Pearl - December 28, 2025


Woman Quits 6 Figure Job FOR NO REASON


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

210.40974

Word count

1,900

Sentence count

44

Harmful content

Misogyny

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

After quitting a $250k per year job, Jess Terri van Veen talks about why she regrets it and what she regrets most about quitting her job. She talks about how her time away from work helped her become a more present mother and rethink her relationship with money. She is now seeking a job that aligns with her values and promotes a healthy work-life balance.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 again women get these overpaid jobs they get these big egos thinking that we're more competent than 1.00
00:00:04.880 we are and we're just not what up guys welcome to my reaction series today we're reacting to a
00:00:09.600 woman talking about quitting her 250 000 a year job and regretting it can you imagine as a man
00:00:16.000 quitting a job that makes 250k um i just can't imagine a guy doing that he would just put up
00:00:22.320 whatever whatever he needs to put up with but women we just are never happy i quit a 250 000
00:00:28.800 a year job thinking it would be easy to find another one after a year of unemployment i wish
00:00:32.960 i could go back and shake myself so this is what she looks like and that's kind of your typical
00:00:37.840 like oh it's of course a human resources career of course and i bet they were happy to see her go
00:00:44.000 because a lot of times these women are employed in these companies and they're not really pulling 1.00
00:00:47.600 their weight and so they're that's a huge expense on a company um and they don't want to go through
00:00:54.400 like the hassle of firing people because they don't want a claim or whatever um so anyways i
00:01:01.600 think that this is good so after quitting a 250 000 a year hr job jess terry vaughn is coming up
00:01:09.360 on a year of unemployment time away from work helped her become a more present mother and
00:01:14.480 rethink her relationship with from and reach oh my gosh time away from work helped her become
00:01:20.640 a more present mother and rethink her relationship with money she is now seeking a job that aligns 0.99
00:01:25.760 with her values and promotes a healthy work-life balance so again women getting money generally is 1.00
00:01:30.800 easy and men getting money is generally hard so men understand that when you make a certain amount
00:01:35.280 of money there's no such thing as like a work-life balance but women do not understand this um and 1.00
00:01:41.440 they will whine and complain even if they're overpaid this as told to essay is based on a
00:01:47.760 conversation with jesse terry von a 39 year old former hr executive based in vancouver washington
00:01:54.560 it's been edited for length and clarity when i quit my 250 000 a year hr job last year i thought
00:02:00.720 the reality of finding another job would be no big deal i was out of touch with the reality of
00:02:05.520 the job market i hadn't applied i hadn't applied to a job in a non-traditional way in over a decade
00:02:11.200 because i'd always been recruited now that it's rounding up on a year of unemployment i wish i
00:02:15.200 I could go back and shake myself. So again, she's getting old and ugly. And women have no idea how 1.00
00:02:19.840 much opportunity is given to us because we're young and beautiful. It's why we invest so much
00:02:23.700 in plastic surgery. It's why we invest so much in the gym. Again, a lot of times women, we're 1.00
00:02:30.740 under this illusion that our opportunity is because we work hard. And you'll see women cope
00:02:36.240 with this. Oh, I worked so hard. And I'm not saying women don't, but just compared to a man,
00:02:41.040 it's just not the same at the same time my time away from work has finally allowed me to be a
00:02:46.160 present mother and confront my strained relationship with money i'm getting ready to go back to work
00:02:50.720 but i plan to make a few changes i knew it was time to leave when my values no longer align with
00:02:55.600 the companies i identified early on in my career that i was good at work and i let my productivity
00:03:00.240 and achievement become my identity there are many times throughout my decade-long career in hr when
00:03:05.280 i tried to take a step back and be less intense but i think i had an addiction to the dopamine
00:03:10.000 that came from the stress. Translation, I love harassing people at work. Somebody's got to nag 1.00
00:03:14.900 these men about talking and it's going to be me. When my daughter was born, my husband became her
00:03:20.860 main caregiver and I became the sole provider for our family. In 2023, I was promoted to the
00:03:25.540 director of people experience at my dental company. I love the diversity of my job's responsibilities,
00:03:30.860 the salaries in my team, and I stayed for months. The straw that broke the camel's back when I came
00:03:35.160 back was i was in direct opposition with my boss about something that made me realize i wasn't the
00:03:40.200 right person to person for the job i made a commitment to myself that would never that i
00:03:45.560 would never stay in a role where i was compromising my values so again men understand in the work
00:03:50.680 environment it's not really about your values it's about getting the job done um but women again we 0.98
00:03:55.960 think we're more important than we are at work and we don't realize how replaceable we are
00:04:01.160 so again women get these overpaid jobs they get these big egos thinking that we're more competent 1.00
00:04:07.740 than we are and we're just not um i didn't wake up that day thinking i was going to quit but
00:04:12.360 something about the day made me feel like i couldn't take it anymore after i quit i took a
