isn’t learning to fit better into broken systems. It’s refusing to accept that dysfunction is normal, that creative work inevitably requires creative suffering, or that workplace trauma is the price of career advancement.
Sometimes the problem isn’t your performance, your attitude, or your ability to “read the room.” Sometimes the room is gaslighting you, and the healthiest response is strategic resistance rather than endless adaptation.
BAD FIT argues that recognizing systematic dysfunction isn’t pessimism — it’s professional self-defense. When you understand how broken systems operate, you can make strategic decisions about when to adapt, when to resist, and when to walk away.
What Makes This Different
Most career advice treats workplace problems as individual challenges that can be solved through better networking, upskilling, or attitude adjustments. This approach ignores the reality that some workplaces are systematically designed in ways that make success impossible for certain types of people.
BAD FIT acknowledges that not every workplace culture can or should be fixed through individual effort. Sometimes the most professional thing you can do is recognize dysfunction early and make strategic decisions that protect your health, creativity, and long-term career prospects.
The book combines personal narrative with systematic analysis, providing both emotional validation and practical tools. It’s not about becoming cynical or giving up on meaningful work — it’s about developing better radar for environments where you can actually thrive.
The Invitation
Your career struggles might not be personal failures requiring more self-improvement. They might be rational responses to irrational systems. Understanding the difference between individual growth opportunities and systematic dysfunction can be the difference between burning out and building sustainable career resilience.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re working harder to fit in than to do good work, if you’ve noticed your creativity diminishing in certain environments, or if you’ve wondered whether your workplace stress is normal, BAD FIT offers a different framework for understanding and navigating these challenges.
Your body might be trying to tell you something important about your work environment. Maybe it’s time to listen.
BAD FIT: A Career Survival Guide will be available in early 2026. For early access to chapters and additional resources, subscribe to my newsletter on my website.
