Interview: Simone Stolzoff, author of The Good Enough Job

Author Simone Stolzoff on reclaiming life from work

Earlier this spring, through the sheer luck of the Twitter algorithm, I got my hands on an advance reader copy of The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life From Work. This debut title from journalist and author Simone Stolzoff is officially out today, and available wherever books are sold (including the Anti-Burnout Bookshop).

Simone and I chatted about the book earlier this month, and you can read the edited¹ interview below.

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Chloe Brooks: So first of all, could you tell me a little bit about what inspired you to write about renegotiating your relationship with work?

Simone Stolzoff: So there are two ways in. The first is my background as a journalist and reporter. My beat was labor, so I was writing about the workplace and about Americans' perceptions of labor and different management systems. And this conversation about the centrality of work in our lives was very much in the zeitgeist of the past five or ten years that I've been on this beat.

The second is personal. I’ve always been under the impression that work is one of the best means that we have to self-actualize, so I looked in my 20s, in particular, to try and find that vocational soulmate — that job that would help me be the fullest version of who I was. And I worked in a number of different industries trying to find that sort of dream job or perfect encapsulation of who I uniquely was.

And in many ways, this book is sort of a response to that. I enmeshed who I was with what I did for work to a point that was actually detrimental to my work and my life outside of it. And so The Good Enough Job is sort of a foil to the dream job, and something that was born out of my own personal experience.

Chloe: You talk in the book about the identity crisis that comes from losing a core part of who we are as it relates to work and employment because we've wrapped up so much of our identity in our jobs, and how we should hold values higher than commerce.

That identity crisis is something that’s so common in burnout. We've given or shrunk or compromised so much of ourselves to get to that point that often we no longer know who we are outside of that job. We've lost sight of our own values by that point, or they've been supplanted by the company's instead.

So how do we start to re-identify those values other than work, especially from that state of depletion where sometimes just getting through the workday is all we can manage?

Simone: Yeah, I mean, I think this has been particularly pertinent in the last few years with the pandemic and layoffs. For a lot of people whose sole source of identity, meaning, or community was the workplace, the role work played in their life was no longer the same.

It’s like balancing a narrow plank. In order to cultivate other senses of identity or other sources of meaning, we have to do things other than work. But part of the risk of a work-centric existence is it doesn't just take up our best time; it often takes up our best hours as well.

And so I think there are two prerequisites in order to be able to diversify the sources of identity or meaning in your life. The first is to carve out time where work is not an option. Especially with modern knowledge work, so many people exist in sort of a perpetual state of half-work where they've got their work email in their pockets and there's always the option to swipe down to refresh. But we need to carve out time where we can be present with things other than work.

And then the second part is to find kind of active forms of leisure to do things other than work. If your only existence is going to work and coming home and turning on Netflix — you know, nothing wrong with Netflix, but it's not necessarily going to be a source of identity and meaning.

So a personal example: I'm Jewish and I have an identity as a Jewish person, but when I’m participating in Jewish practices or behaviors, that identity becomes pronounced. Recently it was Passover and by like, going to a Seder and spending time with my family, that identity within me swelled.

I think that's the same with any sort of identity that exists within us. You know, maybe there are multiple identities that sit dormant in your body, and until you're actually giving it your time and attention, it won't have an opportunity to express itself.

So try and carve out the space when work isn't an option, and try and do things other than work. It might sound a little obvious, but I think it often gets lost in the shuffle. And that's what turns into a bunch of rinse-and-repeat days and makes burnout and other conditions like it more likely.

Chloe: Okay, so you said “carve out,” and that brings up another point: Even the language we use to refer to making that time, “carve out,” shows how laborious and effortful that is! So what are some small ways that we can start to make that time when it feels like there really is no spare time?

Simone: I think it starts with intentionality. I want to be wary of saying that everyone has the same options or opportunities to rest or to do things other than work, obviously. Even the question of, "What do you want to do?" necessitates a certain level of privilege.

But I do think we all live in this culture of overwork, this culture of productivity. And even the language we use, the words like, “unplugging” or “recharging,” presume that leisure or time off the clock is simply a means to get back to work to be productive again.

So the importance of carving out time is that the forces on the other side that are pushing us to work — whether it's a boss or a manager, or the expectations of a company, or even just the internalized capitalists within each of us — won't respect boundaries unless they are firm.

And the problem, I think, with a lot of personal boundaries or intention setting is that they inevitably break. You know, you could have an intention to not open up your computer on the weekend or to not check your email during dinner. But unless there are structural protections around that, it can be very easy for those boundaries to crumble.

I have a mentor, Anne Helen Peterson, and she talks about the difference between guardrails and boundaries. If you think about a boundary, it's like the line in the middle of the road that keeps one lane from another, with guardrails being the structural things that are in place, like the metal barrier that separates you from being able to go off to the road.

