Posted on LinkedIn on February 17, 2026.
This post is about something that has been on my mind as I have navigated job loss over the last several months, which has come into stark relief since I have accepted a new position. (I’ll announce that news later today; reserve your congratulations for later, please!)
When I heard that I was selected for this position, I immediately felt lucky. Lucky like I feel when I find a dollar on the ground. I’d tell my friends this, and they would tell me it’s not luck:
“It’s all you! You deserve this!”
I appreciate those comments of course, but I recently lost a job that I had both earned and deserved. If my hard work brought me this new gig, then what lost me that old one? If it’s all me making my good luck now, then wasn’t it all me making my “bad luck” before?
And this is why people are right to tell me “it’s not luck.”
But also why I know it’s not “all me.”
I have long understood and critiqued the United States’ broken labor market. (I started my career in higher ed as an adjunct, and that was a valuable way to cut my teeth on the shards of exploitation that fuel the institutions we count on to provide upward mobility and empowerment to our students.) Mid-career job loss is a special kind of reminder that we help build and carry the systems that buy, sell, and abandon us on the whims of volatile and inhuman markets.
Taking on the new job I will announce soon is a gesture of hope, a testament to my belief in the power of a community working together for a common good.
But for those of you who have recently lost jobs; who work in precarious or low-wage (likely crucially important) jobs; who could not afford to invest in the “upward mobility” that your expensive public college promised; who found your calling in work that is now farmed out to tech start-ups and gig workers; who were downsized out of non-profits as public funding evaporates; who resist work cultures that dehumanize or exhaust you and find your options for survival curtailed…
I just want you all to know that as I accept this new position, I know it’s not that I “deserve” it any more than I deserved the pain I experienced as austerity carved me up and then spit me out of a previous job to which I dedicated my life.
We all deserve a labor market that allows us to engage in meaningful work alongside people who treat us with respect. We all deserve a living wage (or basic income) and health care. Period. When we do get that, it shouldn’t be because we are outstanding, but because we are human.
I joined LinkedIn, a platform I resisted for decades, because I was losing my job, along with health care for me and my child. I felt desperate. This platform connected me to all of you, and it’s been a gift. I wish this “gift” were owned and operated in our collective best interest. I know many people on here are here like I was: scared and marginalized. As you see me announce happy news later today, just know that I see you, that none of us should have to feel as lucky as I feel today.