EP. 3 Fear of losing it all

Written By Aparna Rae

The Invisible Tax of White-Collar Security

We often trade our silence and our values for the promise of a steady paycheck, but we have to ask if the thing we are protecting is actually protecting us back.

IN THIS EPISODE

Aparna and Lars sit down with Dr. Dalya Perez to name the heavy, invisible cost of staying "inside the lines" of corporate America. We dig into why white-collar security often feels like a "deal" that demands our silence, especially when it comes to toxic dynamics, racism, or global crises. From the exhausting performance of annual reviews to the "camp counselor" vibe of corporate ERGs, we’re looking at how competition is used to divide us from the very people we should be building power with. This conversation is for anyone who has ever felt "golden handcuffs" tightening and is ready to stop making their career a solo mission of survival.

THE QUESTION WE'RE SITTING WITH

What does it feel like to work inside an environment where you feel you can't afford to speak up about what is true, real and observable?

TAKE THIS WITH YOU

  • Reclaim the Origin Story: Build five minutes into your next one-on-one to ask a colleague about their roots and share your own, shifting the focus from the bottom line to authentic human connection.

  • Audit Your "Strategic" Silence: Notice when you use the word "strategic" as a stand-in for feeling worried or scared to speak your mind.

  • The Collective Security Dream: Gather three friends and ask: "If we looked at our financial security as a shared responsibility, what different moves would we be willing to take in our careers?"

RESOURCES MENTIONED

CONNECT WITH US

Aparna on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aparnarae

Lars on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lars-gallien

Want to bring this conversation into your organization? Aparna and Lars speak at HR conferences, Fortune 1000 ERGs, and philanthropic foundations. pod@circleback.club

New episodes every week. Follow Circle Back Club so you never miss one.

Full Transcript

Hosts: Aparna Rae & Lars Gallien

Guest: Dr. Dalya Perez

Aparna: Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Circle Back Club, where we name what is broken at work, back it up with receipts, and build real power with workers who are done performing. No productivity hacks here, no personal brand advice—just an honest analysis and a community ready to change the status quo.

Today's episode holds a mirror up to white-collar workers—the people with healthcare, salaries, and titles to protect—and names the invisible tax we pay to keep those things. We're asking ourselves to look at what our silence and our habits are doing, not only to ourselves and our colleagues but to workers who have far less protection to lose.

To help us make sense of it all, I am super excited to invite my friend and colleague, Dr. Dalya Perez. Dalya brings lived experience from inside major institutions, including Microsoft, and is currently at the University of Washington. She has deep experience building inclusive cultures and is going to help us name what the system rewards, what it punishes, and what it costs workers to stay inside the lines. Hi, Dalya.

Dalya: Hi, Aparna. Thank you so much for having me.

Aparna: We're going to jump right in. I am curious: what is one recent moment where your security felt threatened at work or in the broader world? Lars, let's start with you.

Lars: It’s a personal one for me right now in the realm of starting this podcast. One of the things I’ve been feeling is an edge around work security by talking about the things we usually don't talk about at work. Literally doing this makes me wonder if I'm going to lose some kind of security. Values come first, but it’s important to name that feeling when you start taking bigger risks.

Dalya: I’ve been through significant work transitions lately. For the past year, I’ve been with the Sisterhood Initiative at the University of Washington, working on a team of women of color. The culture there is so starkly different from corporate America that I’ve experienced actual shock.

For instance, we have staff meetings that are two hours long. In corporate America, my meetings were 20 minutes long—you start at the :05 and end at the :25 just to hit the beats of what we are shipping. In my current role, we might spend 30 minutes just sharing intimate details of our lives—dating updates, activism, personal struggles. I’ve had moments that almost feel like PTSD where I wonder, "Is there an HR camera in the room? Are we allowed to bring our messy, intimate humanness into a workspace?" It was so foreign to me coming out of the corporate sector.

Aparna: It’s interesting that even an environment where you can bring your whole self feels threatening because it’s not how we’ve been taught to show up.

I want to look at some data. When we say "worker," many people think of blue-collar jobs. We rarely think of white-collar professionals as "workers." These have been "good jobs" since the 1980s because of the salaries and 401ks, but white-collar work is not outside the system of insecurity. It comes with a specific deal: stay in line, perform loyalty, don’t make waves, and the organization will protect you with health insurance and a title.

