Abstract
Seeking meaning and purpose through work is an increasingly recognised component of personal flourishment. Yet, with organisations unable to separate themselves from their complex and intersectional relationship with social justice, geopolitics, sustainability, society at large, and more, working as a contributor to a morally sound system becomes a tall order. In this autoethnographic article, I explore this challenge by analysing my own experience as a queer person working for a defence contractor contributing to the international arms trade. I analyse 24 blog articles I wrote in the two years following my resignation from the defence industry. Drawing from queer theory and Albert Camus’s conceptualisation of the absurd, I present my story as a confrontation with the ‘queer absurd’: an irreconcilable tension between my queer identity and corporate practices causing harm to queer people, which led me to choose ‘rebellion’, and move towards a new career and different search for meaning.