“Warmth Isn’t a Job Title”
 An essay from Professionally Confused Since 1992 — Entry Two

People always tell me I’m warm. That I’m “such a light.” That I make people feel seen. I’ve been called sunshine in every workspace I’ve ever entered—schools, sorority houses, law firms, even part-time jobs I barely lasted in. It’s said with affection, usually. Admiration, even. Like it’s a gift I bring into the world. And sometimes, it feels like one.

But it’s also something I’ve learned to weaponize against myself.

Warmth became my strongest asset—and my greatest liability.
Because it kept getting me hired, but never saved me from burning out.

When I was a teacher, I was the one who made kids feel safe. The one they ran to when their parents were in jail or they’d had nightmares or just needed a snack and someone to notice they were hungry. I was the one my coworkers vented to. The one who stayed after meetings to talk through things, who remembered birthdays, who made people feel like they mattered.
And I did mean it. I do mean it. But warmth doesn’t protect you when the roof of your school is literally torn open and your classroom is flooded and no one seems to care that you’re drowning too.

After Hurricane Sally, a piece of metal was hanging off the building, swinging in the breeze. I made a joke one morning—something like, “Maybe it’ll finally come loose and decapitate me, and I won’t have to go inside.”
Everyone laughed. So did I.
But I wasn’t really joking.

I didn’t cry in my car. Not once. That’s not really how it shows up for me. I’m autistic, and my relationship with emotions is complicated. I didn’t sob or scream or punch the steering wheel. I just drove. Every day. Over the same bridge. Past the same water.

And almost every morning, I thought about veering off.

Not dramatically. Not emotionally. Just…logically. Like my brain offering a clean escape hatch I couldn’t stop noticing. If I just angled the wheel slightly to the right, maybe I wouldn’t have to do this anymore. Maybe I wouldn’t have to go back into that building with the flickering lights and the flooded carpets and the trauma pouring out of kids too small to carry it. Maybe I wouldn’t have to pretend to be okay.

Because that’s the thing about being warm: people expect it from you constantly. When you’re the “light,” there’s no room to flicker. When you’re the one who makes everyone else feel safe, no one stops to ask if you are.

So I kept going. I kept showing up. I kept being the warm, glowing presence people had come to rely on. I smiled. I made bulletin boards. I remembered everyone’s favorite personal things and their personal home lives. I played music and danced around the classroom and made my students laugh even when I felt like I was disappearing inside myself.

And it worked.
That’s what’s so messed up—it worked.
I was dying inside, and people just kept telling me how bright I was.

Later, when I wasn’t teaching anymore, the settings changed but the script didn’t. I worked at two different law firms—one big, one small—and in both places, I was the first voice people heard when they called for help. I worked intake, which meant I talked to people on some of their worst days. Car accidents. Medical trauma. Deaths of loved ones. Insurance nightmares. And just like in the classroom, I became good at making people feel safe. Like they could trust me. Like they could exhale.

People opened up to me quickly. I think they could tell I’d listen. That I actually cared. That I wasn’t in a rush to push them through a checklist and onto the next call. I asked follow-up questions. I remembered names. I let people be human with me.

And again—it worked. People praised my “people skills.” My empathy. My warmth. My magic touch on the phone. And again, I was glad to help. I wanted to be good at something that mattered.

But warmth is exhausting when it’s always flowing outward and never back in. You can’t keep handing people pieces of yourself and expect not to go hollow eventually. I was the “bright spot” on every team. The calm voice in chaos. The one people came to when they were upset, even if they outranked me. Especially then.

And I think what hurts the most is… it did matter. It always mattered to someone. But it never felt like enough to matter to the system. Not to capitalism. Not to the structure that chews people up and spits them out as long as the metrics are met.

I could be a ball of sunshine, but the sun doesn’t get PTO. The sun doesn’t get to quit. The sun just rises again—every morning, even when it’s burning out.

I’ve been working since I was 14. Babysitting. Retail. Food service. Odd jobs. Customer service. Admin work. Teaching. Law firms. You name it, I’ve probably done it or something close. At some point, it stopped being a way to grow and just became a way to survive.

And the longer I did it, the more I started to feel like my entire personality was a resume skill. Organized. Compassionate. Adaptable. Emotionally intelligent. A team player. A people person. A fast learner. A warm presence.

Which is to say: marketable. Not whole.
Not really me.

Because no matter how many jobs I did, no matter how good I was at them, they never seemed to lead anywhere. Or maybe they did—but the “somewhere” was just more of the same: burnout, detachment, fleeting praise, and the slow erosion of my inner world. The truth is, I don’t want to spend my life being someone else’s good idea of a helpful person while quietly fantasizing about escape.

I don’t want to be so damn useful that I forget I’m also a person.

And maybe that’s the part I’m still grieving: how many years I spent thinking that being good at work would make me feel like I had a purpose. Like I had a path. Like I was building something that would eventually feel worth it.

But mostly, it just made me tired.
And confused.
And so, so alone.

It’s taken me a long time to realize that burnout isn’t a personal failure. It’s often just the natural outcome of being deeply human in systems that reward detachment.

And I’ve always been deeply human, even when I couldn’t name it. Even when I didn’t cry in the car or melt down at work or fall apart in the ways people expect. I just kept going, quietly breaking down in ways no one could see. But that’s starting to change. I’m learning to notice the cracks before everything caves in.

I’m also learning that being warm isn’t something to be ashamed of. It’s not a “soft skill” on a resume or a trait to downplay so I seem more professional. It’s a kind of wisdom. A strength. A way of moving through the world that brings connection, not just productivity. And while it’s been used against me—extracted, expected, taken for granted—it’s still mine.

I don’t know what my next job will be, or if I’ll ever have a “career” in the traditional sense. But I’m not chasing titles anymore. I’m chasing alignment. Sustainability. Reciprocity. Joy.

I don’t want to be the sun that never gets to rest. I want to be a candlelit intentionally—glowing gently in the spaces where it feels good to be seen, and safe enough to dim. Because warmth isn’t a job title.
But it might be the most honest part of who I am.