How I Burned My Resume and Built a New Career

Breaking free: A survival guide for new entrepreneurs

Neela 🌶️
Psychology of Workplaces
10 min readSep 17, 2024

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A graphic showing an outlined drawing of the woman in black raising her hands in celebration. There are color-coded arrows in the background.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

It was 3 PM on a Friday, and I was standing in my kitchen, watching my resume go up in flames. Not metaphorically, mind you. I mean, I was literally watching the document that summarized my entire professional life turn into ash in my kitchen sink.

You see, in my infinite wisdom, I had decided that the best way to prepare for my transition from full-time employee to entrepreneur was to dramatically burn my old resume as a symbol of my rebirth.

It seemed poetic at the time. What I hadn’t accounted for was the smoke detector’s opinion on the matter.

As I stood there, frantically waving a dish towel at the shrieking alarm, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was some sort of cosmic sign. Was the universe trying to tell me something? Perhaps “Stick to your day job, you pyromaniac wannabe”?

But let’s back up a bit. How did I, a reasonably sane woman with a steady job and a fondness for regular paychecks, contemplate arson as a career move?

It all started with the whispers. You know the ones. They creep through office cubicles like a sinister game of telephone. “Budget cuts,” they said. “Restructuring,” they whispered.

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