00:04:16.520 break that backfired but i don't have any regrets i have a little bit too much hubris thinking it
00:04:21.400 would be easy to find my next role so i didn't start applying to jobs until january of this year
00:04:25.840 I was out of touch with reality. As a healthcare recruiter, I saw an almost constant shortage of
00:04:32.100 workers, so I thought it would be the same for the HR industry. From January to April, I applied for
00:04:37.360 jobs, wrote professional cover letters, reached out to past co-workers, sent LinkedIn messages,
00:04:42.440 and did everything I could to secure a new role. But it felt like my applications went into the
00:04:47.000 abyss. It was very humbling. I don't have any regrets and feel that everything worked out as
00:04:51.800 it should, but I wish I had looked at the job market in my field and started applying sooner.
00:04:56.900 Quitting made me realize I hadn't been a present mother. I used to think I was the most present
00:05:01.800 mother I could be. I'd stop working at five and I put on a smile to play with my daughter,
00:05:05.600 but I was still mentally going through it as I, but I was still mentally going through everything
00:05:10.240 I had done that day. I was available, but I wasn't present. So again, women don't want to 1.00
00:05:15.640 be mothers. Women would rather have a HR job than be a mother. Women would rather have Juanita in 1.00
00:05:23.300 daycare watch their kid rather than watch their own. Since quitting my job, I'm finally able to
00:05:27.760 give my six-year-old daughter what she needs. Me fully immense in her world, playing, being silly,
00:05:32.160 and not just being physically next to her. Kids are intuitive and I feel like she's noticed a
00:05:36.280 difference. I've learned to stop using money to deal with stress. When I was earning a $250k
00:05:41.200 salary, I'd cope with a stressful day by ordering something from Amazon, buying myself a little
00:05:46.040 treat, or doing a Target run. I justify it by saying it's just a sweater from Target. It's not
00:05:50.400 a designer purse. I didn't realize I was spending money to distract myself from stress. Now that I
00:05:55.220 don't have access to disposable funds, I have found other ways to deal with stress. I've gotten
00:05:59.840 into coloring, painting, and even doing my own nail art. I'm not overly artistic or talented at
00:06:04.740 any of those things, but they're cathartic and allow me the satisfaction of seeing something
00:06:09.180 through to completion without pressure. I've also built a community of friends over this time. I go
00:06:14.220 walking some mornings with a neighbor who has kids in the same school as mine. It's good for physical
00:06:19.960 health, mental health, and connection. My time away helped me realize I'm so much more than how
00:06:25.440 productive I am in a day and how much I can contribute to my company. So the translation
00:06:30.860 of this is really a woman realizing that she's not as important as she thought. A lot of women 0.54
00:06:37.540 really overestimate just how useful and actually productive we are i'm ready to work again but i
00:06:44.340 have boundaries i'm translation i'm never going to get another job although it's nice and relaxing
00:06:50.100 to stay home in color i miss working i miss feeling productive like i've accomplished something
00:06:54.500 that is tangible and in the service of others i also miss the daily social connection that i had
00:06:59.060 at work i'm ready to work again and need to work again to provide for my family but i guess i've
00:07:03.700 become disenchanted with corporate america i don't want to go back to an office from
00:07:07.940 nine to five or have to send my daughter to a daycare instead of spending the day with her 1.00
00:07:12.420 i'm not even seeking balance just a job that won't systemically conflict with motherhood
00:07:16.500 mental health and life i may be idealistic but i'm no longer willing to sell my soul for work so
00:07:22.740 i don't think mothers realize how much they're missing until they're home full-time i don't know
00:07:27.860 if any of maybe the two women that watch me i don't know if any of you have gone from like 1.00
00:07:32.900 working full-time to quitting but i was in a situation growing up where like i had nannies
00:07:39.620 and stuff and sometimes the closest person you are like the person you're the closest to is the nanny
00:07:45.940 um and i don't know if the parents are always aware because they're so stressed out i mean i
00:07:50.980 was one at 10 right i mean we had to be everywhere i i don't even blame them but they don't realize
00:07:56.260 all the little things they're missing like when i was a kid i just remember getting out of school
00:08:00.820 and like going to see the pickup you know school pickup and i was just like praying it was my mom
00:08:05.460 or my dad i'm like please be my mom or my dad it was always the nanny no offense to the nannies you
00:08:10.660 guys did a good job but it just you know wasn't the same so and those are like actually my favorite
00:08:17.140 memories with my parents is when they did come to my basketball and volleyball games and they would
00:08:21.860 drive me home from the games and i just loved like being there with them like i love talking about
00:08:26.900 like it's just something different when the parents are like involved in the day-to-day you
00:08:32.340 know because i mean there were times when i during my childhood where my parents were more involved
00:08:36.740 and less involved like obviously 18 years is a long time and they had a business so like there
00:08:41.540 were ups and downs but yeah i just remember oh my gosh one time i had a nanny i hated i i faded this
00:08:49.460 nanny and i just remember getting out of school and being like oh please god not her not her
00:08:56.900 Anyways, guys, make sure you like the video, subscribe to the channel, and I'll see you next time.