“Thank you for joining this meeting. As you can see we have HR here. I have some difficult information.”

Wait what??

“I’m sorry but we have decided to go a different direction”

What what??!!??

This is a story that is heard far and wide throughout the tech space. My story is not a unique one. And if we are being honest here, there are some who probably think karma finally got me.

Hiring and firing – it’s just a part of business. The harsh reality is that people are commodities meant to serve a purpose until they don’t. Sometimes people are let go because their performance doesn’t match up. Other times companies have over hired and need to downsize their teams. Then there are the instances where things are going ok but not the way they could be. And sometimes it’s because you aren’t a member of the cool kids club.

You are never prepared- It doesn’t matter if you knew it was coming because you weren’t hitting metrics or if you had done 120% of your number and were totally blindsided.

For me I thought it was a joke- a cruel joke. Spoiler alert – it wasn’t. In that moment you have some choices to make. Do you flip a table Teresa G style? Maybe use it as an opportunity to express exactly how you feel. You could demand answers that will never be provided. Crying seems pretty worthless but I guess it’s an option. In the end though what good does any of that do? Maybe you feel better in the moment but ultimately it’s useless. You get the information you need, get out of the meeting and start to process.

For me that “process” looks a little like “OMG I’m such a bum. An unemployed bum. What am I going to do???” Followed by a call to Husband who is as much in disbelief as I am.

As a thinker and an over analyzer, silence isn’t my friend. You won’t often find me sitting in the quiet – there is always music or the TV on to provide a soundtrack to my life and quiet the things that bounce around in my brain. The sound drowns out the over thinker who sits up there brooding, agonizing for years over a random off hand comment I made – my brain just can’t let things go. So to counter this, I stay busy, keep my mind occupied and my body moving. This was no exception. I used this as a time to (poorly) re-do a hallway toy storage cabinet. I spent hours and hours on the phone with former co-workers and friends chatting and reconnecting about life, family, business. I de-stuffied C’s room and purged old and broken toys. I Marie Kondo’d the house – bring joy or get out. I spent a Friday afternoon with friends floating in the pool. Ironically though I haven’t had to tamp down those over thinking thoughts. That brooding voice has been silent.

The reality is that under that sound and activity, I was processing. Scared, embarrassed, confused, left without closure. I had spent hours and hours in a virtual kitchen. Blood, sweat and tears poured into it all. Curating all of the best equipment, hand selecting the ingredients, painstakingly agonizing over every single measurement. I was walked out of the kitchen with the cake still in the oven. That’s a little extreme but that is how it felt. The ongoing kick in the face was texts, calls and messages from people looking for me because I hadn’t shown up to meetings or not responded to messages. I couldn’t just forget.

This isn’t the kind of thing you get closure for. Its simply a part of my story. Jocko would say “Good” – it means I have more time now to get better. “When things are going bad there are going to be some good things to come of it.” TSwift would say “thank you” – “I pushed each boulder up the hill….I built a legacy that you can’t undo”. There is probably some truth in both and that’s what I have been searching for.

Let’s rewind a bit…. Shortly after I started putting words to blog here and telling my story, my work life changed. A new boss, a new structure – change. There is a reason there are books, podcasts, leadership training focused specifically on change management. Change is HARD. I really struggled but for different reasons than you might think. I went from carrying the virtual weight of the decisions, implications, every day nuances, managing up and down, spread too thin and poorly balancing work and family to living in a metaphorical hula hoop with a new mentor who cancelled most of our 1:1s, left me to find out about business decisions accidentally from 3rd parties, and went through the motions for the show of it all. I wasn’t just riding the struggle bus, I was driving it with a suspended license. I felt a loyalty to the business, I loved my team, believed in the market, was passionate about the mission – I felt trapped with no way out. The inspiration I once had to spin words into stories was gone. I was focused on reframing my mindset and that took up all the creative energy I had left in me.

I’m not angry, I don’t hate anyone, in fact I am cheering the team on. Lets be honest – if for no other reason than to not watch the thing I spent all that time on on flush down the drain. Let’s not let those unhealthy work life balance moments be for nothing please and thank you.

It was my time to move on, to push myself in a different way and find a new challenge. I took some time, I did some soul searching and am really excited for this next chapter and this morning, as I was laying in bed at 5am the words started flowing again.

I have lots of thoughts and words to say about my experience, the tech world in general, the state of employment practices, all the things. But for now I just want to say “Thank You” to everyone who rallied around me, called, texted, commiserated over wine and cheese, believe in me, supported me and have just been there – “There wouldn’t be this if there hadn’t been you”.