That deal works until it doesn’t—until there is a restructuring, a layoff, or you speak up about humanity. According to a report from Catalyst, 51% of women from marginalized racial and ethnic groups experience racism at work. That number jumps to nearly 70% in workplaces with a "climate of silence" where employees don't feel safe speaking up. We also know 80% of employees reported burnout in the last year. Lars, when you hear "white-collar security," what emotion comes up?

Lars: It’s a mix. First, a deep breath of relief because I have insurance and a retirement plan. But second is genuine heartbreak. It feels like my heart is splitting because that security often demands silence and a severing of my own humanity. It creates a "squeeze" where I’m gripping my reality so tight it’s hard to think about other people or wider solidarity.

Aparna: Dalya, as a DEI leader inside these institutions, what do you see white-collar workers most afraid to name?

Dalya: I often felt like the unofficial therapist of the group. People would schedule one-on-ones to unload things they couldn't say out loud. I remember one woman struggling with menopause symptoms who felt she couldn't ask for support because her entire chain of leadership—all the way up to the top—was men. She feared sexism and ageism.

There was also a "whisper chain" of women in leadership that eventually resulted in a 35-page report about toxic dynamics involving men on the team. They felt too gaslit to make direct confrontations, so they had to conduct an underground campaign to see if others were experiencing the same thing. When HR represents the status quo and "de-risking," DEI practitioners become pseudo-therapists for workplace harm because people don't have safe, proper channels for support.

Aparna: What's wild is that these were Principal-level women. They aren't newbies; they’ve put in a decade of work and still don't feel the organization looks out for them.

I want to talk about another theme: competition. There is a book by Ruchika Tulshyan titled Inclusion on Purpose (and her work on competing). There is a quote that discusses how competition is exploited to divide us, especially women and people of color. In a society built on competition rather than supporting human experiences like caregiving or chronic illness, we shut people out for not being "hardworking enough." We are pitted against the very people we should be building solidarity with. Dalya, what does this competition look like in real life?

Dalya: In my first week on a product team at Microsoft, I went into a core engineering meeting. I started tracking who was speaking and for how long. The few women in the room were disproportionately interrupted and held the floor for much less time than the men.

Beyond that, the competition within marginalized communities is heartbreaking. I had to mediate a conflict between two women in an ERG (Employee Resource Group) space where one felt the other was stealing her platform. These spaces are supposed to be where we lift each other up, but they can become fiefdoms. Sometimes I feel ERGs are just where corporations relegate DEI work—give them some swag and a pizza party so they feel recognized, while DEI staff are hired as "camp counselors" to lead the rah-rah.

Aparna: We are told we have to compete to get that better raise or to be at the "top of the box" in performance reviews. Lars, why is the story of competition so persistent?

Lars: We’re told competition drives innovation—"fail fast, build things." But when we are dishonest with each other about who we are to get ahead, we cause harm. Systems in large corporations are designed to let that harm happen and then just push it somewhere else.

Dalya: In the corporate sector, there is a fluidity to leadership that can be interesting. You might report to someone who used to report to you depending on where the money moves. That's a contrast to the stodgy hierarchy of academia. But that agile nature also breeds toxicity where people steal ideas or certain personalities dominate. When people are confronted about "duplicative work," that’s when you see layoffs and people being "trimmed out."

Aparna: I used to tell people: "Figure out whose promotion you are working toward." That helps you see the root of the problem. If you aren't on the winning team in the current moment, you aren't rising.

Let’s look at the culture of silence. During the Time’s Up movement, the message was that saying nothing builds on acts of violence; institutional silence is complicit. Research shows the vast majority of bystanders in racist encounters acknowledge that racism occurred, yet they decide to do nothing. It creates a doom loop.

Lars: As a white person, the way we avoid taking accountability for racial dynamics is so ingrained. The identification is there, but the action isn't.

Aparna: People often say, "I can't afford to speak up. I have a mortgage. I'm a breadwinner." Is that a real constraint?

Dalya: It’s a choice, but a hard one. In October 2023, when the genocide in Gaza began, a Palestinian community at Microsoft tried to do a cultural awareness event. The amount of ratification they had to go through with HR—being told what they could and could not say—was intense. Staff members were terrified of losing their jobs or getting dragged.

