courtesy of Eleni Trapp
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Eleni Trapp, a 26-year-old UX designer from Florida who left her corporate job to freelance. It's been edited for length and clarity.
When I was offered a $150,000 starting salary as a UX designer for a major casino, I thought my dreams of a glamorous corporate life were finally coming true.
But I found that my success in the workplace was determined by my willingness to comply with old-school business practices. I felt like my ideas were ignored unless they supported the status quo. It wasn't until I was denied an expected salary increase that I quit for good.
Now, I'm a freelance UX designer who gets to write my own rules.
My first UX job in the casino industry was great, but when I received a job offer from a major casino company for 2x the salary, I thought I hit the jackpot.
The founders boasted about their plans for a sexy, innovative app for online sports betters. As a UX designer, my job would be to transition their brick-and-mortar business into the digital landscape. I was a bright-eyed young designer and the only one with casino design experience, so I felt confident in my ability to bring the product to new heights.
I brought my team some initial design ideas alongside an expected timeline, to which I was met with high praise among my design colleagues. But as my ideas made it through the layers of bureaucracy and further away from folks with design experience, I faced pushback.
The old-school exec team, made up mostly of older men, didn't seem to have a fundamental understanding of what it took to build an app and therefore hadn't put aside the time or money to make it a reality. We were understaffed and underresourced, and they were unwilling to amend that if it meant diverging from their rigid, profit-driven plan.
I began feeling pigeonholed into creating a dated, basic platform that was a far cry from the innovation they'd promised. I felt like I was fighting to have my opinion heard. I was the youngest person and only woman in most conversations, which made it even more difficult to find my footing in the company. No one with any pull seemed willing to advocate for me.
After months of biting my tongue, a male coworker and I decided to voice our concerns to managers that the app wouldn't land well with users in its current state — and we were met with an angry warning not to jeopardize the launch of the product.
As a UX designer, it's my job to be the voice of the user, so it felt like they were questioning my competence.
The next week, the coworker who I'd confronted my bosses with told me he received an apology and that I should expect one soon. I never heard a word.
I wouldn't say I faced any blatant ageism or sexism at the company, but the constant disregard for my opinion and absence of an apology felt targeted.
I was flooded with internal turmoil as I flipped through contrasting narratives in my head. Maybe they are listening and I just don't make sense, or maybe I'm just jaded and they're right. I couldn't seem to get a grip on reality. All I knew was I was feeling pure feminine rage.
I stayed with the company to pay my bills and fund my graduate degree, but mentally, I withdrew. I got my work done quietly and stopped inserting my opinion when it wasn't asked for. I started receiving negative feedback in November about my lack of commitment to the role.
The next month, I was awaiting my annual 10% salary increase when I was informed that I wouldn't be receiving it. They told me that my performance was declining, but when I asked for specific markers of underperformance, they came back empty.
I realized there was no way to win. I'd be punished for speaking my opinion and punished for staying quiet. I put my two weeks in that week and decided I was done.
I realized that climbing the corporate ladder wasn't possible unless I sacrificed my identity and better judgment to join a company's mission for profit. I knew I didn't want to go back.
I spent the next two months focusing on finishing up my master's program and just being a student. I had enough money in savings to stay afloat without a source of income, but I still spent hours a week applying for jobs on LinkedIn.
I wanted to believe the job listings that pledged to have work-life balance, collaboration, and innovation, but after seeing those promises go unfulfilled at my last job, I didn't have faith.
As I was wrapping up the last few weeks of my degree and getting serious about my job hunt, I was pleasantly surprised by a Facebook message from a college acquaintance asking if I wanted to do some design work for his company. I gave an enthusiastic yes.
It was the first time I felt like my expertise was desired, not condemned, and it felt amazing. I knew I wouldn't be happy settling into another corporate job so I decided to take a chance on freelancing. I tested the waters by advertising my services to my LinkedIn network and was surprised to receive several messages expressing interest.
One of the hardest parts of transitioning to freelance was figuring out how much my services were worth. I used Google searches as a starting point and compared that with a breakdown of my corporate hourly wage. I also created a spreadsheet of monthly expenses so that I knew how much I'd need to make to maintain a 40-hour/week schedule.
It's been a few months and I've landed on a base rate of $65/hour. It still feels weird to charge people for my services, but I have to remind myself that I'm skilled and deserve to be compensated fairly. This month, I booked seven gigs and feel confident in the progression of my career.
As I continue to freelance, I'm also building a business I'm endlessly passionate about. It's a rage room and spa — a space to channel the feminine rage that brewed within me while I was working corporate jobs. It's what I wish I had when I was spiraling.
I'm so proud that I took a chance on myself when a company wasn't willing to. Now, I'm building my own ladder and climbing as I go.
Editor's note: The company where Trapp worked, which was verified by Business Insider, did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
If you risked your income to leave a toxic job and would like to tell your story, email Tess Martinelli at tmartinelli@insider.com.
