Exit Interview - Kristi Coulter on Surviving 12 Years at Amazon and Why High Achievers Burn Out

Hello, and welcome to For Your Listening Pleasure. A podcast focused on talking with interesting and diverse individuals, and discussing how their backgrounds shape them into the people they are today. I am your host, Mallory Waxman. Today on For Your Listening Pleasure, I'm talking to someone whose book I was told to read before I even started working at Amazon. Christie Colter spent 12 years at Amazon and eventually wrote exit interview, a brutally honest look at ambition, burnout, women in corporate America, and what happens when a company works so hard to get into, starts making you question yourself. When I first read Christie's book, I was still at Amazon, and I remember closing it and immediately started crying, because she had put into words an experience I couldn't quite explain. I've since left Amazon myself, so listening back to this conversation now, I hear through a very different lens. Christie and I talk about the culture of constant competition, the pressure to prove yourself, why high achievers can end up feeling like failures, women in power, ADHD, anxiety, promotions that always seem just a little out of reach, and the exhaustion that comes from constantly monitoring how you're being perceived. We also talk about what happens when you finally realize that maybe you didn't fail. Maybe the system was never designed to let you feel like you were not. This is my conversation with author and former Amazon employee, and fellow over-chiever, Christie Colter. I hope you enjoyed this episode and please check out our book, exit interview. Christie, I am so thrilled to welcome you to Warrior of the Same Pleasure, and you are an author, you are a fellow Amazonian, you've written two books, both of them. One is called Nothing Good Can Come Of It, and that describes your problem with drinking and sobriety, and then the other book, exit interview. This conversation is really going to focus around exit interview, but as I've had other guests on the show, we've talked about sobriety, and I just want to call out how much strength it takes to acknowledge that you have a problem and not only that you had one, but you write about it. I just want to acknowledge that first. With exit interview, I joined Amazon in 2023. I had, I think, first interviewed for Amazon in 2021, got through the loop, was so excited, and got a phone call saying, "We're not going to go with you. The team loved you. We feel like you're a cultural fit, but you need more tech experience." At the time, I was working in wealth management for a bank in marketing, and what did I do? I started looking for new roles in tech, because for me, Amazon was my Everest, and I wanted to work there. Fast forward, I had other experiences, went through the loop again, crushed it with the star method, and all the stories got the offer, and I was thrilled. Granted, the offer was $25,000 less than I was currently making. It was going to have me move from Chicago where I'm from to Nashville, and I had such blinders on to see only Amazon that I was like, "I'm doing this." I remember somebody said to me, "You should read this woman's book called an Exit Interview." "Oh my gosh, before you accept, just so you know what you're getting into." I felt like I had all these people around me who had either read the book, had heard about it, and were trying to tell me in some kind of way, like, "Go in with your eyes open," and I had such blinders on saying, "I am such a type A person. I am such a go-getter." You mentioned in your book, like, you were the kid in class that always raised their hand, I was as well, and I was like, "Type A, yeah." I am going to do this, like, this is where type A people who have strong work ethics go and succeed. Uh-huh. Sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. And I got there, and I think looking back, probably two weeks in, I kind of was like, "What the hell did I get myself into?" Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You talk about leaving Michigan. You go and interview, and you're interviewing, this is so when they were using doors as desks. Yes. What was your initial thought when you went through that interview process? Because it has changed a little since then. Yeah. But it's still an interview process, like you've never gone through before. Right. That was the big thing is I was sort of in--I mean, I knew they let me know in advance, you know, you'll talk to five or six people or something, but I'd never been through anything like that. You know, I think from my previous job, I had had one interview with the president of the company. It was a small company. And then, like, one other interview, and that was how I hired people. And so I was exhausted, but I also remember, you know, Amazon, even in 2006, was like a world famous company. And so I walked in, and literally the sign was a piece of computer paper with Amazon printed on it in like a normal font. Like, it seemed so scrappy and almost like not a real company. There were these, like, ancient couches in the lobby that looked like they came from a dorm. And I was just like, this is weird. Like, this doesn't seem like--like, it was almost brutally, intentionally ugly. And uncomfortable. And I felt so grilled. I mean, the people, my interviewers were all like decent to me and nice people. I didn't have like a nightmare experience. But I just felt so like I was walking a tightrope for like seven hours. And I really walked out of their thinking. I remember thinking, I don't want to work here. But because I was such an achiever, I was like, but I want to turn them down. I don't, you know, I don't want to be the one. I don't want to be rejected. I want to get the job and then say no to it, which obviously I did not say no to it. I'll put up when I released this episode, what my room looked like during the interview process. I, the best way to say is like, I rane-mand it. Like, I had huge notes. Everything's color coded because there's so much in how you interview. And as someone who had this, and I feel like a lot of women experience the need to want to prove ourselves in corporate America. Where else do you go except for a company like Amazon or one of the fangs? Right, because it's, especially now it's known as a place that's almost impossible to get hired. I, when I went in, it kind of had that wrap. But like, there was nothing publicly known about the interview process. So now you can go, you can actually take courses on interviewing for Amazon. At the time, I just had like a regular book on like how to succeed in a job interview. And I made myself some flashcards and really the idea, I had gathered that having stories was good idea. But that was really all I knew. I didn't know what the leadership principles were. I mean, none of this was, was public. And so it really was like flying blind. I enjoyed some of it. I remember one interviewer asking me, he's actually married to my best friend now. So I still see him all the time, but he said, you know, how would you go about selling house plants on the internet? And I kind of love that question. I got really, you know, I, I have ADHD. I wasn't diagnosed a couple of years ago, but in hindsight, I was like, you know, when I'm interested in something, I can just be great about it. And I got really into that. And I think it was a real conversation, you know, I think we both had fun with it. But then there were other things where they'd ask me like quantitative analysis questions, where I just froze because that was just not my strong suit. And I remember thinking at any moment, I could just fail the entire thing. You know, that they could just like get a hook and pull me off stage or something. Yeah, you mentioned you were late diagnosed ADHD. I was diagnosed when I was 15. And it took me a while to own that diagnosis and realized that I actually look at it as a superpower. Yeah, way my brain looks at things. And a few years ago on MPR, Yo-Yo Ma, there's a story about his silk road, which is his group of artists that he brings from all different walks of life, all different instruments. And the whole piece on MPR was talking about how actually having people on your team that think differently is a value add. So I remember when I was going through the interview