When you're in the "sandwich generation" caregiving for kids and elders in expensive cities, the cost of being outspoken is a liability. It could put you on a risk list for a layoff.

Lars: The system counts on you putting "family first" to justify putting up with interpersonal or global harms. We are structured in a way that forces the white-collar worker to pay for services that a community core unit used to provide. You sacrifice your morality for the promise of upper-middle-class safety.

But safety isn't tenable if you're isolated. When you widen your lens, you see that your family is also impacted by this system. It takes education and conversation to realize that your collective safety is what actually matters.

Aparna: For someone who feels they can't afford to say anything, what is the invitation to find courage?

Dalya: Basic survival sometimes requires a level of numbness or "golden handcuffs." We all exist in this system; none of us are completely pure. But we can be courageous by practicing mutual aid, participating in boycotts, or engaging in civic engagement. You don't have to be a policy expert to go to City Council and say, "Not with my tax money." Our voices matter.

Aparna: We have to choose a ship. You can't just put the blinders on. I struggle with people who say they are "protecting their peace" while waiting for a promotion. You can still vote, knock on doors, or help at a shelter.

Lars: The first step is to talk to your coworkers about what they care about. Develop the skills to listen. It isn't a conversation with HR; it's a conversation with your neighbor. Eventually, not acting on that care becomes untenable because you realize that if it hurts you, it hurts me.

Aparna: When someone tells me they can't talk about world events at work, I ask them, "What does it feel like to work inside an authoritarian regime?" The shock on their faces is eye-opening. If you can't text a coworker about a major event, that says everything about the organization's values.

Dalya: I came into corporate DEI in the wake of George Floyd’s murder when C-suite leaders were asking for help writing empathy statements. It was a wave of normalizing basic humanity. Now, we're seeing a revoking of DEI. We've moved from the "industrial complex of statement writing" to a total chill and silence. Even universities are being policed. A Seattle philanthropist recently asked for a $5 million gift back from the University of Washington because a chair took a pro-Palestinian position. We are being told our assets will be taken away if we counter the beliefs of those with power.

Aparna: Let's move to a more hopeful place with some rapid fire. Finish the sentence: The white-collar worker's greatest superpower is...

Dalya: Flexibility.

Lars: Verbal influence.

Aparna: Favorite corporate phrase?

Dalya: Teamwork makes the dream work.

Lars: Let’s put that in the parking lot.

Aparna: A phrase that actually means "I'm scared"?

Aparna: I want to be strategic about this.

Dalya: I’m going off camera.

Lars: We need leader buy-in.

Aparna: One thing the system never told white-collar workers about their own power?

Dalya: That the everyday brilliance we bring, especially those from non-corporate backgrounds, is exactly what these spaces actually need.

Lars: That saying "no" actually impacts the company's trajectory.

Aparna: One sentence on what’s possible on the other side of a scarcity mindset?

Dalya: You are valuable and brilliant, and even if they lay you off tomorrow, there is something else waiting for you.

Aparna: To wrap up, what is our call to action?

Dalya: Rearrange time and space for humanity. Build in five minutes at the beginning of a one-on-one to ask about someone's origin story. Offer your own. It bridges the gap between the bottom line and authentic friendship.

Lars: Stop making your career about you as an individual. Your safety is not individually yours; it’s based on relationships. Get three friends together and ask: "If we looked at our financial security and careers as a collective, what different moves would we be willing to take?" Widen the lens.

Aparna: My first instinct was, "Am I going to pay someone else's rent?" But by the end, I thought, "Why not?" If I want a person I love to thrive, why wouldn't we support each other that way?

That was episode three. We talked about the fear of losing it all, competition, and silence. Ask yourself: is the thing you are protecting actually protecting you back?

Dalya: You can find me at Dr. Dalya Perez on LinkedIn.

Aparna: Next week, we’ll talk about social contracts at work and how corporations shape our expectations. If this landed for you, send it to a colleague. I’m Aparna.

Lars: I’m Lars.

Aparna: And we'll be circling back with you.

Aparna Rae https://aparnarae.com
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EP. 2 Who built this