Que After Dark | Career
My Life. My Lessons. My Perspective.
I Built a Career I Never Intended to Stay In
I’ve spent more than twenty years in corporate America, and when I look back over my career, I sometimes wonder how I managed to spend that much of my life working without ever developing the desire to remain in one position until retirement. I’ve been laid off, fired, resigned voluntarily, and watched contracts come to an end. I’ve experienced enough versions of unemployment that I could probably write a separate book explaining the difference between being released, eliminated, and simply deciding that I had had enough of somebody’s shit.
Yet, through every transition, I managed to find another opportunity, learn something new, and continue building a career that eventually took me from data entry to accounting and management.
What I find interesting is that I never really saw myself as someone who needed to belong to a company. I appreciated having a steady income, understood my responsibilities, and took pride in my work. I learned the systems, understood the numbers, solved problems, and became pretty damn good at figuring things out. But I never developed the emotional attachment to a position that made me believe I couldn’t exist without it.
And before somebody assumes I had the luxury of making career decisions without considering anybody else, let me explain something. I was a married woman with five children. Five! That meant I wasn’t simply working to maintain a lifestyle or have enough spending money to enjoy myself. I had a family, a household, and responsibilities that didn’t give a damn whether I felt like going to work.
There were mouths to feed, bills to pay, clothes to buy, and children whose needs didn’t magically disappear because their mama was tired of corporate America. Every professional decision had financial consequences that extended beyond me.
So no, I didn’t have the luxury of pretending money didn’t matter. I understood exactly why I needed to earn it.
I just wasn’t convinced that I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing it on somebody else’s terms.
Apparently, You Have to Earn the Right to Be Sick
I’ve never fully understood the idea of earning permission to be sick. I understand that businesses need attendance policies and accountability, but there is something absolutely ridiculous about waking up physically ill and having to determine whether you’ve accumulated enough hours to accommodate whatever the hell your body has decided to do that morning.
Imagine being grown, having a fever, feeling like absolute shit, and still needing to calculate whether you can afford to stay in bed. Your body is begging for rest while your mind is reviewing your available PTO balance. Apparently, illness is supposed to be considerate enough to wait until you’ve accrued sufficient hours. Somebody should probably notify the flu, because clearly that motherfucker didn’t read the employee handbook.
But what about those mornings when absolutely nothing is wrong?
You’re not sick. Nobody died. There isn’t a family emergency. You simply open your eyes, look at the clock, and realize that you don’t feel like going to work. Maybe you want to sleep longer, enjoy your morning, spend time with somebody you love, or do absolutely nothing without having to explain why doing nothing feels necessary.
Unfortunately, “I just don’t feel like coming today” isn’t exactly the explanation most employers are hoping to hear.
So you begin negotiating with yourself. Do I have enough PTO? Have I already called in this month? Will somebody have an attitude tomorrow? Is there something important on the calendar? Before you know it, you’ve spent fifteen minutes developing an acceptable excuse for why you don’t want to participate in corporate activities that morning.
And that’s the shit that always amused me. We spend our childhood waiting to become adults so we can make our own decisions, only to become adults who have to submit requests to other adults for permission to take a Tuesday off.
Apparently, the freedom to simply not feel like doing shit wasn’t included in the benefits package.
Working to Afford a Vacation From Work
Then there’s the beautiful little arrangement we’ve accepted concerning vacations.
You spend the majority of the year working to earn money, save some of that money to take a vacation, and then request permission to be absent from the place where you earned the money. If the dates are available, your workload permits it, and nobody else has already requested that particular week, congratulations! You’re approved to enjoy the life you’ve been financing all year.
What kind of backwards-ass arrangement is that?
You’ve been imagining yourself sitting on a beach for months, only to discover that somebody in another department has already requested those dates. Now you’re negotiating your happiness around an office calendar as though the ocean is going to reschedule itself to accommodate staffing needs.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking about getting my ass on a plane, ordering something with an umbrella sticking out of it, and enjoying a few days without hearing the words, “Can you jump on a quick call?”