process at Amazon, I was very open about having ADD and having this disability, but that I didn't look at it as a disability. I looked it as, let me add to your team. How I add is I look at things in a different way. I ask a lot of questions. I like to see the big picture. And at the time, they were like, that's great. That's what we love that. I'm like, amazing, I'm going to be so successful here. You get there and you very quickly find that you are a square trying to fit into a round hole. And they want you to fit into the Amazon way. Yeah, and it's interesting. when I first got there. And I did not know. I got diagnosed at age 54. So talk about, you know, late diagnosis, although a lot of women might are getting diagnosed now. But at the time in 2006, it was more of a place where weirdos could fit in, you know, people who thought differently, people who just had different interests. There was more of like an island of misfit toys element to Amazon at the time that I feel like over time, a lot of us watch that get more and more diluted as the company grew exponentially. And now what I hear from people is, yeah, if you can't just get into a groove, like thinking creatively and thinking outside the box. And I mean, the fact that I could get deeply interested in a lot of different things was a real value at at the time. And it helped me to succeed. And you know, now it seems like you just need to get on a track and kind of stay on that track, which is tough. You describe yourself as someone who was right fruit for the company like Amazon, someone who spent her life seeking and pleasing authority figures. I can relate to that. I think a lot of women can. When did you first recognize that pattern in yourself? I think probably I was around maybe my early 30s when I when I realized I had that drive. I was in my first managerial role. And it was at a company that did like entertainment and music data. It was great. It was a fun place to work. But I realized I did well because I was working mostly with these guys who were just unabashedly like nerdy. And I think half of them were on the spectrum to one degree or another. And it made them greater at their jobs. But they weren't going to play the game of being like what they called me the suit. They said it lovingly, but they were like, oh, the suit is here. And I was. And so that was all it took for me to get ahead was be like, no, I'll dress decently and talk to, you know, that the higher ups in an articulate manner. And so I was like, oh, you're good at this. You've been good at this. And I think being female had something to do with it. Because if you're I thought about this when Hillary Clinton was running for office and people said, well, she's too controlled. And I was like, well, she has to be. If she had shown up in a windbreaker or like Bernie Sanders and like rant it, like they would have thought she was insane. So I think I think then as I realized I could use that to get ahead. I don't think I realized what it might cost me at the time like that came later. But it's a double edge sword. I mean, you are. It works for a while. You know, it just can't do everything for you. You have to learn how to play the game. Yeah. Yeah. And I have said and I hate seeing this on a recorded episode. But personally, for me, I do better with male managers than female managers. I've had multiple conversations with guests on this podcast, women who are in leadership, who kind of have the same experience. But for Amazon, like, yes, they have women in leadership clubs and this, that and everything. And it seems like a lot of women can get to the L6 role. Yeah. And some of the L7s. But then as you keep going up the org charts more or less, it's not as female friendly. And one thing you talk a lot about in your book is for a long time, they didn't have maternity or paternity availability. And you talk about how a senior leader talked about how she had no problem having children. And you talk about, well, she's been there since the beginning. She's making millions. She can afford help. And you would think for a company, like Amazon, it always flows my mind, especially now that the requirement is five days a week in office. Yeah. How do you not have child care on site for those families? Right. And even it even could have been like, even if they weren't willing to subsidize daycare, I mean, the building on campus in Seattle now, there's all this space on the first floor, you know, you could just bring in other daycare centers and people could pay for it. I mean, there's all these middle grounds. And I don't have kids, but women I knew who were in like the mother's groups put forth several formal proposals over the years that like, here's the business reason we should do this. And it just knowing cared and meant it and caring up to really help push it. No. And you know, it's funny. You mentioned proposals last year. I helped write a proposal about a wellness benefit that like each employee maybe gets a thousand dollars a year towards wellness, whether that's like by the call map workout, yeah, meditation, something. Yeah. And we wrote this beautiful doc and started, you know, circulating and working on it. And they're like, well, we have deals that you get. Right. Okay. Cool. I get $10 off Equinoxamon. Yeah. Exactly. That's not a wellness. How do you think the difference between women being present in an organization and women actually having influence over the culture, over the 12 years you were at Amazon? Like, what did you see? I think that we were never in leadership in a critical mass that would let us have real influence. I was an L7. I came in as an L7. As you mentioned, there were plenty of, yeah. And I look back and I'm like, should they hire me as an L7? I don't know. But it worked out. There were plenty of women, you know, certainly L5. There were plenty of L6s in my world. Above that, I mean, it just gets, it's a reverse funnel. And I think that when you're the, you know, the only woman in the room or one of only two women in the room, it's hard to be loud about representing women because you're just trying to fit in also. You know, you don't want to be in this leadership table and be like, oh, I'm the one who's going to talk about daycare all the time because their already thinking of you is really just a woman rather than their colleague. So it, to me, it got kind of worse and worse. I mean, the company did eventually start offering maternity benefits because Washington state law changed and they had to. So, you know, the legal minimum. And then there was this thing where they did innovate and come up with this idea of like maternity and paternity leave that could be shared, which I thought was really cool. I mean, it told me that when Amazon puts its mind to doing something like that, they can come up with nifty ideas that no one else has had. But I think that Jeff Bezos fundamentally just did not really, I don't think he's hostile to women. I think he just does not care if women work at the company or not. He didn't see the value in having that kind of diversity. And so it didn't have a trickle down. Yeah. Yeah. One thing you write early about and it's like a well-known thing. I don't know if it's still called the lifeboat exercise. Right. When you rank team members and you decide who gets caught. Yes. I would say maybe my third week, someone's like just be prepared. It's like hunger games. You guys get ranked against one another. And so no one's really your friend because if you're all L5s, only so many of you can exceed bar, only so many of you can meet bar. Then there's going to be those that don't meet the bar. Just know you can't trust anyone. This was like three weeks in. As someone who is anxious and has anxiety, I was just like, okay. Yeah. What does it do the way that you see your colleagues? You've managed people. You talk about having to talk a bunch of women off the ledge multiple times constantly. When you first said in that meeting, what were your thoughts that this is how you judge others? Because the goal at Amazon is necessarily when you get hired, you're getting hired because supposedly you're better than 50% of the current employees. Right. Right. Yeah. I remember finding it pretty shocking. I felt like the process itself, like the conversation in the room was very respectful. It felt