Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career

by Kristi Coulter

“What about coming in here when you need to focus?” he suggests, gesturing at his conference table. “I’d be happy for the company.” It’s sweet, but Josh has meetings in his office half the day. I take a deep breath and do something I can’t recall ever doing before: ask for working conditions that actually enable my work. “There’s empty office space up and down the row,” I say. “Why don’t you just put me in an office?” “I think those are all on hold for future L8 hires,” he says. “But they’re empty now. So assign me to one and then kick me out when these future executives come along.” “Let me see what I can do,” he says. “But I’ll have to find someone to put in there with you. The optics of an L7 with a private office are not great.” “Josh, I don’t mean this personally, but Amazon’s arbitrary office policy is not my problem. Sure, give me an office mate, that’s fine. But I’m not going to spend one minute worrying about the optics of being able to do the work Amazon ostensibly wants me to do.” Within a day the design leader and I are in an office, and just by getting out of the line of sight, I find that my productivity triples. And I make a note that sometimes asking for what you need turns out okay.