There’s a memory I have of my Grandpa at work. He asked me to take a drill out to his work truck, it had just been used to unclog a drain. While walking it out, the snake attached spun and splattered drain debris over his clients bedroom. In that moment, I realized that wasn’t the expectation, and that I would be letting others down (my grandpa, his client who’d have lil debris spots across their home). It might be the first moment I felt of shame.
Nowadays I do things within a company, and we laid a lot of folks off in February. A lot of individuals, who, I’d say have become my closest friends – on my wall I have more photos of my time with them than I do with blood family – our GM’s exchanged while still in bed spanning multiple years. Anyway, in that post-layoff all hands meeting, the top dog director called me out by name, while his #2 also dm’d me. Their comment simply: I was smiling too much.
Shortly after, the company cancelled the teams retreat. To transition this series of announcements – review season now commenced. My coworkers remaining shared their results across the relevant group chat(s). Commonly shared, albeit I will specifically quote my fav from my boi Mike who simply reported: ‘above expectations, 0% raise, jfc.’
Look, I didn’t seek a degree for this career, nor did I expect to fill my time with any company so long. On my part, being here today is both my developmental mistake and a blessing.
To clarify, I was given
1) a large bonus,
2) a 10% raise, and
3) a promotion.
An anomaly – these mfers said ‘he’s good, let’s rly keep him.’
Talking with my boi Riley, I put forward an ask for what they would do if work stressed them out. They said ‘buddy – make a plan and get out.’ And as I started this plan, I felt first reasonable to identify this stress. Really, I’m just doing something new. I’m being asked to perform in a new way, and that’s a growth opportunity.
With my available information, extrapolating multiple months – I think it’s reasonable there’s failures. At this speed, it could be a slow a train wreck, and maybe even I can decide to hop off at any point. Truly in any area of my life, I think it’s reasonable to both double down and/or embrace a change of pace. Wherever I’m throwing resources – I desire to feel wanted and I don’t want to let you down.
What is it that I have to learn before passing this level? To pull a quote from my girl Bonnie: ‘at some point you learn to love yourself.’ In that moment I didn’t ask her for elaboration, nor for her guide. I do think I’m on this path, albeit send me recs if you got ’em. Big desire for confirmation.
Love always,
Dumb