like pretty much everyone in the room was like a decent person trying to make the best of this. Yet, you know, we were still doing it. Where it really fell apart from me. I mean, in any group of employees, there are obvious superstars and there's people who are obviously just not making it. And so it made sense to be like, yeah, we got to really work with these people and these people are on their way to promotion. But then you'd get to this big middle. And it just didn't make any sense to me to be ranking these people against each other, especially when they're in different job families and different tenure. And so it would be like three or four people who were all good solid performers. And we'd be arguing about like which one should be number 17 versus number 18. And I just thought, what is the point here? Like they're all good. And we need these people. And the other thing was, I was in some orgs where the percentage categories were sort of loose. You know, we wouldn't quite be meeting the bottom tier. But if you argue passionately enough, like this person is really good. They'd let it go. But that got stricter and stricter. And it got to the point where like we were having to put people in that bottom tier who were very good at their jobs and very diligent and good teammates. They just weren't quite as strong as other people. And we would even say in the meetings, this is stupid. An empty seat is not better than this person. But that was the system. And ultimately we were all bound to follow it. If you refuse, they would just make the decision for you. - So it started to feel like cannibalistic after a while. - I refer you as like Hunger Games. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that was, I think Hunger Games was just coming out when I started Amazon. So we wouldn't have had that, but it was, it was this idea of like, yeah, you're in a lifeboat and who do you keep and who do you throw into the ocean? And it was not, it was like not at all a good feeling, even if people handled it individually fairly well. - So I also think like what it does is like, you can be feeling like you're doing your job, but then like if you don't respond to a message at 8 PM, you're like, oh my gosh, are they gonna not think I'm a team player, like I, I got some feedback saying that I don't respond in a timely manner. Okay, one, as someone with ADHD, when I'm focused on a task, I actually put my slack messages on, do not disturb because I don't want to get, like, right, you know, yes, yes, yes. But I ask, can you please provide an example? And the example I was given was Friday at 5.34 PM that I did not respond. Now, this was a message on Slack with two other team members, neither of them responded either. And then everyone responded Monday, the first response, and I have this timestamp, came in at 11 o'clock and I responded at 11.15. And I was told I was not responding in another manner. And it's because I don't have notifications come through my phone. I have, I have apps, but I don't have like, social media notifications, email notifications, for my own wellbeing. - Right. - But I didn't, a boundary I'm allowed to have, which I think is interesting. - Yeah, yeah. I knew people who were called into meetings on like Saturday mornings, and this kind of thing never happened to me. - I mean, once or twice a year, there's an emergency. - There's always something that like, it's a firestorm. - Right. - And it's on deck and I understand that. And that happens. - Absolutely. - But it shouldn't be the norm. - No, it really shouldn't be. And I was very lucky that I mostly had managers who like would even say to me up front, if I message you on a weekend or after like six o'clock, know that it's a genuine emergency and they stuck to that. So I started telling my new direct reports the same thing. I was like, I said, you know, if I do email you over the weekend, and it just doesn't have a exclamation point, just know that I'm doing some work and you can ignore it 'til Monday, you know. But the false sense of urgency, and I think people get kind of addicted to it too, like that adrenaline. I used to get messages from one boss that he had written at three in the morning, and he wasn't expecting me to, but I was like just knowing that he was up. - It's like they can almost have a banish of honor and be like, why, you know, this is all I do. It's like, okay, it wasn't impressive. - It was just like, what's wrong with you? Are you okay? - So I had a manager once when I was at a tech startup who said, put an hour on your calendar every day for lunch. You are allowed an hour. Like, I don't care, take it. I don't care what you do, but just keep that. And that meant a lot to me. Then my next role when I was managing people, I said, listen, I don't care how busy you are. I want you to put an hour on your calendar. You get lunch, get away from your computer. - Yeah. - It's like a good thing to do. So when I joined Amazon, I put an hour on my calendar, like I always, I've been doing for years, because you're entitled to lunch. And I got so many looks that I wasn't eating lunch at my desk. - We're walking. - Yeah. - Eating and walking. - Yeah, that I would go and like, I had my, I went to my personal computer to like, catch up on emails and send me a cafeteria or like, some like, I'm entitled to an hour break, but it was looked at as a weakness, not like a team player. And I really quickly got uncomfortable. So then I just started doing lunch at my desk, but it was the first time I worked at a corporate company where people on the team weren't like, "Hey, do you want to go downstairs and get lunch?" Or, "Hey, lunch." - Right. - And have lunch, like, no one does that there. - Yeah, I'll tell you there was like, there's a guy who I think still works in name Doug Harrington. I think he's actually like the head of, like he's way, way up now. So he was like the VP of Grocery when I got there. And he was new. And I used to, I used to go up to the, we had a Starbucks on the 40th floor. And I would see him up there with just a stenopad and a piece of, and a pen sitting alone, just like thinking and writing. And I was always like, wow, this is so, to see like an executive doing that. I thought was really impressive. I have no idea if that trickled down to his org at all. But I did, I remember being like, that's kind of wild. Like, it was so not the culture. And I thought, and it was not like my way either. But later on in my Amazon career, I used to, like, I would put, I'd block off time on my calendar to go for a run. I was in a job where I didn't have that many meetings. It was, it was an HR and it was kind of like a sleepy, like university researcher kind of job inside Amazon. So I took advantage of it. I wouldn't say like, you know, go for a run. Or although I think I had my calendar blocked so people couldn't see what I was doing, but I would just do it. And I would go out and I'd go for my run and I'd come back. And, you know, it was, I just did it. It was fine. So I started to realize like, oh, you can get away with some things, especially when, you know, you're in a more low key role. But yeah, there were roles where I had, I was double booked in meetings all day. Yeah, I couldn't even work during the work day. I could just meet. Now that we're back five days a week and as someone who does have like ADD, I, like, a scenery change, that's why I call it. So I'm in office at like nine o'clock. By three o'clock, I need a scenery change. And I normally would go home. I would take my dog for a walk and log back on. And I got my hands slapped for that. That in New Yorker, now I live about 15 minutes away from the office. So like, I would go home, take my dog out, not like a long walk. He's an English bulldog. So like, where are we really right? Right. Just to like get some vitamin D, get some sunlight and then log back on and stay back on. Probably from like three, four, five, till five o'clock. Yeah. And not longer if need be. That's such a shame. Because you know, when I was there, one thing I loved about Amazon was nobody was watching to see if I was at my desk or what time I came in or what time I left. There was none of this like, oh, the boss is still here, so I can't go home. People genuinely did not care. I have a friend who worked there for 20 years. And he had one year where