Reality

  Posted on January 14, 2015 By

 40 Comments

Why hello reality, it’s been a while. Thank you for stopping by to slap me across the face. With you in my face, I know you will try to shake me to my core, but not today! I’m having none of it, I’m just not interested.

So, my work crises that has been well entrenched for the last year, is officially rearing its ugly head and reminded me that there is a reason I’ve spent so much time talking about leaving my old profession and moving on to something else.

Let me briefly set the stage. I’ve met with my old boss a few times over the last few months. There was talk that I would do some consulting work from home with them, one day a week. The two main reasons I wanted to do this is that I could focus on the adoption process and we would have a bit of income which would really help with the costs of our international adoption. Yes, this meant I would be in the same industry, but it felt like a really good balance for the moment as I needed some income and had the flexibility to work from home and work on projects on my own terms. This also meant I could use my remaining time to map out the next steps of my career without too much pressure to actually do so.

Well, like normal, nothing with my old company goes smoothly. They got their noses bent out of shape, and have now blacklisted me from working for the company!

Blacklisting a person may seem like a drastic step, but I know I was thrown under the bus by my old boss to the senior manager.  I have no doubt she left out a few critical details.  Heck, my old boss even admitted it to me. This person has done this to me before, so I’m just not all that surprised.  Her suggestion to the issue, I speak directly to the senior manager in a few weeks time to discuss the fall out as she would still like to work with me.

So, I sit here thinking about what does this mean for me? I have two opposing perspectives of the situation:

  1. My Recent Spiraling Into Worry Perspective – I no longer have an “easy” feed for some consulting work. Maybe I should meet with him to try and smooth things over – that easy work feed would be nice. This makes my ability to spend time working on developing my own business harder, as I will have virtually income in the interim. It’s pretty hard to find part-time professional work (in my old profession), so should I just start looking for a full time job? Yet, I still don’t know what it is I actually want to do when I grow up. And it’s so hard to change careers successfully. Heck, should I just go work at Starbucks and call it good enough? No, my ego will get in the way of that, and I do like my professional wage. Oh shit, what should I do? I really need to get this figured out.
  2. My Pre-RPL Attitude – I am officially done with them! I have not been employed by them since May, 2014 and yet I have been constantly dealing with their crap! I owe them nothing, and so it’s time to move on and look out for me. My mental health matters, and so it’s time to move on. I would rather be unemployed and live in a cardboard box then work for them again. It’s not a great time to start a consulting firm, but is there ever a great time? I’ll do my best and re-evaluate in a few months.

I need to be me again, and key to my personality is confidence and self-worth. An employer who was at times verbally abusive and took me for granted combined with recurrent pregnancy slowly eroded away at my confident spark. I became a shell of myself simply walking through the days, and I’m no longer okay with that. I’ve been working to getting back to me on the RPL and personal side of my life, but now it’s time to do the same on my professional side. I need to continue to strive to get my professional spark back, and get back to being me.

So today, I choose to walk away from that employer and move on. I choose to use this as my motivation to step back into the game and to overcome. I will focus my effort into watching more job ads, reviewing companies that interest me and strategizing to build my own consulting firm. If my eyes are truly wide open, eventually an opportunity will present itself. I don’t know what the path will look like, and I know it won’t be easy. In fact, I may even fail. But, as long as I can hold my head high, be true to my ethics and integrity, then the rest really doesn’t matter.

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 Category: Work      Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

40 Comments on “Reality”

    • Thanks so much for your encouragement. I know it’s best to walk away, but I just hate that after all the effort I put in to leave on good terms that it fell apart anyways. But, I guess that just goes to show that I was never going to win with them.

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  3. Sorry things blew up the way they did, but so proud of you for finally walking away!! I know you’ve been stressing about this for a while, and I’m sure it brings you a fair amount of peace to just be done with them. If they made you that unhappy, it’s just not worth it to try to keep up the toxic relationship. I’m sure it won’t be easy, but I hope that new things fall into place for you and you find yourself in a new happy career. 🙂

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  4. Great decision! Once the waters are muddied at work, it’s very hard to make them crystal clear and clean again. I’d do the same thing!

    This is exciting!!!

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    • You make such a great point Courtney. With all the emotional baggage that went along with that place, I was never going to be happy. So, now it’s all about moving onwards and upwards. 🙂

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  6. Without knowing what field you’re in, I can’t really have an opinion … but I have to say it makes me a little sad to see you seriously considering a full-time job and a career when you’re shortly (I hope VERY shortly!) going to have care of an infant. No, no, please don’t assume I’m judging – I’m not, okay? Everyone has their own priorities and needs, and I get that. But … I really hope you find a way to be home, be a full-time mom. I made that choice when my daughter was in preschool – and I made it as a single parent, at a time when the economy was in the toilet, so it wasn’t easy to freelance and consult from home. It was challenging, but I will never regret it.

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    • Adoption can take years – sitting at home just waiting for it will make it feel like longer. Work is the most flexible thing – you can give notice/round up contracts and be done in a few weeks, regardless of your parenting approach.

