For a decade, she worked. A Harvard degree and an IIT background, stints at Razorpay, Microsoft, Dunzo and Unacademy; she had the kind of résumé that recruiters would simply reply to within hours. But a few months ago, she walked away from it all! And this time, she is not rushing back to a full-time job.“I’m not in a hurry to go back,” Charmie Kapoor wrote on X (formerly Twitter) as she reflected on quitting her 9 to 5 job.
When the paychecks stopped
Kapoor didn’t quit on a whim. Her decision wasn’t dramatic either. She made a strategic decision to transition. “It’s been a few months since I left my full-time job. I’ve worked for about a decade, had the savings and privilege, so I told myself that was reason enough. Last time I took a few months off, I knew I’d eventually join a full-time job again. This time it feels different.”According to Kapoor, the first change in her life was the absence of a salary message. She spoke about how the money used to be an external validation of sorts. “The first thing to get used to was not seeing the salary message come in. There’s something very comforting about watching a number show up which indirectly tells you that you’re doing fine.”But along with that, something else went missing too. The calendar, meetings, commute and everything else. “On the flip side, not having a calendar is liberating.”
The initial days of not working
During the first few weeks after quitting, she decided to give herself some time. She would wake up and slowly figure out how to spend the day. But that wasn’t as tough as one would assume. In fact, that’s the time when she actually started living. “I also started trying things I never got to do with a job, just to see. I finished some personal projects that had been sitting around. Helped founder friends with design, for fun more than money. Got curious about design outside screens, in physical spaces. Started working out every single day. Ran a little mango toast delivery in the city. Hosted many friends who stayed with us for months at home. Tried to give more of my time and energy to giving back, in whatever ways I could,” the woman said.
9 to 5 doesn’t end at 5 pm
Once Kapoor quit her job, she realised how her job involved a lot more than the actual work she was paid to do. From aligning her mornings with work hours to commuting, attending meetings and doing everything in between, she realised her 9 to 5 job really required more time and energy than that. “What surprised me is how much of a job I never noticed I was doing just to get through a job. Commute, meetings, the gap between one thing and the next that you fill without thinking. You don’t feel that structure while you’re in it. And once it’s gone, you start asking questions about things you never used to think twice about,” she said.The whole journey also prompted her to think about how different people find purpose in life. She wondered how one would really live if life hadn’t come with a built-in meaning.“People have been answering that for a while now, and it mostly breaks into three camps. Nihilism says there’s no inherent meaning to life, so just keep doing what comes your way. Existentialism says there’s no inherent meaning to life, so build your own and take it seriously. Absurdism says there’s no inherent meaning to life and that’s fine, so just do what you feel like doing today. I’ve spent most of my life as an existentialist without knowing the word for it. Pick a goal, care about it more than is reasonable, try to ‘win’. That’s probably what made me ambitious in the first place,” Kapoor reflected.She felt herself sliding towards absurdism. “It’s a strange thing to watch happen to yourself.”Now that she has quit her job, her days look different. She goes for a swim at 2 pm. She has the liberty to work when it feels like it. There is ample time to have long conversations at the dining room table. And finally, she can do things that she is genuinely interested in. “Coming back to why I think this time is different, why I’m not in a hurry to go back to a 9-5.”The woman wrapped up the post by sharing how one of the ‘hottest startups’ in the world reached out to her. But this time, her response was different. “It sounded like the perfect thing to do on paper – a few years ago, I would have wanted that job so badly I’d have talked myself into anything to get it. And yet, it didn’t ignite me the way I expected. On paper, it checked every box, but I was more excited by the possibility of continuing to make things on my own terms,” she said.For now, Kapoor’s off to pickleball at 5pm. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the real career move is realising that you get to decide what counts.