he really hated his workspace. So he just didn't, and he was a coder. So he could mostly work on his own. So he was like, I'm basically nomadic. I can go days without seeing my desk. And he would work in other lobbies and he'd work in coffee shops. I used to go to coffee shops, either campus ones or off campus routinely if I needed to work on a document for an hour because I could actually get the work done there. And like, and no one cared. So now we have to go to our assigned office, even though I'm in New York and there's multiple offices, you have to go in. You have to be there first or amount of hours or tracking everything. I've heard. And if not, then like you get called out if you don't go to like your assigned office, you know, they took away the 20 days work from anywhere. Right. That was like really a nice thing as someone who's families in a different city where there is an office. Like, you can't do that really anymore. You have to get permission and it's like frowned upon. But that brings me to like the famous leadership principles. And when I was applying and I was so excited because I love these leadership principles and could recite them backwards and forwards and felt like it was a place that you could be seen and understand. And one of them was like learn and be curious. And I always felt like that was me because I always ask questions, you know. - It's an ADHD thing, you get really curious. - Yeah, customer obsession. Like working backwards always thinking about the customer. Like these were things that were just so ingrained in me in corporate America that I was so excited to do. It seems like it's philosophical, not necessarily that they are put to work anymore. They're not really internalized as much. They're great buzzwords. But for example, learn and be curious, I recently was told I need stop asking questions. - Yeah, yeah. - And that I was being tracked to see how many questions I was asking. - Oh my God, you can't act natural if someone tells you they're tracking how many questions you ask. But there's just no way. - You immediately are just frozen. - Yes. - But when did you start, did you ever feel like those were one genuinely motivating to you? And did you feel like over year, 12 years at Amazon, they were actually really utilized and then slowly started just being coming buzzwords? When did they start to kind of disappear from the culture? - Yeah, I think a lot of them were genuinely utilized in at least the first half of my career there, especially things like customer obsession. I mean, people really did. I used to tell people from outside the company, like everyone really is focused on the customer. And learning to be curious came in later, but I felt like that was sincere. There were some like developer and trial. Oh, higher and developed the best was always controversial because we all focused on hiring the best than everybody. I think everyone, including the managers who weren't developing their people felt like their managers are developing them. You know, we didn't have a lot of resources for teaching managers how to develop people. So that was always a controversial one. But again, we argued about it. You know, we took it seriously and it said, well, why isn't this working? I feel like as the population of the company exploded, they started to become buzzwords. And I think it's because, you know, you're bringing in all these new people from elsewhere and they're not hearing it around them day to day like I was. So there were like 5,000 people at Amazon corporate when I started working there. So that's tiny, consider, you know, relatively. So by the time I left, you know, you'd hear people say things like disagree and commit. They did not understand. They all thought it meant they were committing to disagree, which is kind of ridiculous because there is a little blurb underneath it. There is a comma in it. So disagree, comma, and commit. I always thought it should be like disagree, but commit or something like that. But people would be like, well, I'm committing to disagree and you'd say, look, I don't want to be the old timer who's being a jerk, but that's not what it means. And they just wouldn't get it. And so by the time, I mean, it was just such a huge company. It's such a global company. It's kind of like, you know, the way culture gets dispersed is really a person, a person. And eventually there were not enough people who understood the original intent to disperse it to others. And so it started to disappear. But early on, yeah, I did feel like, you know, when I got there, there were like 10 leadership principles and then also 15 competencies. So there were way too many things to track. And they actually in the first few years shrunk all that down into a set of principles. But yeah, we, they weren't just words on a wall then. We did, we did pay attention to them. You know, one thing that kind of intrigues me is how one of the principles is one learned to develop the best and be the best employer. But what I have to say is their onboarding processes are horrible. Yeah. You know, you go through this onboard plan and it's a lot of people just copy from the last person who had your job. Right. And I remember saying to my, in my current role, like, this is so outdated, wears a new stuff and was just given wikis to read. Wikis are internal documents for those who don't know, like, that you just read, like kind of like a Wikipedia page. But there's no conversation around it. There's no questions. There's no, like, let me explain what this role does. Let me explain what your org does. Let me explain these aspects and you're just supposed to, especially when you transfer, transfer internally, just like dive in and be like, no, everything. But you don't know where to go and people send you links and they're outdated and you're like, okay, but like, who is this? What is it? What is the literal? And there's so much tribal knowledge that gets stored in those wikis. Like, some of those wikis are incredible. But then it's not documented anywhere else. And you don't know if it's official. Like, is this what the company thinks or just like what this guy thought? And also what I've argued, not everyone learns the same way. So for me, I can read something. I'm going to have some questions. I'm being told I can't ask questions. So like, how am I supposed to understand? Yeah. And it was very interesting that you have all these kind of brilliant minds. But you need to realize people don't always learn the same way. Right. I think that is something that has been a big aha moment that they don't really care. You have to learn the Amazon way. Right. Or if there are people in learning and development who are and they're I'm sure there are individuals who are yelling and screaming about this, but it's not going to get funded. It's not going to get prioritized. You know, I always found that there was always somebody in Amazon who was like, hey, we need to do this better. And but if it's not sexy or if Jeff didn't think it sounded cool, then it just, you know, the diversity leader for the longest time reported about four layers down in the company. And that is, first of all, it's the first time we'd had a diversity and inclusion leader. But when you don't report to the CEO or very, very close to it, that's a real red flag that the company doesn't really value it. And so that person was great. She came from Microsoft. She was awesome. But her ideas never got bubbled up because she was down in the trenches with the rest of us in like upper mental management. Yeah. You know, there's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from not the work itself, but constantly monitoring how you're being perceived, especially as a woman doing the work. Can you describe what that surveillance of yourself actually felt like day to day? Yeah. I didn't realize it for a while, but some years in, I realized I was, it was like I was standing outside myself, watching myself at all times, even with like an elevator conversation chat, everything felt like a moment where I was maybe being judged. And probably more than was actually happening, you know, I think I probably had chats with VPs where they just thought, oh, it was nice to talk to her about the weather, you know, and I was thinking, do they hate me now? Do they like me now? And they were