No, Brenda. I cannot jump on a quick call. I’m trying to jump in somebody’s swimming pool.
And even when the vacation finally gets approved, you spend the first day trying to relax and the last day thinking about returning to work. Somewhere in between, you remember that the job you needed a vacation from is waiting for you when you get back.
But being a mother of five added another layer to how I viewed time. I wasn’t only trying to find opportunities to enjoy myself. I was trying to find room to experience life with the people I spent so much time working to provide for.
And that’s something I began questioning more as I got older. What does it mean to work so hard to create a life for your family that you barely have time to enjoy that life with them?
I wasn’t suggesting that employers should pay people without expecting them to fulfill their responsibilities. I’ve never confused independence with the absence of accountability. What bothered me was realizing how much of my personal freedom depended on an arrangement in which somebody else had already purchased most of my available time.
I was making money to enjoy life, but spending so much time making that money that I had to schedule when I could actually enjoy it.
And the older I became, the more I questioned whether that was how I wanted to spend the remainder of my working life.
When Stability Starts Feeling Like Confinement
Psychologically, human beings have a fundamental need for autonomy, which is the ability to experience meaningful choice in how we live and behave. When we feel that our decisions are consistently controlled by outside circumstances, we can experience frustration even when those circumstances provide something valuable.
That’s one reason somebody can have a decent salary, good benefits, and a respectable job while still feeling dissatisfied with the amount of control they have over their life.
It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ungrateful. Sometimes it means stability is no longer the only thing they value.
We’ve been taught to associate employment with responsibility, stability, and success. And God forbid you tell somebody you’re thinking about leaving a good-paying job. You would think you had announced you were selling everything you owned to go live in the woods with a family of raccoons.
“Girl, you better keep that job!”
I hear you. But damn, can we at least discuss why I’m unhappy and want to quit?
We accept change in almost every other area of life. We outgrow friendships, reconsider relationships, develop new interests, and change our beliefs. Yet when somebody begins questioning their relationship with employment, we sometimes treat it like an act of professional disloyalty.
I was beginning to understand that the stability I’d been taught to pursue wasn’t necessarily the freedom I wanted to experience.
And I didn’t want to continue confusing the two.
A Beautiful View From a Place I No Longer Wanted to Be
There was a point in my career when I had finally worked my way into a Staff Accountant position. I’d spent years learning systems, developing my skills, and proving I could handle the responsibilities that came with professional advancement.
And after all that time, I finally had something that might seem insignificant to somebody else but represented progress to me.
A window seat.
And not just any window. I had a beautiful view. The kind that makes you appreciate having an office space where you can look outside instead of staring at another wall, cubicle, or somebody walking past your desk.
But the strangest thing started happening.
The more I looked out that window, the more I realized I didn’t want to be on that side of it.
Every morning, walking into that building began to feel like I was reporting to a prison cell. Now, I know somebody is probably thinking that’s a little dramatic, especially considering I wasn’t exactly breaking rocks in the hot sun. I was sitting in an office, working in accounting, earning a paycheck, and enjoying a beautiful view.
But that’s what made the feeling so difficult to explain.
I had finally gotten a window, and all I wanted was to be on the other side of that motherfucker.
I could look outside and see the world moving while I sat inside watching the clock, completing assignments, answering emails, and waiting for the workday to end. Somewhere between those spreadsheets and that view, I started realizing that the life I wanted to experience felt so much bigger than the building I was sitting in.
I remember feeling like I was bigger than that entire building. Not because I thought I was better than the people who worked there or that the responsibilities were beneath me. I simply felt that there was so much more inside me than what I was being paid to produce within those walls.
I had ideas, creativity, interests, experiences, and ambitions that had absolutely nothing to do with reconciling another account or making sure somebody’s numbers balanced. And while I was good at what I did, I was beginning to understand that being good at something didn’t automatically mean I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing that shit.
