12 Years a Slave (Corporate)

Go to college. Get the degree. Get the advanced degree. Network. Find mentors. Gain experience. Chase the promotion.

That's the blueprint we're given.

Then one day...

Boom.

The glass ceiling.

Bam.

The rejection.

Crack.

The sabotage.

Crash.

The layoff.

For a long time, my identity was my career.

I spent twelve years inside one Fortune 100 company. I joined a year after graduating from NC A&T because, honestly, I just needed a job. I never imagined I'd still be there twelve years later. I thought I'd stay for a year or two, gain some experience, and move on. Instead, one year quietly became twelve.

Looking back, I don't regret it. Those years gave me lifelong friendships, incredible mentors, opportunities I never imagined, and a severance package that gave me enough breathing room to rebuild my life. But I also wonder if staying that long slowed my growth. Not just in title or salary, but in myself.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped introducing myself as Victoria and started introducing myself by my job title. When people asked me what I liked to do, I didn't even know how to answer because work had quietly become my personality. My hobbies disappeared. My creativity disappeared. My dreams were put on hold because I was too exhausted to dream after giving everything I had to someone else's vision.

To be fair, I navigated corporate well. I moved around the company quickly and every team I genuinely wanted to join, I eventually joined. I never reached the level I was aiming for, but maybe that's what kept me there. There was always another opportunity just within reach.

I watched people pass me.

I watched people become managers before me.

I watched people get the title I wanted.

Then I watched some of those same people get laid off before they ever collected the bonus they worked so hard for.

Corporate has a funny way of reminding you that no one is untouchable.

Some of my early managers changed my life. They believed in me before I fully believed in myself. They challenged me, advocated for me, and opened doors that helped shape my career. As I climbed higher, though, the environment changed. The higher I went, the more insecurity I encountered, and somewhere along the way, the grace lifted.

The work that used to come naturally, the work I could do in my sleep, started aggravating me. Every email felt heavier. Every meeting felt unnecessary. Every decision felt like it was being examined under a microscope. I was producing work far beyond my title and my paycheck, yet somehow I still felt like I had to prove myself to people who, respectfully, were not operating at my level.

That's when I realized it wasn't the work I hated.

It was the environment.

Then COVID changed everything.

Working from home brought flexibility, and I'm grateful for that. But somewhere along the way, the connection died. My face became another square on a Teams call. My voice was muted more often than it was heard. I realized I'm someone who thrives on human interaction, hallway conversations, brainstorming in a room full of people, and reading the energy in a room. Instead, I became chained to a computer inside my house. The walls got smaller, the days blended together, and I didn't realize how much it was draining me until I looked up and years had passed.

I would log off exhausted, crawl into bed, wake up, and do it all over again. The weekends disappeared in what felt like minutes. Somewhere along the way, I stopped living and started surviving.

Then my body started speaking louder than my ambition.

I gained weight. My nervous system was completely out of sync. I ended up in the emergency room more than once. The diagnosis wasn't dramatic. It was stress. It was exhaustion. My body was carrying what my mind kept trying to push through.

The irony is that even with a paycheck hitting every two weeks, I still felt financially trapped. That's when everything shifted for me. No matter how hard I worked, corporate wasn't going to make me financially free, mentally free, or physically free. The money was predictable, but freedom wasn't.

I kept telling myself to make it one more year. One more promotion. One more bonus. One more performance review.

Corporate teaches you endurance.

It teaches you resilience.

It teaches you how to survive.

What it doesn't teach you is when it's okay to leave.

The truth is, I wanted freedom long before I had the courage to choose it. They had to sign my freedom papers for me.

Funny how comfort can feel so much like captivity.

Looking back now, it's crazy to think I spent twelve years helping build someone else's vision and someone else's legacy. Every presentation, every strategy, every campaign, every idea I poured into that company stayed behind when I left. My intellectual property belongs to them.

But they couldn't keep what mattered most.

They couldn't keep my education.

They couldn't keep my experience.

They couldn't keep my relationships.

They couldn't keep everything those twelve years taught me.

I'm taking all of that with me as I build my own legacy, my own vision, and my own way.

Twelve Nineteen is my North Star.

People ask me if I'm bitter about how everything ended.

Honestly, I'm not.

If anything, I'm grateful for the reparations. That's what my severance felt like. Twelve years of my life exchanged for enough breathing room to finally bet on myself. I used that time to heal, to build, to dream again, and to ask myself what success actually looked like outside of a performance review.

My only regret isn't staying twelve years.

My only regret is that I didn't build while I was still in captivity.

I talked about entrepreneurship.

I talked about freedom.

I talked about leaving.

But I didn't put enough action behind those conversations.

If I could tell anyone still in corporate one thing, it would be this.

Build your own.

Even while you're in chains.

Don't wait until you're free to start becoming who you're meant to be. Document everything. Save the emails. Keep the receipts. Protect your peace, but protect your career too. No one will ever care about it as much as you do.

Looking back, I don't think I wanted to leave corporate as much as I wanted my life back.

I wanted slow mornings.

I wanted to read in the middle of the day without feeling guilty.

I wanted to build ideas that belonged to me.

I wanted to travel because I chose to, not because my calendar told me to.

I wanted my creativity back.

Most of all, I wanted to know who Victoria was when nobody cared about her job title.

I'm still figuring that out.

Some days the unknown scares me. Some days I miss the certainty of direct deposit. But most days I'm grateful. Grateful that I get to build something that belongs to me. Grateful that my calendar is finally mine again. Grateful that I'm no longer tending to someone else's field..

For twelve years, I helped build a legacy I could never own.

Now I'm building one that no one can take away from me.