not thinking like that at all. I realized at some point, I was, because I mostly worked with like men as leaders, that I was always kind of translating my thoughts into what I thought men could understand and wanting to sound a very specific way. And I, it started to leak into my, my private life, like I would be just chatting with my husband about something, and I found myself being like, no, you've got to make sure you're really articulate and that you phrased this as a complete paragraph and that you've considered how he might push back on your argument. And I thought, oh, this is really bad. Like I can't have just a casual conversation with the man I've lived with for 25 years without thinking, well, what are the, what are the holes in my argument? You know, where could he attack? And he was not looking to attack. And so that wasn't just about working with men, but it was very much the Amazon thing, like being afraid to express an opinion unless I had thought of all the possible objections to it. I still struggle with that to some extent, honestly. A good friend of mine, former podcast guest member who's become a good friend, when I was at Amazon, he said, don't wear the burnout as a badge of honor. Yeah. It's going to take you a long time when you decide to leave, to deal with that. And it sounds like you still are kind of dealing with the burnout and the fallout, even eight years later. In some ways, yeah, when I left, I think I had an easier time than a lot of friends because I had, my first book was coming out in like four months. So I was moving into another career that I had already started. And I was really ready to go. And it was my decision. I've had friends who ended up having to go to like natural paths or going to trauma therapy. And I was already in therapy too, so that helped. But it, it took a while for me to understand just how Amazon had impacted my thinking. And a lot of that happened when I started writing exit interview, which I think I started writing it about two years after leaving the company. I spent the whole first year writing it as what I thought was a memoir of my failure, like my object failure. And you know, I did really well at Amazon. Like, by any normal standard, like I succeeded there for 12 years. And I did not see myself as remotely a success. So it was through the process of writing the book that I, it wasn't working. The book wasn't working. And I finally thought, Oh, wait a minute. It's because you're writing this like you failed and you didn't fail. And you just felt like you failed. So I had to learn to write it that way. And that told me a lot about what Amazon and my own brain had done to me, which was to make me think that, you know, somehow I had been, this was an embarrassing book about a woman who wasn't good at anything. Well, you said you were there for 12 years. How do you feel that like most people don't last two years? We, God, we hated that. I mean, everyone who was sort of an old time or hated that it's, it's awful. I mean, it, it means the company's failing. It's, it's not that everybody should stay for 12 years. But if people are washing out in under two years, first of all, they're missing out on like stock options. Cause the way the package is settled. Yeah. Like, if you really don't, your stock does really doesn't start to last or two years more or less. Right. I was actually a little underpaid for the first two years, because I was on the straight salary. And then also after your two year bonus runs out, you end up actually losing money. You're going into your third year. Like I did an $1,100 hit a month. Right. After I hit my two years, which is substantial. Yeah, especially in a city like New York, I mean, or Seattle. Yeah. I mean, you, you're, you're not getting, you sometimes have to pay back your signing bonus. So you're, and the company, like forget about the human perspective, the company is spending all this money to hire an onboard people. And then they're leaving and taking that talent elsewhere. And I just thought it's probably hard to quantify. But I thought this is the drain, the brain drain, and then like the, the teammate fatigue. It just, it's stupid. I think, I think the company should be addressing it as like an urgent issue. But Jeff used to, you know, he's actually said publicly. And I know he doesn't run the company anymore. But he always said, like, I feel like it, you know, people are, it's like batteries kind of, you know, they're disposable batteries. And you wear them out and they go and you just go to work. and buy some new ones. So there was never a healthy medium between, well, not everyone's meant to stay forever, and like we just don't care. And it drove us crazy because the best thing was, you know, I worked with some people on like three or four different roles over the years. And so we really knew each other. We worked together really well and we understood each other. And you don't get that when people are constantly coming and going. And as I was a bar-raiser, so I interviewed like a thousand people. And it was, you know, it was always heartbreaking to find out someone you just loved and thought would do really well, like made it nine months and left. I always felt vaguely responsible for that. - Yeah, in my time, I've had six managers in two and a half years. Two of them have gone, have left the company, or well, actually three of them have left the company. Two of them went on leave and came back. Right, like it's not that, yeah, my one leave was a book leave, you know, that I took and planned, and it was all, and when I came back, it was fine. I mean, you have to find your place again, but it was all right. But yeah, I had only like five managers in 12 years. I, yeah, maybe six, but like a small number. I was extraordinarily lucky. I lost my first manager after three months because we reared and that kind of sucked. But it happens. But then, you know, I had the next manager for a couple of years, and then I worked for the woman Callista in the book. I think for four years, and then later, she became my VP. So I got to, you know, and I mostly had managers I liked and respected too. So I got the benefit of really knowing these people. - Yeah. - I do hear, even when I was still there, I started to hear more and more that people were having had had 10 managers in four years or something. I think because I was relatively high up too, there just wasn't as much turnover. You know, there'd be these, I was usually pointing to directors or repays who'd been there forever. So it was just more stable. - Yeah. - You can't have a good, you can't form like an amazing working relationship with even the best manager if they're only your manager for three months. - Well, I also think it's not fair because it takes time to learn each other. You know, a good working relationship's like a dance. And in other companies, I've done strength finders and like workshops to understand like how the team, what are our strengths, who's good at what? - Yeah. - The Amazon really doesn't bring in that at all. In order they want to spend the time or money, doing that to strengthen teams. - Right, especially maybe they're thinking, oh, the teams are going to change. The composition is going to change constantly. - Yeah, I had a couple managers who were able to finagle that for our teams. Just even doing like the Myers-Briggs for half a day or something. And it was always really fun. First of all, it was fun. You know, it was a fun thing to do. And like it does bring you together a little more. It's not that we all remembered it forever, but it's, it makes a difference. And I always thought it was a shame that Amazon was so sort of hostile to that. For all I know, these managers paid for it themselves. The role I had before I came to Amazon, I was a director and I bought my direct reports, string finders. I'm happy to pay for it, the company can reimburse it. I want you to take this. And then I want to all come together and share about what was surprising. What was not surprising? How are you going to apply this and kind of work together so we understood to be more effective? I think taking a day to do it might slow down, but you end up working faster in the upfront. It's really humanizing. And it just, the more you can know your co-workers. And you build teamwork. You build those