The Shocking Assumptions People Make When You Quit Your Corporate Job

Corporate influencer Chloe Barry-Hang has opened up about the hurtful assumptions she faces after leaving her job. At 30 years old, she built a massive following on TikTok with over 15 million likes by sharing snippets of her corporate 9-5 life, from lunch breaks to work outfit dilemmas.

In December of last year, she made the bold move to quit her lucrative role in property finance to focus on freelancing and content creation. On the podcast Unpolished, hosted by Simona Lattuca, Chloe revealed that leaving corporate life was tough, driven by a difficult work situation. She said, "If I hadn't had such a sh*tty situation with my old job, I would have never left corporate."

Now, she faces a new challenge: people no longer assume she's smart just because of her job title. "Whereas now it's the opposite. People automatically think 'oh she must be really stupid' and you don't have that job to fall back on to prove yourself," she explained. Chloe feels she has to prove herself as a "stand-alone person," and it stings when others doubt her intelligence, especially after a school system that emphasized constant validation through marks.

Beyond dealing with misconceptions, Chloe has had to rediscover her identity outside of the corporate ladder. Much of who she was came from her career in property finance, and finding herself anew hasn't been easy. Despite the hardships, she has no regrets. She realized she wasn't meant to stare at a "computer screen every day" and is ultimately happier now.

Interestingly, Chloe was often criticized for glamorizing corporate life in her TikTok videos, but she started creating content as a creative outlet, not to idealize long hours. "If you look closely, you could actually see the soul exiting my body," she quipped, highlighting the reality behind the scenes.