We also need those structural boundaries; those guardrails. And sometimes they can be imposed by individuals, but sometimes there needs to be policy there, at the company level or at the governmental level, to make sure that we have the opportunity to do things other than work in our lives.

Chloe: I really liked the point that you made in the book about how self-imposed boundaries are really permeable, and how they're much easier to break when they are self-imposed. But I think that’s part of a boundary too: You do have to, unfortunately, keep resetting it. If it’s that line in the road, it does have to be repainted eventually.

Simone: Yeah, I think it's either/or. I think there are limits to the structural interventions as well. And the point I made in the book, which I think is a really interesting anecdote: I learned Japan has the most progressive parental leave policy in the world. New fathers are entitled to a year of time off paid, but a paltry 5% of Japanese fathers take the time they're allotted for.

So you need both the cultural will — the desire to actually do so — and boundaries to be in place.

In the industrial age when people were working on assembly lines at factories, there were these boundaries that were built in. You couldn't, for example, work on a car chassis from your living room. But with the shift to the knowledge economy, we all have these offices in our pockets and it's too easy to switch back and forth between working and non-work modes.

So part of the onus on knowledge workers today is to think about how they can put systems in place — whether keeping your phone in the other room, doing things to fill the space so that you can't be working, or just thinking intentionally about what role you want to work to play in your life.

Because unless you actively define that, your employer or the greater capitalist systems around you will happily define that relationship for you.

Chloe: So where is that line between what we can do as individuals to set those boundaries and build that infrastructure that we need for ourselves, versus where we're just wasting our time and energy beating our heads against a brick wall because we're trying to change a systemic issue as one person? How do we recognize where that line is so that we don't actually hurt ourselves more trying to change it?

Simone: I think it has to be both. Like, if you hold your breath waiting for healthcare to be separated from W2 employment, you're going to suffocate, you know? I’m not optimistic about the United States instilling strict overwork and overtime protections for workers.

I do believe a lot of onus falls on organizations and companies, and not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it actually over the long term will lead to better work and to people who don't burn out and can be sustainably productive. It will lead to employees who are able to generate creative ideas.

And there isn't a direct relationship between how much time we spend working, and the quality of the work we produce a lot of the time in the knowledge economy.

But the fight has to be on an individual and daily basis as well. You can't just wait for someone else to put in healthy boundaries or to help you develop a healthier relationship to work. We all have the autonomy and agency to be able to do that on an individual level.

There are certain barriers that you're up against. If it's the Friday before the end of the quarter and you have a failed quota, you can't just throw up your hands and say, “I reached my limit.” There are expectations for the time that we do have to spend working.

But I also think there are moments within our day, within our weeks, within our months, that — by taking a more active approach and defining what our relationship to work is — will allow us to be both better workers and fuller versions of ourselves.

Chloe: You cited a study from the Economic Policy Institute that showed Americans now work 25% more hours than they did just 40 to 50 years ago, at least for that lowest-earning segment.

So given that — plus this culture that rewards busyness over higher quality work, plus the fewer protections that most employees now have given the decline in union participation — how do we actually go about shortening our working hours and putting some of those boundaries or guardrails in place?

I mean, we can do all the mindset work we want about our relationship to work and rest, and why we do or do not deserve it, or whether it's to be a better human or to be a better employee. But that's not going to change how many hours you're scheduled or whether your boss expects you to communicate outside of those hours as well.

Simone: Yeah, I mean, first it's important to sort of separate the problems that low earners in this country face from the higher earners in this country. Because they're related but they are separate.

At the lower ends of the income spectrum, people are having to work more just to survive. With stagnant wages, there's a necessity to work more to buy, say, the same loaf of bread, whereas on the higher end of the spectrum, the choice to work more is often projective and individual. People are choosing to work more because there's the ability to accumulate more wealth; there's the ability to derive self-worth and meaning from your role as an office worker — and that, people are increasingly looking to derive exclusively from the workplace.

But I think organizing and unionization is one of the best responses that workers on the individual level can make in order to push for some of these systemic changes and reforms. If workers don't have as much say at the current moment, what they do have is strength in numbers. We're seeing this across the economy right now from graduate students to nurses to teachers: There is power in being able to organize and band together.

I also think that there are things that leaders can do. And the culture is certainly changing around work — even in the past five years, the sort of hustle culture that was so dominant in the early aughts has gone out of style. There is a lot of cultural cachet with being able to advocate for more sustainable working practices, and I do believe there will be a competitive advantage to the companies that are able to put some of these structural protections in place. Companies compete with each other right now to be the most mission-driven, but I foresee companies competing with each other to be (at least perceived as) the most work-life balanced.

