Over the past few months, I have been making a tremendous effort to power through the slew of emotions that I’m sure everyone is feeling in varying degrees to make sure I can continue to pay for my lifestyle. I was incredibly lucky to not be laid off in the initial economic shock. Before I even go any further I am extraordinarily privileged to even be able to consider taking time off let alone doing it. With that said, I wanted to write about why it was so important for me to take this time now not just to share my story but also as a retrospective for me. I’ve been feeling ambivalent (read terrified), but writing it out helps me affirm my decision.
When the pandemic first hit, I was markedly unfazed. It was just going to be a few weeks, I stupidly thought, we would be back in the office in a month maybe two. Then more information came out about the virus and it became increasingly clear that the few month hiatus I believed would be over in no time was wildly inaccurate. No. It wouldn’t be a few months, it would be several months, over a year until normalcy would even be potentially viable. We found out COVID-19 WAS NOT just the flu. We learned that COVID-19 was not just deadly in the older population but its symptoms and severity varied depending on what, we still don’t fully know or understand.
Working from home began. This meant being posted up at my kitchen table and awkwardly, virtually inviting people into my home. It was not my favorite. I felt uncomfortable that people I’d never met were seeing parts of my life some of my friends hadn’t even seen. Mind you, this is before the rise of virtual backgrounds, but even when I did use them, those backgrounds were no match for Ian walking back and forth. I wrote about that initial culture shock of virtual meetings, here. That’s when the doubt started. The doubt that I would be able to fully commit to my job every single day and focus on tasks that I didn’t necessarily find fulfilling but were, under different circumstances, doable. I chugged along and was able to compartmentalize the salient unknowns- when would I see my family again, when would I be going back to the office, when could I see my friends.
April and May went by and I fell into a routine. I got a real set up with a desk and a chair. Ian and I shared the smaller room in our apartment turning it into an office/studio so we could both do our respective jobs. I felt better about conducting calls and meetings from there since it was in a more private space and the backdrop was a wall instead of my entire kitchen. End of May/June hit and that was a major turning point in what would be this ultimate decision. George Floyd wasn’t the first black man during the pandemic to be mercilessly killed at the hands of the police, but the video recording of his death was the catalyst for the fervent resurgence of Black Lives Matter. Then came the reckoning that threw this country’s white population into a tailspin facing the harsh reality of systemic inequalities that afforded them a privilege they vaguely understood but were now being forced to face. This awakening subsequently put quite a bit of pressure on black people to answer questions and be vulnerable as we shared our stories and relived trauma over and over again. Co-workers began asking for ways to be better allies, what to study/watch to understand centuries of hardship, systemic racism and injustice. Companies started to emphasize the importance of diversity and scramble to put together curriculums and programs to educate employees, often asking black employees to share their thoughts on race. It was during this time I, along with a group of other women in my office from all different backgrounds started to ask those same questions of accountability of our own workplace. We put together plans to impact inclusion and diversity. It was incredible to see how quickly our team of women was able to get a succinct document finalized and share it with other groups, so we were all on the same page. It was a little disheartening, though, considering the crux of the asks weren’t new, and before the protests who knows if they would’ve been taken as seriously. That’s just me being cynical…. but also honest. It’s easier to make changes when they’re being made all around you and people are demanding them at such a large scale. However, there is no secret that tech is notoriously homogenous and favors white men be placed in positions of power. Anyway, it was around this time I found it almost unbearable to focus during meetings let alone client calls.
I would have days where it was not just difficult to prioritize work, but I began to feel like maybe I was being too emotional or too affected by what was happening. Not everyone on my team seemed to be feeling as upset as I was or at least we never really talked about it as a larger group. It didn’t seem like anything slowed down at all. Yes, we were having more conversations about race at work and there was a tacit understanding black employees were going through it, but that didn’t mean work slowed down. Clients still wanted to have their calls, which was tough but unavoidable. Work was still moving and expectations were still set. However, we were told that if we needed to take time to do so. That was actually incredibly helpful during this time. The company did make a point to tell employees their mental health was most important overall throughout the pandemic. The only issue with being in a client-facing role and hearing a well-meant directive like that was, it isn’t that easy.
My team in particular was also going through a merge, which meant shifting responsibilities and lots of unknowns. Usually, I am absolutely flexible and can roll with the punches, but with current events weighing so consistently and so heavily on my mind, my usual resilience to change was falling flat. It was frustrating not to be able to just do my job and not think about what felt like an impending apocalypse. Sure, I had weeks even months where I was able to mildly successfully compartmentalize, but those months turned into weeks turned into days and then turned into hours.
The demands of the clients didn’t slow down, so all sorts of questions that required a level of brainpower that I sometimes just couldn’t muster would still wind up in my queue and I had to, as mentioned before, power through it. My calls started to feel less and less fulfilling. I used to enjoy getting to the bottom of an issue or solving a client’s pain point, but after everything that was happening- the global pandemic, not being able to hug my family, non-black people finally processing glaring inequalities, Trump’s inflammatory remarks and lack of action to control the virus, police brutality, protests- it all felt so underwhelming. I couldn’t find the joy in my job anymore, and I found myself wondering why and how I’d even gotten to this point. Did I ever even really like what I was doing all these years or was I just there for a paycheck? Was there any part of me that wanted to do something different? The answer was a resounding yes.
I spoke with one of our coaches and tried to get to the bottom of what excited me about work and how I built work relationships with others. I discovered I really like connecting people and being a teacher. I also realized that the current position I was in didn’t allow me to do a lot of things that did energize me. I was also trying to reconcile the nature of the work and clientele I was working with and was finding it hard to accept. A few other things happened around the end of my tenure that really cemented my decision, which I won’t get into here, but made this move that much easier.
The people I work with are amazing and have kept me here as long as I have. I’m really gonna miss them, but really need to follow my heart and figure things out.
So, I quit. I put in my notice of resignation and today is my last day. It took me 9+ years on my career journey to be able to take this break and reassess, but I am extremely happy, nervous, excited, and relieved that I made the decision I did. One of my coworkers was telling me about this book she was reading about endings and new beginnings. She basically said, even if the decision to end one journey isn’t super clear, the end of one journey will always bring on the beginning of a new one. It sounds super obvious, but it was exactly what I needed to hear at the time.
I’m now on that new journey. I’m not 100% sure where my new path is going to lead me, but I do know I’m ready for it.
Also, I would be remiss not to mention how effing happy I am about how the election results are coming out. The icing on the cake.
HAPPY FRIDAY!