I spent a decade taking massive risks to gain an extremely rare set of skills. I joined a top company, and was immediately put into a corner and my job devolved into a weekly “checklist” meeting. All feedback and input I gave, based on my extensive experience, was ignored. Then I was systematically harassed for expressing innovative or creative ideas.

So I redesigned my job to do as little as possible and focus most of my effort on side contracting.

I have zero friends at work. I joined a year ago and feel no connection. I never met anyone in person at my role. Haven’t been into an office.

I feel like an unwelcome outcast and largely unwanted and no one understands my background, talent or skillset. Basically: I am an intern despite my skills.

There is something extremely dehumanizing about remote work. Because corporations can do this to you and no one is the wiser. There is no mechanism to gain any social status it feels like. People who had insider access before I got here will always have advantages over me. I’m not going to have opportunities to stand out or advance my career.

Furthermore: The entrenched folks actively shut down anything that isn’t in their interests.

It feels like 100% of the exciting projects are automatically assigned to people with inside access.

I was removed from all the key meetings and email threads by people threatened by me trying to talk about ways to improve products and systems. Now I’m in an information black hole of exile.

So yeah, I’m doing contracts on the side and coasting. This was the same as my last job.

Remote work has completely deteriorated white collar work for me.