kind of conversations. Versace the, oh, are we gonna, who's gonna throw each other off the life for? Yeah, that's so awful. You know, and it's funny when I got to Amazon, I never had that conversation where someone said, you've got to watch out. It didn't occur to me. There were people who I learned over time. I was like, oh, that person's out to get me. But they were the kind of people who probably would have been out to get me at any company with any system. You know, some people are just awful. There's this one woman in particular who I realized was like, was weaponizing everything. I said against me. But yeah, we did not have that. The other thing that Amazon, when I was there, was there were really no layoffs. I mean, there were a couple of very small, very targeted layoffs where very specific skill sets would like a sales team got let go. But if your project failed or something, you would just find another job. So there wasn't this terror of being let go unless like you really probably needed to be let go. Yeah, like there were people who absolutely needed to go. But or people who just never quite found their place. But we needed people. And so I, you know, talked to people and read now about what the atmosphere is like, when even strong people are being let go. And one thing Amazon had over Microsoft at the time was Microsoft would lay, if they ended a project, they would just lay off that whole team. And Amazon, I always felt like when we would do reorgs, would be very surgical and be like, well, this person, we can move her here. There was thought about it. And that seems like that's not how they're doing it now. They're just emailing you and saying, you don't have a job anymore. And I also think having layoffs, I'm just a reporter. Now, like whether, you know, the last few were very loud. And in the press, the recent ones are very quiet and not in the press, but still happening. So it's like almost quarterly layoffs. And then also knowing that the rankings. And so it doesn't create like a stable condition, which kind of goes back to that anxiety. And not ashamed to say it eight months in of working Amazon, I had to go on anxiety medication. I always was like a little anxious, but I never was ever anxious about any other role about being laid off or a zoon of bad job or anything like that. Even if I got not great feedback or a little feedback, I was like, okay, great, I'm going to improve. I never was worried that like I was going to get fired. And it started to get to the point where I was like, I'm going to get let go. It was that anxiety. And I remember I went on medication. I made a comment to a team member on my first team at our off site. I was like, yeah, it's going to anxiety medication. And she looked at me with all serious. And was like, welcome to Amazon. Now you know you're an employee. Oh, yeah, you know you work for Amazon when you go on anxiety medication. Right. When you're on psychiatric meds, you know, you work for Amazon. And then the sad part was a few months ago, on my team in New York, a girl came back. I was like, scuff it from the doctor. I have, I'm going on anxiety medication. And she was kind of shocked. And I said, it's worth listening. It's going to sound really bad. I didn't enjoy it when I heard it. I did team member that said, that's when you know you really are an employee of Amazon. Yeah, welcome. You're among friends. And that's not a healthy thing. No, no, I mean, thank God we have those meds. I've taken anti-anxiety meds. But like it should not be that, oh, you work at this company. And therefore you will develop a brain disorder. Yeah, it's, it would be like if everyone had got lung cancer working at a company, we would think that was a problem. Yeah. And because Amazon hires people who are used to, you know, I've heard it described as it's a place where high achievers go to feel bad about themselves. Yeah, I was told, I was told again, like my first, the second week, it's where type A people go to be humbled. Yeah, yeah, because you really can never over achieve there. And that's rough if you like to over achieve. And I never quite got used to it. It's not like you just make peace with like, well, I'll just achieve and that'll be okay. You know, I was already hardwired. I have to go above and beyond. I have to prove my worth. I have to do this. Yeah, like no matter you want to be like so badly that you end up actually being hated because you're trying so hard. Right, right. You don't have that kind of cool of people who are just, I knew a few people who were just effortlessly confident. But you know, another thing I learned over the years because I did get to know a lot of, you know, executives pretty well, they all felt that way too. Like I knew people who were probably earning, you know, maybe $5 million a year who were convinced they were going to be fired. And even it's the weird thing with money too, no matter how much you have, you can feel that sense of precariousness. But I remember talking to like some directors and like a VP who'd been there since he was like 24 years old. And to a person they were like, I really thought I was gonna have to pay back my signing bonus. And, and that they still, he was like, you know, I still feel like I could be fired at any second. And they'd found a way to like, you know, integrate it. Some of them were fairly well balanced people at that point. But it was both reassuring to hear that it wasn't just me. And also like what is wrong when all these people who I perceive is really brilliant and hardworking and effective are afraid. That's weird. You know, it's interesting you bring that up. For podcast guests, I normally always have a prep call with the guests. If I don't like, if I haven't, if they don't have a book or I just want to get more information. And a question I always ask them, they never ask on any episode is, tell me the last time you really doubt yourself. And I want to say 99% of the answers go something like this. Laughing, uncomfortable or Mark. And I go today, earlier this morning. And most people will say, I doubt myself on this every day. And it makes me think if we all enter the workplace, if we all enter-- conversations or our lives, thinking that people are constantly doubting themselves. Like how much more empathy could we have if we know we all are kind of questioning ourselves and are worth and if we're good enough. And these are some people who were musical director of Hamilton started in nine minutes. There's super stars, super stars, right? In their field. Yeah. And they still doubt themselves. And so when you think of like Amazon, we're also type A. Sure, we're all doubting ourselves. But because of the pressure cooker that the company is, no one can take the time to recognize it. Yeah. You know, I'll just have a little bit more empathy and look at one another as like humans. And they don't want to and they're afraid to admit it. You know, I worked in leadership development for a while. So I would be in rooms of like, you know, 20 directors and VPs. And there'd be some very vulnerable conversations because they bond over the week. And it was incredible because like you would hear people say these things. And these people, these are people who were like on top of the world. And it just made everyone feel better, I think. And it didn't mean everyone sang into a pit of like, well, now we're all doubting ourselves. It was just like, oh, we're all people. And this guy who seems really brash on the job. Also has the side where he's not sure he's doing a good job. And so it always did give me a lot more empathy. You know, I managed a pool of leadership coaches and they wouldn't tell me names. But a lot of them would say, you know, you get these VPs into a room. And they're kind of like, well, whatever, I don't need a leadership coach. And with them 15 minutes, they're in tears. Yeah. And often it's over home and work. And they just needed someone to broaden out of them. And I always thought, I would always remember that. If some VP was being kind of a jerk to me, I'd be like, are you one of the ones in tears? Yeah, absolutely. Looking back, there was also in your book, you talked a little bit about the sexism that was really happening. And the sexual harassment and like all these kind of claims. How did you manage that? Because sometimes