New Yorker quit her corporate role in the middle of a meeting—now she earns twice as much and is happier in her dream job

Pooja Tripathi might not have become a successful comedian if she hadn’t quit her corporate marketing job in the middle of a meeting in 2018.

By then, Tripathi had spent five years working in the fashion industry, but felt defeated after dealing with a toxic boss, she says. One morning, in a last-minute meeting, her boss started personally insulting Tripathi in front of her manager. She’d watched her coworkers experience similar bullying in the past — and decided to quit the job, where she earned a mid-five figure salary, on the spot, she says.

“Having a job everyone thinks sounds cool … [then] feeling like you can’t reach any goals day-to-day is not easy,” Tripathi, 32, says. “You feel like a lie.”

The second act of Tripathi’s career is more authentic, fulfilling and twice as lucrative, she says. With a friend, she started writing and acting for a YouTube series, and over time, became a successful content creator, she says.

Tripathi started her most popular project, Brooklyn Coffee Shop, in June 2023. In the short videos posted to TikTok and Instagram, she plays a dry, uninterested barista who interacts with and often rejects a cast of stereotypical Brooklyn customers — a Pilates instructor, a guy who loves crypto — who try to order drinks like an unsweetened collagen lattes with unpasteurized goat’s milk.