That’s a strange realization when you’ve spent years working toward the very position you’re beginning to feel confined by.
How do you explain that you’ve finally reached a place you once considered progress, only to discover that you don’t particularly want to be there anymore? How do you tell somebody that the paycheck is appreciated, the office is nice, and the view is beautiful, but every morning you feel like you’re walking into a place that’s holding a version of you that you’re ready to outgrow?
Psychologically, we can experience a conflict between external achievement and internal fulfillment. Sometimes the goals we spend years pursuing were established by an earlier version of ourselves, and by the time we reach them, we’ve developed an entirely different understanding of what we want.
I think that was happening to me.
The view was beautiful, but it was still a view through a window.
And I didn’t want to spend the next twenty years watching life happen on the other side of the glass.
I wanted to be outside. I wanted to experience life. I wanted to discover what the hell else I was capable of becoming.
Eventually, that position ended when my contract was up. I did what I had always known how to do. I found another opportunity in an accounting department and continued using the skills I’d spent years developing.
And wouldn’t you know it, I ended up with another damn window seat.
But something was different this time. I didn’t think I stayed long enough to become particularly attached to the position. Somewhere between showing up, doing my work, and looking out another window, I realized that changing companies wasn’t going to change what I was feeling.
The problem wasn’t the building. It was that I no longer wanted my life confined to one.
They Could End My Employment, Not My Experience
One thing moving through different positions taught me was that my professional identity didn’t belong to any particular employer. I hadn’t always controlled the circumstances surrounding my departures, and I certainly hadn’t enjoyed every transition.
Being laid off can disrupt your finances. Being fired can challenge your confidence. Quitting can create uncertainty, especially when people depend on your income.
And one thing about a bill, that motherfucker doesn’t care whether you’re experiencing a spiritual awakening, professional transition, or personal breakthrough. The due date is still the due date.
But I never believed losing a job meant losing my abilities.
I’d developed knowledge, learned systems, navigated difficult personalities, managed responsibilities, and adapted to changing environments. Those things didn’t disappear because somebody removed my access to a company email account.
I also began recognizing how easily we confuse professional security with personal security. A position can provide consistent income without guaranteeing long-term employment. A company can appreciate your contributions and still eliminate your department.
You can spend years being dependable, exceeding expectations, staying late, and making yourself available whenever you’re needed, only to discover that the business has made a decision no amount of loyalty can reverse.
They’ll thank you for your service, wish you well in your future endeavors, and have your access disabled before you’ve finished cleaning out your desk.
Now what the fuck are you supposed to do with all that loyalty?
I’m not saying every employer operates that way. But businesses make decisions based on their needs, even when those decisions affect people who’ve dedicated years to the organization.
And if companies are allowed to make decisions based on what’s best for their future, shouldn’t we be allowed to make decisions based on what’s best for ours?
The Day I Decided to Retire My Own Damn Self
After more than twenty years of employment, I reached a point where I began seriously considering a different future. I’d already started building my own business and was discovering possibilities outside the career I’d spent decades developing.
And after one accounting contract ended and I accepted another position, I realized that changing employers wasn’t going to resolve what I was experiencing.
I was tired of trying to fit the life I wanted into whatever hours remained after somebody else’s schedule had been satisfied.
Eventually, I made a decision.
I was going to retire from corporate America.
Now, before somebody starts imagining a beautiful retirement ceremony, a generous pension, and me walking out of a building carrying a gold watch, let me stop you right there.
I retired my own damn self.
There wasn’t a retirement committee. Nobody organized a farewell luncheon. I wasn’t walking away with millions in investments and a financial advisor telling me I could comfortably spend the rest of my life traveling the world.
Hell, I made the decision to retire from corporate America with less than thirty dollars in my pocket.
THIRTY DOLLARS.
And not even the whole thirty!
Now, I know somebody is reading this thinking, “This bitch has lost her mind.”
And depending on which financial expert you ask, they might have a point.