when you see that, you want to speak up. But as you mentioned, there's only so many women at the top. You can speak up. But, you know, what sucks. And you talk a lot about this when you're on the publishing side. How there's this one individual. That, you know, people say, oh, men will be men or they were joking or anything. I don't find that funny. Like, right. With that one sexual harassment incident, it was, it was really interesting. Because eventually it was a report from that person's past that brought him down. And what he had done at Amazon was kind of, it was like shoulder rub stuff. Like, I don't want to minimize it. But he wasn't like, it wasn't good pro quo stuff. But I remember realizing, you know, in fact, a guy who worked for me said, oh, everyone in publishing knew about this for years, you know. And like, we hired him anyway. And I just thought, you know, why would we hire this person and give him authority over a lot of women? You know, he had probably 100 women in his org knowing this about him. It was just so depressing. And he also was really bad at his job, which didn't help. It wasn't like, oh, he's so great that we're going to take this risk. It was, it was, it was all really bad. I always joked at Amazon. I never really experienced direct sexual harassment. And I think it's because people were so frantic there that there was like, you know, time for it. And I say that jokingly because I'm sure I VP friends who were like, oh, it happens. Believe me, I've had to deal with it. It happens everywhere. It happens everywhere, but I as for the sexism, so I'm generation X. And I was raised to believe that as a woman, I would face sexism. But I could overcome it by just being twice as good as the men. So basically it was like, you're going to face this world of sexism, but just be undeniable. And you will get past it. And so I was probably like 42 or 43 years old when it hit me that that had been a lie. I was like, no, you don't get past systemic sexism just because you're great. Sometimes you can get a seat at the table for a little while. So that was my awakening was like, I, I could be amazing. I could be the best. And like, I'm probably not even if I get to see the table, I'm going to be the only one. So my approach, I guess I got kind of cynical at that point. I thought, well, I might as well just be myself because trying to be a man is not going to work. Being trying to be a woman in a way that they like is not going to work. And I realized that I was never going to quite fit in. That I think in the book, I say they saw me as like an alien from another planet, like a nice alien. They didn't mind it, like ET or something, but, but not one of them. And I never was going to be. So yeah, I think the great awakening of my midlife has been realizing that everything they told me it's us in the 80s was, it was just wasn't true. Yeah, like maybe it was wishful thinking. I don't know, but it doesn't work. Like the system is rotten. And women cannot overcome just like black people can't overcome structural rot. We have to get rid of it. And I don't know how we're going to do that. Well, that actually brings up like the what happened with you with promos. So what people know is on average, it takes more or less two years to get promote. It is a process and they make it hard on purpose. And you came as an L7. Did you get to an L8? No. So you spent 12 years at the same level. Yeah. And looking back, you kept getting told because as you just mentioned, you were taught from the 80s or harder than most of the men, which I'm sure you did. Yeah. And what would end up happening is you would be on track. You're told this is your year. We're going to submit you. And then they would hire a man above you. That more or less would take the role that you had been working towards that you were more than qualified for. But give it to them as someone who more or less sometimes was not qualified for it. And you would kind of be like, OK, now it's wait till they have to get delayed. Yeah, right. And it was kind of you were chasing this carrot for 12 years. Yeah. Because like you said at the beginning of this conversation, you talked about like you had to prove it. You had to like show it. When did you finally say like, I'm not doing this anymore. How did you accept that? Yeah, I'm not. I'll let you know when it happens. I, um, I, yeah, I was, I was on the cusp of promotion so many times I had so many conversations. And one year it would be, well, you're killing it, but the role needs to be bigger. And the next it would be the role of the right size, but you've got gaps to fill. One time a VP told me I came to him with looking for a serious conversation about what project should I take on? And he said, just change the world. That's all you have to do. And I was like, this is not actionable. Like, how do I, how do I do that? Um, and, or yes, a man would get hired over me at my level. And, and I'd have to wait until he got, you know, promoted. And I eventually gave up, I mean, I left the last time it happened. And, and my boss at the time didn't even understand that someone at my level could not promote me above him. He was like, oh, when I read that, I was like, are you kidding me? He was like, oh, is this how it is at Amazon? I was like, every company in the world, it's like this. And, and the guy who, who got hired to manage me seemed terrific. It was nothing against him, but it was just like, even he came in and he was like, so you're not a level eight. I thought, I, I was as, people would often assume I was a level eight. And I think my, the part of it that was my weird brain is that I was so achievement obsessed. I just wanted that title because I saw promotion as the only way to be recognized. Um, you know, I was getting bigger and bigger jobs. I was doing really cool things, but Amazon is not great at recognizing people in other ways. There's money and there's promotion. And so I was like, give it to me. I want this thing, I want this thing of the company saying, we like you. We like you enough that we're going to make you an L8. Um, so I never really did give it up. Eventually, I just thought, well, I think I'm going to leave because it's happened one too many times. And I don't have the energy to get on this track. Yeah, again, you know, um, other two years of your life to do this. Yeah. And not know if it's going to, I can't tell you how many friends I have that have been promised. For over a year, they're going to get. Oh, yeah. And every year they go to their manager with their DAC showing everything and they go, OK, well, you need to. This project or you're missing this and it's like, OK, so then another six months goes by they do it again and it's like. And the finish line. Constantly keeps changing. It moves all the time or like the needs of the business change or you reorg. I mean, it's, or you get a new manager and then they need time to evaluate you and. And I've been in the rooms where the docs are reviewed and I mean the discussions, even about moving from some of them to level four to level five. Um, can just be ridiculous. I mean, if you're arguing about whether you know a 26 year old who came in at entry level deserves that one step up, like not that it should be at just checking a box, but like those early career promotion should not be. As like stringent as moving someone to VP, you know, like you're to start losing people if they can't get. or you hire people and they're like what you got hired and I've been here for two years and you hired at a higher level than I am and so and I would also see people hired in I mean we all get down level more hired I was a director my former job you know I was a director too yeah with an MBA oh wow I didn't have an MBA you know I'm I look back in the fact that they hired me as a senior as an L7 is I think five years later they would have made that role in L6 they started to make L6 roles like big jobs and you know and then they would hire you knew you have someone who'd been a VP at a company and they'd have to come in as a level seven and as a barraiser I remember trying to explain this to people because of course they're thinking why don't I you know just like this is what this is it's all of us it's not you just so they wouldn't turn us down for that reason alone well yeah when I got my offer I'm like