The impact of instability: Why the parallels between jobs and politics feel so personal

My last two corporate jobs ended poorly.

The first was with a company acquired by IBM. At first, I was hopeful—excited, even. But it didn’t take long to see the cracks. IBM wasn’t just a company; it was a machine. A culture where you were either fully assimilated, or you weren’t long for the ride. Questioning leadership was taboo. Transparency? Nonexistent. And in the end, they dismantled our department in a way that felt corrupt, dishonest, and devoid of humanity. One by one, we all lost our jobs. I saw it coming. I documented everything. But fighting IBM? Well that’s a losing battle.

Then came my last employer. My dream job—until it wasn’t. A little over a year in, the company was acquired. Here we go again. And just like that, the weight of my past experience came rushing back. PTSD from IBM had me 100% convinced I’d be next on the chopping block. I wasn’t. But in the months that followed, 80% of my colleagues—the ones who made the company what it was—left. Mostly because there was no plan. No transition strategy. Just chaos.

While I stayed along for the ride in hopes the greatness would return, job descriptions disappeared. Processes unraveled. Communication broke down. Suddenly, we had no history—no proof of our contributions, and no clear path forward. It was every person for themselves, scrambling to find footing in a place that no longer made sense. The foundation we had built was erased seemingly overnight, and in its place, confusion and uncertainty took hold.

And now, as I watch what’s happening in Washington, I can’t help but feel that same unease creeping back in. The parallels are striking. Foundational policies tossed away like trash. Jobs slashed without merit or thought. No review of history. No plans for transition. No process for moving forward. No evidence of wrongdoing—just decisions made with sweeping finality, leaving lives (and the country) in limbo.

It’s unsettling. It’s triggering. I’ve lived this before. The sudden instability, the uncertainty, the feeling of being caught in something bigger than myself, where logic and fairness seem like afterthoughts. The realization that no one is looking out for the people actually doing the work, that livelihoods are being treated as chess pieces in a game few of us understand.

I remember sitting at my desk after the IBM acquisition, staring at an email that made my stomach drop. I knew what it meant. I knew what was coming. The same feeling washed over me again at my last “gig”, when I realized there was no roadmap, and history had been erased. And now, even though I’ve free’d myself from the corporate angst, I feel it again—watching, waiting, knowing how these stories tend to end.

I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to carry this weight. But it’s hard to ignore when the patterns are so familiar. When the same disregard for stability, for fairness, for basic human decency plays out again and again. And I cannot turn a blind eye and pretend that the way things are being done is ok. Acceptable. Or for the better good. There’s no justifiable excuse to disregard basic humanity. We are all equal.

I know I’m not alone in this. So many of us have felt the ripple effects—whether in our workplaces, in our communities, or on a national scale. And when systems fail us, when transparency disappears, when livelihoods are treated as collateral damage, it’s easy to lose faith.

So what do I do? Right now, I turn to my art. My sculptures become my way of processing the weight of it all. The uncertainty, the frustration, the loss of control—it all finds its way into the clay. Some pieces emerge raw and tangled, reflecting the chaos I feel. Others are smoother, more deliberate, a quiet act of defiance against the instability around me. Clay doesn’t lie. It captures exactly what I bring to it, holding space for emotions too heavy to carry alone. And in that, I find a small kind of steadiness. A reminder that even in uncertainty, expression and creation is still possible.

I don’t have a neat, inspirational ending for this. But I do know that acknowledging the weight of uncertainty is important. That speaking about it—connecting over it—matters. Because the more we recognize these patterns, the more we can push for something better. And maybe we can demand a future where people matter more than power. Where we don’t have to live in fear of the next sweeping decision that upends everything we’ve built.

Just a thought.