But I had come to understand that waiting until every circumstance was perfect might mean spending another decade preparing to do something I already knew I wanted.
And let’s remember, I wasn’t making this decision without responsibilities. I had a husband and five children. Five children will teach you some financial mathematics no accounting department could ever prepare you for. Somebody always needs something. If it isn’t food, it’s clothes. If it isn’t clothes, it’s school. And just when you think you’ve accounted for every expense, somebody remembers they need twenty dollars for something they apparently knew about three damn weeks ago.
So when I say I decided to retire from corporate America with less than thirty dollars, understand that I wasn’t making that decision because I didn’t have responsibilities. I was making it while knowing exactly how real those responsibilities were.
Was it financially risky? Absolutely. Was I guaranteed success? Hell no.
But I wasn’t retiring because I’d accumulated enough money to never work again. I was retiring from a particular way of earning money, one that had served me for years but no longer represented the future I wanted to build.
I wasn’t trying to escape the responsibility of providing. I was trying to discover whether I could provide differently.
And that decision became part of the foundation of BlanQ Canvas.
Less Than Thirty Dollars and a Whole Lot of Damn Faith
Let me be clear about something because I don’t want anybody reading this and believing that having less than thirty dollars makes leaving your job some brilliant financial strategy.
It doesn’t.
Having very little money while trying to build a business is stressful as hell. Bills don’t stop arriving because you’ve discovered your purpose. The electric company doesn’t accept passion as payment, and I have yet to meet a lending company interested in hearing about somebody’s spiritual awakening instead of receiving their money.
Faith may help you keep moving, but it doesn’t eliminate financial responsibility.
I didn’t have a magical guarantee that everything would work out. I had experience, determination, a developing business, and a vision I was willing to invest in even though I couldn’t predict exactly how things would unfold.
When you’ve spent more than twenty years depending on a paycheck, there’s comfort in knowing money is scheduled to arrive. You know approximately how much you’re receiving and which bills you can schedule around that deposit.
Entrepreneurship introduces you to an entirely different conversation.
Because now, if you want money to come in, you have to figure out how to generate it.
But I wasn’t about to sit around waiting for somebody to purchase a product or book a service while the bills continued showing up like they had a standing invitation.
I had to find another way to earn money while I continued building the business I wanted.
And that’s exactly what I did.
I Retired From Corporate, Not From Making Money
Now, before anybody starts wondering how in the hell I planned to survive with less than thirty dollars in my pocket, let me tell you what happened after I retired myself from corporate America.
I drove Uber.
For ten months.
Yes, after spending more than twenty years working my way through accounting departments, learning systems, managing responsibilities, and developing professional skills, I found myself earning money from behind a steering wheel instead of behind a desk.
And you know what? There was something interesting about that transition.
I had spent years wanting to get outside those office buildings, away from those windows, and into the world I felt like I had been watching from a distance. Now here I was, literally driving around outside, earning money without having to report to an accounting department every morning.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Driving Uber wasn’t some magical retirement package. I still had to work. I still had expenses, responsibilities, and a family to consider. I was a woman with a husband and five children, and the bills weren’t going to excuse themselves simply because I had decided corporate America could kiss my ass.
And driving for Uber came with its own responsibilities. The difference was that I had more control over when I made myself available to work. After years of structuring my life around somebody else’s schedule, that mattered to me.
Psychologically, there is something worth recognizing about that experience. Sometimes we become so attached to the status associated with our careers that the thought of earning money differently feels like moving backward. We associate professional growth with titles, salaries, offices, and positions that demonstrate how far we’ve advanced.
But I had to ask myself what advancement really meant if the life attached to those accomplishments no longer felt fulfilling.
Was driving Uber a professional promotion from Staff Accountant? Of course not. But I wasn’t trying to get promoted anymore. I was trying to give myself room to build something different.
And that’s a distinction I think people sometimes overlook.