okay I'm taking a $25,000 hit I have an MBA I was under I was told that people coming out of business school automatically come in as an L6 yeah yeah why am I come and they're like well you can take it or leave it and then I was told the lie that oh you'll be able to get promoted quickly right right I mean we did occasionally have people come in where we knew like this person it usually took like an L4 yeah they're gonna be an L5 in like a year or something but but often I think it's there was this nobody wants to look wrong so there was this tendency to down level so that we didn't so you couldn't be associated with having made a mistake which is interesting it was yeah yeah so you're you've been out for a while yeah this book sent shockwaves through Amazon for my understanding it's what happened told I someone contacted me a couple weeks after the book came out and said I still have her message somewhere she said I we see the pink in people's tote bags you know and like people were passing it copies along to each other and signing it like a yearbook and I I just to this day I'm like I need to see that that would that would do my heart so much good well like I said when I was hire someone's like you should read this book yeah but they kind of were like read it your own caution like right if I know where you're getting into but yeah when you knew it was coming out what did you feel like how did you think God it's when I was writing it it's so funny I was just like well I'm just writing this book you know and then you know it's actually coming out and it takes about nine months between turning a book in and having it hit the stands so there's a lot of time where you with the author aren't doing a lot publishers doing it and I was just like oh my god I started to get really scared I got really scared that Amazon would like publicly try to humiliate me which they've done a few times in the past I started to expect to be for like co-former co-workers that come crawling out of the work would work being like she sucked you know I expected to be called a liar there were all kinds of things I expected and none of them happened I mean it was like the reception was so warm I mean Amazon never made any kind of official statement one way or the other which I think is smart you know but they told your book on their platform they did and it's not an audible yeah yeah I mean I remember saying to my agent what if they refused to sell it and she said honestly that would be unbelievably good PR you probably some more books because of it but thinking is like people not everyone lives in a city with a good bookstore and I was like I wanted available in Amazon I've sold a lot of copies on Kindle but yeah they did what I kind of thought they would do which like it didn't get any special treatment it wasn't an editor's pick they just sold it you know they sold it well which I think is is what they should have done but I was I was so scared and and then so relieved that you know the world received it well I started hearing from I mean I feel like everyone at Amazon read this book I started hearing from people in like Spain like countries where they had to read it in English because it wasn't and and you know tons of executives and and everybody just was so they were just like a lot of people said it was hard for me to read you know especially people who still work there I was really grateful because I read your book and I finished it about two days and I said and I reached out to you by email and I said to you like I closed the book and I started crying yeah yeah because I felt seen for the first time in a way that I haven't been in a while and I reached out to a former manager mine the only manager that I've had Amazon that I absolutely loved who left and she said she read your book as well and also broke down in tears and a lot of women who I know who I've read the book who work Amazon had a very similar experience I heard from lots of women like that too yeah yeah and my last question before we kind of dive into the final three is if a woman in her early 30s came to you today and said she just got an offer from Amazon what would you actually tell her I've actually had people women and a few men come to me and say should I consider it you know I never say a blanket no I say you really want to know what you're getting into and I you want to go in with a plan for what you want to get out of that place and and probably with an exit in mind and now Amazon today is a very different place than even eight years ago when I was there I would also say like read what people are saying on reddit and stuff you know because like it sounds pretty miserable like we did have a lot of fun even though we were also freaking out all the time yeah it sounds like like it's like fun seems off the table you know we got to do big crazy things and that's different but I I would never say don't go it's more like be very realistic understand that you are nothing but capital to them and treat them as a resource treat Amazon as something that you can plunder gosh if it turns out that you fit in great there and you have a wonderful career they're amazing I know people who've done that but don't expect it and think about the line on your resume think about what achievements you want to come out with and what you want to learn what you want to learn is the biggest thing I think and then take it to some place that will that will treat you well well Chrissy thank you so much I and every episode with these final three questions and the first question is if you had a quote or a mantra that you live by what would that be oh it is I can't quote it exactly but it's I think we're back west who is this writer kind of obscure from the early 20th century and she says I do not know what feminism is I only know that it is like how it is what people say I am when I don't act like a doormat basically you know that like when I try to treat myself like a worthy person they call me a feminist so okay I guess that's what it is the second question is if you could relive any one day which day would you choose hmm I think the day that I got my first book deal for for my first book I had wanted to be a writer since I was four years old I got an MFA in my early 20s I wasn't famous at 30 and I thought well clearly this is not meant to be and then I got corporate jobs and but the day I got that deal it just from the publisher my dreams I was 46 years old I came home and I pulled all these books off the shelf from that publisher like these writers that I mired so much and it just felt like oh you're you're gonna get the thing you wanted you know finally this is this is it and like and you earned it so that that would be the day yeah and then lastly if you had a theme song that played every time we walked into a room what's wrong with you pick oh this is tough I'm such a music person from way back does everyone say I have the tiger it's the time it's it's been on someone has said that but really happy yeah it would probably be a Liz Fair song Liz Fair Exile and Guyville was very big for me she's a couple we're the same generation we actually have like chatted on social media and I'm just like she knows who I am probably a Liz Fair song like something swaggering like like never said nothing or supernova it's poppy it's feminine but it's tough and she's had she's fed up like I am well I'm gonna add that to the Spotify playlist so listeners can hear your theme song along with everyone else's and I and Tiger is down there so you have that little nod excellent I love that and Chrissy just thank you so much for putting your story out there for having this vulnerable conversation for being a beacon for so many women going through the corporate structure and not feeling so alone it takes a lot of strength to be so open thank you so much well thank you I'm glad that I just wanted to write a book for any woman in an office who'd ever sat at her desk being like am I crazy or is this awful or maybe maybe a little both so it's always just such an honor when any woman in any line of work especially Amazon women are feel like it helped them and a lot of a surprising number of men too have reached out to me and said except for the gender stuff I feel like you told my my Amazon story and that feels good yeah well thank you thank you (upbeat music)