And I think the companies that are able to practice what they preach and create norms around when people are on and off the clock — and are able to hire enough people so that people aren't overworked and having to take on more responsibilities than a workday allows for — will have an advantage when it comes to things like hiring and recruitment and retention and productivity, over the long run.

Chloe: But unionizing isn’t an option in every workplace. So for workers who don't have that option, what can they do besides, you know, Quiet Quitting to, exercise their agency and power in the workplace?

Simone: It sort of depends on your working arrangement — it’s to hard give prescriptive, one-size-fits-all advice. But I think a lot of it can come down to expectation-setting with a manager and just being explicit and saying the quiet parts out loud. Like, "Okay, what hours am I expected to be available for synchronous communication?" Or "Is there flexibility for me to be able to take care of these things about my life over the course of the workday?" "What are the deadlines for these projects that you want to be turned in?"

I mean, this looks different at different types of workplaces. And if you are paid by the hour, some of these conversations about "Actually, I'd like to work less," might fall on deaf ears.

But often we are our own worst micro-managers. I think some of these expectations around the amount of time that we spend working are imposed by the company or are a result of the amount of work that actually needs to get done, but often, it's about our own personal drive to feel worthy, to feel seen, to feel like if we aren't somehow getting ahead, then we're somehow falling behind.

A lot of that is the internalized hustle culture that we are all living with. And it's even for myself! I've written a book about overwork in America, and it felt great on weeks that I hit my writing goal, but I felt like I was less-than on weeks that I didn't. It's hard to dislodge some of these entrenched beliefs that we all have.

One thing that I've tried to do is just treat my life like a series of experiments: What does it feel like if you go for a run in the middle of the day? What happens if I actually quit Slack or have all of my phone notifications turned off or don't check email until noon?

All of these little micro-interventions may or may not work for you, but they allow you to regain a sense of control over how you are spending your time. And you're likely to learn a lot about yourself by experimenting with how you work.

One thing that I found out, for example, is that the morning is my best opportunity to do any sort of generative work. And so if I'm writing or having to produce ideas, it's best for me to do that between 9 and 11 a.m. And there are natural points in the day where I have low energy and it's not very fruitful. I don't get a return on my investment by continuing to bang on the keyboard around 11:30 or 3:00.

Thinking about that through the lens of "What is necessary? When do I actually have to be working?" has allowed me to remove some of the guilt from, for example, at 3:00 shutting the computer and going for a walk, or that being my time to exercise and then figuring out how I'm going to do my work at later moments.

I don't think there is a static relationship to work. That's one of my critiques of this mythical “work-life balance” framing that often gets thrown out there.

It's not like there is this one static equilibrium that once you achieve, you will be fixed. Our relationship with work is fluid, and it's through that wobble of trying out different things that you figure out both what works for you and also what you value and care about.

Chloe: So what are some of the ways that you personally have experimented with re-prioritizing different things that are non-work, or rediscovering what besides work matters to you and what identities you have outside of that job?

Simone: I think it breaks down into a few different categories. One is just experiments about how I'm working — trying to outsource willpower as much as possible, trying to find accountability through other people and through certain technology interventions.

For example, I use an app called Freedom that blocks certain websites and apps on my phone for certain periods of the day. And that has been a huge boon to my ability to actually focus in the periods of time where I am working, so that I'm able to also have periods of time where I'm not working. Often, especially when I was in an office, there was sort of this worst of both worlds where I was sort of going in and out of work tasks and personal tasks, or distracting myself from doing heads-down work to a point where I was always sort of half-working. And then by my own logic, I would just extend the workday because I would feel guilty about it, if we're being honest.

But I think the biggest thing that has helped me not work is what we were talking about earlier, like doing things other than working. And so when you have, say, a commitment to meet up with a friend, or go on a walk with yourself, or to participate in a hobby, or even childcare responsibilities — really trying to be present in both of those realms, both being present in my work life and being present in my life outside of work.

And maybe that means leaving your phone in the car when you're going for a hike as opposed to bringing it with you and swiping down to refresh. Or maybe that means having a standing breakfast with your best friend, or making a norm that you put your work laptop out of sight when you're not using it so you're not tempted to just flip it open and look at one more email.

Chloe: It's the little things that add up.

Simone: Right. I don't want to come across as if I've got this figured out — I think what makes this topic so rich is it's like a continuous experiment. It's a perpetual design challenge about how we can design our life in a way that we can both do meaningful work and not let what we do to earn a living subsume who we are. And I look forward to continuing to think about different ways that I can experiment.

And sometimes there will probably be seasons in your life where you are working more than you want to be, and maybe seasons in your life where you're able to rest. And I don't think mine or anyone else's sort of system is going to solve it for you. It's just a matter of introspecting and thinking of what you have the capacity to give.

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Pick up your own copy of The Good Enough Job through the Anti-Burnout Bookshop.

1. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.