Is sacrificing your sense of self, your dignity, and every free hour of your life really worth it—for health insurance and the illusion of job stability?

In 2023, Brie Abramowicz was caught in the crossfire of a corporate restructuring at a fast-growing tech company. She took the job to chase after her ambition, not realizing it would cost her sense of self and purpose and her health—and that “playing it safe” would, in the end, lead to a different kind of financial and emotional precarity.

What followed was not only a ten-month sabbatical from full-time employment and a reckoning with everything she thought work was supposed to be. From that two year reconfiguration period of her career emerged a new way forward: building her own business, then, ultimately, a portfolio career.

Polyworker is unsparing in its portrayal of the world of work, darkly funny, and painfully familiar. Part memoir, part cultural commentary and critique, it’s an insider’s look at what it really takes to rebuild a life and career in an era when job security is a myth and our identities seem tied to our LinkedIn headlines.

Through the eyes of an ambitious millennial woman entering the second act of her career, Polyworker captures the unraveling of the old work order and the rise of the portfolio career movement born in the wake of the 2020 pandemic.