Changing how you earn money doesn’t automatically diminish the experience you’ve accumulated or the qualifications you’ve earned. My accounting knowledge didn’t disappear because I started transporting passengers and food. I still knew how to manage numbers, understand business operations, and solve problems.
I was simply using another source of income while continuing to develop the business and lifestyle I wanted.
And for ten months, that’s what I did.
I didn’t retire from responsibility. I didn’t retire from providing. I didn’t retire from figuring shit out when circumstances required me to make adjustments.
I retired from the belief that a corporate job was the only respectable way for me to make a living.
And somewhere between those office windows and the windshield of my car, I began understanding that freedom wasn’t necessarily about never having to work again.
Sometimes it was about giving myself permission to work differently.
Becoming the Boss Didn’t Mean I Stopped Working
As I continue building BlanQ Canvas, I understand that my retirement from corporate America wasn’t the end of my working life. It was the beginning of a different relationship with work.
I didn’t stop being an accountant because accounting was no longer the profession I wanted to pursue. I still use those skills to manage finances, evaluate expenses, establish pricing, and make business decisions.
Between writing, publishing, line dance instruction, creative experiences, customized products, and developing different departments within my company, I’ve discovered that the abilities I spent decades developing in corporate America have applications far beyond the positions where I originally learned them.
Some days, I’m the CEO. Other days, I’m customer service, accounting, marketing, production, and the employee who would like to file a formal complaint against management.
Unfortunately, management is also me, and apparently this bitch doesn’t believe in giving anybody a day off either.
I’m still building, learning, and figuring things out. There are financial responsibilities, difficult decisions, and moments when I question how I’m going to accomplish everything I’ve placed on my own calendar.
And no, I haven’t reached some magical place where I wake up, check my bank account, and discover that money has been deposited simply because I decided to be fabulous that day.
That would be nice as hell, though.
But now I get to build something around interests and experiences that genuinely matter to me. I get to write about the lessons life has taught me, teach women how to release stress through line dancing, create things, explore ideas, and develop a business that reflects more than the professional qualifications listed on my resume.
That’s what retirement from corporate America represented for me.
Not the absence of work.
The opportunity to redefine it.
I Wanted More Than a Career. I Wanted My Life.
When I think about the decision I made, I don’t see a woman who simply got tired of working and decided to quit.
I see a woman who spent more than twenty years learning how to provide, develop professionally, and create opportunities within systems she didn’t control. I see somebody who experienced layoffs, terminations, resignations, and contracts ending, yet continued discovering that her knowledge and capabilities existed beyond any one employer.
And eventually, I see a woman who started asking whether the life she wanted could be built outside the career she’d spent so much time maintaining.
And when I say I wanted my life, I don’t mean I wanted a life separate from being a mother or the responsibilities I’d accepted as a wife. I mean I wanted to experience more of my life beyond fulfilling those responsibilities.
I had spent years working to make sure my family had what they needed, and somewhere along the way, I started questioning what it meant to provide a life for people when I was spending so much of my own life trying to afford it.
Money matters. Financial stability matters. But so does being present. So does having experiences, creating memories, discovering what brings you joy, and allowing yourself to become something beyond the roles you’ve spent years performing.
I didn’t want my children to see me simply as the woman who worked, paid bills, handled responsibilities, and somehow found the energy to do it all again the following morning. I wanted them to see that their mother was also a woman with dreams, creativity, ambition, and the courage to consider a different future.
And I wanted to remind myself of that, too.
Because what good was spending my entire life making sure everybody had what they needed if I never gave myself the opportunity to discover what I wanted?
I wasn’t choosing my dreams over my family.
I was trying to build a life where I could make room for both.
I understand that everybody doesn’t want to leave traditional employment. Some people genuinely enjoy the structure, security, routine, and separation between professional and personal responsibilities.
I respect that because freedom doesn’t have one universal definition.
My decision wasn’t a blueprint for how everybody should leave corporate America. It was a decision about the direction I wanted my own life to take.
