Why Now Is the Right Time for This Community
Hi there,
Life comes at us fast. Some weeks it feels like everything hits at once, and all you can do is keep your head above water. Work piles up, family needs attention, your own energy dips, and suddenly even small tasks feel heavier than they should. It is easy to get wrapped up in your own world when things are overwhelming.
But there is a strange thing that happens when you reach out to help someone else. The act of supporting another person can give you clarity about your own situation. It can pull you out of your head and remind you that you still have something to offer, even when you feel drained. I first learned that lesson from my friend Jeff Atwood. He told me that when things feel out of control, sometimes the best way to regain a sense of direction is to step outside your bubble and be useful to someone who needs it.
Helping others will not magically solve your problems, but it can interrupt the spiral. It gives you perspective. It reminds you that the world is bigger than whatever is stressing you out, and that you still have agency, compassion, and impact.
You are not alone in feeling stretched thin. You are not failing. You are human, navigating a system that demands too much. But sometimes, offering support to someone else gives you a moment of steadiness for yourself.
— Wesley Faulkner
Survival Tactic: Let Automated Note Takers Do the Heavy Lifting
When work feels overwhelming, one of the first things to slip is your ability to track everything that is said, asked, promised, or implied. Meetings blur together. Action items vanish the moment you close Zoom. You walk away knowing something important was discussed but not having the energy or clarity to capture it.
This is where automated note takers become a lifeline.
Tools like Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, and the built-in AI assistants in many meeting platforms can record, transcribe, summarize, and highlight key decisions for you. They turn a chaotic conversation into something you can reference later without relying on memory or scrambling to write things down. Instead of splitting your attention between participating and documenting, you can simply be present.
Automated note takers also give you protection. When expectations shift or someone tries to rewrite history, you have a written record of what was actually said. This is especially valuable in environments where miscommunication or selective memory is used to shift blame or distort responsibility. Having consistent documentation gives you a quiet layer of defense.
There is another benefit that often gets overlooked. Automated notes reduce cognitive load. When your mind is stretched thin, removing one more task from your plate can make a real difference. It frees up mental space for the work that actually matters.
So this week, let a tool carry some of the burden for you. Turn on the note taker. Let it capture the details, decisions, deadlines, and next steps. Give yourself permission to stop being the recorder of the room.
You do not have to carry every detail yourself. Sometimes the smartest act of self-preservation is letting technology remember things so you do not have to.
Bonus: Take the transcripts from your meetings and feed them into NotebookLM to uncover real insights about your work, identify patterns you may not have seen, and organize your impact across multiple conversations.
➡️ If you have a survival tip you would like to share, click the button below to submit it for the next newsletter.
The System is Broken: The Proof is all Around Us
Job Hugging Is the New Survival Strategy (Published December 14, 2025)
A growing number of workers are “job hugging,” staying in roles they do not like because the labor market feels unstable. According to Gallup, uncertainty is so widespread that people are choosing predictability over growth, even when they feel disengaged. via Inc.
Quiet Firing and Quiet Quitting Are Still Everywhere (Published December 14, 2025)
HuffPost reports that subtle workplace pushout tactics remain common. Signs include being excluded from meetings, losing responsibilities without explanation, and being kept out of key decisions. Employees are responding with quiet quitting because direct communication often feels unsafe. via HuffPost
Four in Ten Employees Want a New Job (Published December 12, 2025)
A recent survey shows that nearly 40 percent of workers are actively looking for new roles. Dissatisfaction with pay, burnout, and lack of trust in leadership continue to drive people away. Workers are not leaving because they lack resilience; they are leaving because conditions are failing them. via NJBIA
Big Tech Is Still Cracking Under Pressure (Published December 12, 2025)
Business Insider highlights that the Big Tech job market is not stabilizing. Hiring freezes, sudden layoffs, and shrinking teams at companies like Amazon and Microsoft show that even the strongest employers are unpredictable. Job security is more of a myth than ever. via Business Insider
Lack of Autonomy Is Fueling Burnout (Published December 12, 2025)
The HR Digest reports that the more control workers lose over their work, the higher their burnout risk becomes. When people cannot influence their workload, schedule, or priorities, stress becomes chronic and performance declines. Burnout is not a personal failure; it is a management problem. via The HR Digest
Site Updates: Fixes and Progress
At the end of last month, I launched the first setup for the website using Open Social, an open source platform for building social networks. I removed all the extra features we did not need and began updating the branding to match the direction of Work’s Not Working. Every time I fixed one thing, something else broke. Some features stopped working, and some layouts refused to stay consistent. It quickly became clear that Open Social was more complicated and fragile than I expected.
When I first started building this community, I reached out to a friend who had created something similar before. Her advice was simple: do not reinvent the wheel. Find something that already exists and make it work for you. I took that to heart, which is why I chose Open Social in the first place. But after working deeply with it, I realized that the tool was unbalanced and created more friction than progress. Even if I managed to get everything stable, it still lacked key features that are part of my long-term vision.
So I made a decision. Instead of bending an existing system that cannot meet the needs of this community, I am building a platform of my own.
I sent the demo site to everyone who signed up for early access, and feedback is already coming in. Thank you, Bryce, for your thoughtful notes. I will continue moving forward, and the site will go live for everyone who registered on the same signup link I shared previously.
If you know someone who would benefit from this community, encourage them to sign up. I will make sure every person on the list gets access as soon as the new platform is ready.
Thank you again for your support and your patience as this work continues. It means more than you know.
Spread the Word: Strength in Numbers
Know someone stuck in a job with no clear way out? Forward this issue and help them join the community now. Together we can build a space where no one has to face work struggles alone.
They want us to feel isolated, like our struggles are ours alone. But the more we come together, the fewer of us will fall through the cracks. Every new subscriber strengthens this network and makes it harder for broken systems to silence or divide us.
Previous newsletters can always be found here.
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