Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career

by Kristi Coulter

you. Otherwise, well, better keep up. My new co-workers use phrases like “dumped into raging rapids” or “dropped by helicopter into the middle of a jungle” to describe their own first weeks at Amazon, as though it were a roiling ecosystem with the inevitability of the natural world. “Drinking from the fire hose” is the phrase I hear and relate to most, though.

You just try to keep your esophagus working and trust that clarity will come in time, and that in the meantime your whole face won’t be blasted off.

at least he’s getting out and exploring the city instead of spending eight hours, sweaty and disoriented, in windowless conference rooms.

me. If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that the kinds of people who openly admit to needing food or pee breaks are also the kinds of people who get hurled off lifeboats around here.

It’s tempting to confess that I also don’t know how to do a vlookup, but this probably isn’t the moment.

I start to worry I’ve become the thing Calista once warned me about: someone who wants a promotion too much. “They can smell it on you, and if they can smell it, they won’t give it to you,” she said. “It’s not fair, but it’s true.” I need to pretend that external recognition is just a cute little extra bonus and that consistently delivering world-changing greatness for Amazon’s benefit is its own intrinsic reward.

Amazon didn’t create our yearning for recognition, but it exploits it for maximum return by holding the rat pellet just out of reach and then frowning on any rat who looks hungry.