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    • I think you both make very good points, and points that Mr. MPB and I have been talking about like mad for the last little while.
      We want to raise our kids and not have a sitter do it for us. We are very fortunate in that we can afford for me not to work. And, we are told me not working full time will likely expedite a match with a birth mother because the birth mothers want to know that we will be raising the child.
      The problem is that I cannot just sit around not working until we finally get places with our baby, which could take a few years.
      Ideally, I would love to work 1 or 2 days a week now and while we have a child. I want to stay engaged in my industry and contribute to our finances. However, only working 1 or 2 days a week will make it much harder for me to find traditional professional employment. So, contract work could be a great idea, if I can actually get any. And it would really help if I knew what I wanted to do.
      Alternatively, I could just get a full time position and go on paternity leave when the child comes (I will be entitled to 36 weeks on EI where I live). But honestly, I really just don’t want to work full time these days.
      So, there are lots of options, I just need to figure out what to do next.

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  7. Good for you to leave the toxic old company behind, even though it’s harder to start your business. They sound awful. I can’t believe they blacklisted you! I love that this is the start of a new building up of the confidence shattered by RPL, a new start even if it’s difficult. I wish you all the best!

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    • Well, in their defense, it’s pretty easy to blacklist someone when you don’t know what actually happened. But, now not in their defense, honestly, they know me and they know the top quality work I produce. They should be smart enough to know that what they were being told was BS.
      Anyways, thank you so much for your encouragement! I do hope this works out. 🙂

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  8. Yay! I was reading along and hoping you threw up the deuces and rolled out! Good for you; leave the drama behind. Besides, new doors sometimes don’t open until you’ve slammed the old ones closed. Congrats on the fresh start!

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    • Thank you so much for your encouragement ABM! I think you are right that this door needed to be slammed shut, because I wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping it closed myself. Here’s to hoping good things are just around the corner. 🙂

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  9. Yes! Good for you! I had a boss line that and after 8 months in my new job, I am FINALLY feeling more confident again. Making little errors everyone else has made before no longer throws me into a downward spiral of self-loathing. I’ve learned we need to do what WE need to do. And you do not need to subject yourself to that.

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  12. I think looking for something flexible that still gives you freedom and allows an income is the best thing to do. Don’t deal with your old company – they had their chance and they blew it. Good luck!! X

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  13. I am glad that you chose your happiness and mental health. I’m so sorry for what happened and that you have been treated so poorly. I am sending positive thoughts your way and hope things turn out how you want them to!

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    • Thank you so much! In so many ways I’m thrilled that they finally slammed the door on me working there, because honestly, I was struggling to keep the door closed even though I left them months ago.

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  14. I’m rooting for you!! Figure out what you want to do. Put it out there. You are an amazingly qualified professional woman. You will succeed – without the unnecessary abuse from an employer.

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  15. I’m one of those people, where if I’m unhappy, i’m out the door. It sounds to me like your motivated, ready for a change ( this would be a great ime for it, wouldnt it, with the rest of your life potentially changing very soon), and willing to go out there and get it! Proud of you for doing what feela good and right!

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  16. Congrats! Try to give yourself a break and enjoy it! I am still on the “easy feed” but am not sure how long it will last…but I am proud of you for knowing when enough is enough! I, too, get that having professional work is the only way it will work…and am also waiting for adoption to hurry itself up so I don’t feel so stuck between things! I know, as you do, that leaving a bad situation will improve your soul even when our career ego tries to screw it all up for us…relax and enjoy more of the good parts of life! 🙂

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    • You just nailed half what my issue is – my career ego! If I could figure out how to put that aside, I’m sure I’d be able to cope with all this work stuff so much better!

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      • Agh, I had a huge career ego but then – 6 months after my firm paid for my entire MBA and 3 years after they allowed me to start telecommuting 5 hours away…I got let go out of the blue. There was new mgmt and they wanted the “me” in the office. I had to figure out how to be okay with getting dumped for doing nothing wrong and quite a bit right (I had also just told them I might start a family after they asked…that was probably a mistake too)….anyway, I had to give it up because it was so horrible for me and my ego was soooooo mad! But, now, I consult in the industry and know I am lucky I had good enough contacts to still have an opportunity! With the miscarriages and my pup almost dying…I just couldn’t handle all the negativity and knew I had to come to terms with the job stuff. I really hope you can find a way to do that too…it isn’t easy every day but I am mostly okay with it and happy to have more time to deal with all the emotional “family planning” (ha!) stuff. 🙂 I feel like you are already working so much of it out.

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      • Thank you so much for sharing! Most days I do appreciate that I do have the time to focus on the emotional stuff we have been dealing with, but I am absolutely still struggling with the whole work thing. Really, it’s my professional ego that’s getting in the way of letting me let go. And I know I’m letting my ego have this much control, but here I am doing it. And funny enough, I am consulting right now – very similar to you – but me/my ego still is not accepting that this is enough. Maybe eventually I’ll come to a better place of acceptance.

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      • I totally do get it. I guess since it was your choice to leave you didn’t get the ego crash I did when I had to realize that it really can happen to anyone. Although my work was so unhealthy for me, much like it was for you, I slowly let go. This also was the first big thing to happen to me – before the miscarriages and even almost losing my dog (I know that sounds silly but I also know your pup must be your kid right now too in so many ways) – so I think my ego fell a long way down first…and then the professional ego kept melting away as the other hard stuff kept coming. But, that’s just me. But it does probably have something to do with me having to realize I wasn’t invincible even though I was great at my job. Big, good lesson of compassion!

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      • You give me so much hope that I will adjust to my new work situation!
        And honestly, I cannot even begin to imagine how horrible almost losing your dog was – you are right, ours is very much our child, and I think loosing her would push me right over the edge. Just thinking about her being hurt or sick makes me tear up! Thankfully she’s doing just fine so I really have no reason to worry. 🙂

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