What I didn’t want was to spend another twenty years wondering what might have happened if I’d given myself the opportunity to build something different.
I didn’t need another promotion to prove I was capable. I didn’t need to remain in corporate America simply because I’d invested decades learning how to succeed there.
I had spent enough time proving I was qualified for those positions.
It was time to determine whether those positions were still qualified for the life I wanted.
A Retirement Without a Retirement Check
Traditionally, retirement represents reaching a point where you have enough financial resources to stop working. That’s an achievement worth pursuing, and I would never minimize the importance of preparing for it.
But when I say I retired from corporate America, I’m not claiming I became independently wealthy or that my financial responsibilities disappeared.
I’m saying I consciously decided to stop building my future around the expectation that I would remain an employee until somebody else decided I’d reached retirement age.
I chose to begin building a different kind of working life.
One where I could apply everything I’d learned professionally while making room for the creative interests, personal experiences, and ambitions that had been developing outside the office.
And perhaps the funniest part is that I spent years wanting the freedom to decide when I worked, only to become the kind of boss who occasionally needs to remind herself to take a damn break.
But at least now, when I want to complain about management, I know exactly where to direct my concerns.
The mirror.
I retired from corporate America with less than thirty dollars in my pocket, a husband and five children to consider, and more than twenty years of professional experience.
Then I spent ten months driving Uber while continuing to figure out what my next chapter would look like.
And while I’m still writing that chapter, I can appreciate the significance of having made the decision.
I didn’t retire because I had everything I wanted. I retired from corporate America because I wanted to give myself the opportunity to build it.
A Little More From Que
One thing my career taught me is that our circumstances can change without our value changing with them. Losing a position, leaving an environment, or deciding to pursue something different doesn’t automatically make us unsuccessful. Sometimes the arrangement that once supported our lives no longer supports the direction we’re moving in.
Psychologically, our relationship with employment can become deeply connected to our identity, financial security, and personal worth. After spending years developing professionally, stepping away from a familiar career can feel unsettling, even when we recognize that our interests and priorities have changed.
In THE F*CK THEM THEORY, I explore the beliefs, attachments, and expectations that influence our decisions. Although the experiences that inspired my book extend beyond the workplace, I believe many of those same patterns show up in our careers.
And if you’ve ever been laid off, fired, resigned, watched a contract end, or simply questioned whether you still have something valuable to offer professionally, I wrote another book with people like us in mind.
Still Qualified is my career eBook about recognizing your transferable skills, understanding your professional value, and preparing for new opportunities without allowing a previous employment experience to define your future.
Because losing a job doesn’t automatically mean you’ve lost your qualifications. Sometimes the position ended. Your knowledge didn’t.
You can discover more of my writing, books, and career resources through Que Writes, one of the departments I’m building under BlanQ Canvas.
I’m not suggesting that everybody resign tomorrow and start a business. Hell, some of y’all have children, mortgages, car notes, and refrigerators that don’t fill themselves. Financial responsibility matters.
I’m simply encouraging you to examine whether the future you’re working toward is genuinely the one you want, or simply the one you’ve become accustomed to pursuing.
Because sometimes the question isn’t whether you’re qualified for the job.
Sometimes it’s whether the job is still qualified for the life you’re trying to create.
That’s My Perspective. What’s Yours?
Have you ever worked your way into a position you thought you wanted, only to realize you didn’t want to be there anymore? Or looked outside your office window and wondered what your life might look like if you weren’t spending most of it inside that building?
For those who’ve spent twenty or more years in corporate America, are you enjoying your career, planning retirement, considering entrepreneurship, or still figuring out what comes next?
Let’s talk about that shit in the comments. I’m interested in hearing about the moment you realized that success and fulfillment weren’t necessarily the same thing.
And please, don’t quit your job tomorrow because Que retired with less than thirty dollars. I already told y’all I’m not paying anybody’s rent or mortgage.
Until the next perspective,
Que. 🩷
My Life. My Lessons. My Perspective.
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