From the perspective of time...

...my last job still sucked. In fact, the further from it I get, the more bitter I seem to become. I think that while I was embroiled in the poisonous corporate culture and the unmeetable demands and the sexism reflected largely (but certainly not exclusively) in salary parity, I became sort of numb to all of it. I tried to just keep my head down and survive, but I'm beginning to believe now that survival is not all one should expect from a job. I feel a bit like a battered woman who gets so used to being treated badly that she neither expects nor feels that she deserves better.

That may sound extreme, but I'm really not exagerrating. I feel like I've escaped, not just quit. I just read this article and related to it so completely that I only wish I'd read it sooner, before I'd sacrificed my 20s and my children's infancies to that awful place.

I stay home with my boys now. A couple months ago, I had a really rough mom day. My four year old had just developed an intolerance for lactose that was not yet diagnosed, and he missed the toilet in spectacular style. Immediately after I finished that cleanup, I discovered that a roast had leaked blood all over the refrigerator. As I scrubbed on my knees, muttering about potty training and e. coli, a former coworker called. He wanted to tell me about some awful things my old boss was saying about me. I started to get upset (some kind of Pavlovian reflex that still strikes if I think of my former company for too long), but then remembered that it's not my problem any more. I told my friend, "you can tell [boss] that I would literally rather scoop shit off the floor with my bare hands than work for him again." It was cathartic and the literal truth. My worst mom day was happier than my best day there. I love my new life.