End of an Era
As you see on the title of this post, it is the end of a personal era for me. As of today, I'm not working two jobs anymore. I'm only working one.
I won't get into too many personal details. There is a lot that could give me away. But those of you who know the situation and are reading this, you know.
With that said, I can still take some time to share some of the lessons I have learned from working this job for multiple years.
- Corporate doesn't care. I know, obvious is obvious on that one. But the place I worked for... they were given a reputation of somehow being better than the normal corporate competition. Did they prove themselves wrong on multiple occasions during the time I worked there. For a company that seemed to state this to their customers on a regular basis and making it a selling point on their recruitment advertisements, this is a lie. They don't care. Not by any measurement.
- Employees are not important. The place I worked for often prided themselves in having a "Disney Hospitality" mindset when it came to taking care of customers. If that just gave my employer away to you, then I would like to remind you that this mentality came at the expense of not caring about the employees. I know -yet again- obvious is obvious. But it stings a little more to know that this mentality often came with the price tag of "we love our employees, but not really." I cannot tell you how many times something would come up for a fellow employee, but the management would be barely civil if not cold toward that employee and their situation. To be fair, I don't point any fingers toward corporate, but toward the specific management team that I had to work with for as long as I did. Speaking of...
- My "big boss" (not to reveal the actual title of his job, which could reveal my former workplace) and his second-in-command are not nice people to work with. I can count on one hand how many positive interactions I have seen with either him or his second-in-command manager. I personally didn't have any interaction with my big boss, and maybe one with the second-in-command in the multiple years I worked there. But then again, my particular "department" (again, used to not give away too much info) was often ignored or dismissed by these two people in particular. There was only one manager that came over to check on us, but it was not often and usually happened because an emergency or customer complaint came up.
- Metrics are a poor method for determining my status in the health of a company. My particular department hangs on two threads. Both are metrics determined by a set of apps that were often buggy or glitchy, even after multiple attempts at communication. A lot of my problems arose because of the very specific parameters that I had to work with. Those parameters came from expectations that did not seem to match realistic, situational awareness. And even when attempts were made to improve my metrics, those attempts were often met with the cold splash of real life. And this is what ultimately drove this job and I apart.
In the grand scheme of things in my life, this is the second time that a job I had and the reality of my personality and life situations did not align after a period of time. Usually, I walked away from a job with a much more pleasant ending than I had with this job. But hey. I now have the insight into my own personality and life journey that I have never had before. I have learned that I really do work hard, whether or not my work was being judged. I know now that I can hold my own in confrontations where someone was taking things too far. I know that there is a better way to detach that does not involve self-hatred. I know now that some places where I am don't always align with who I am; on top of that, I don't have to give any of my emotions or energy to those misaligned places. It goes for people as well. And it is the most beautiful thing I've learned.
Truly, I learned so much from this company and the people I've been around. And if someone can take away anything from reading this, let it be this: You can work somewhere for a while; but when the time comes around and you can feel that things are going to not go well, leave. Leave and don't feel attached to what is going on. It will help you so much in the long run of life.
Now that this era is over, I'm hoping to get some more time in on the things I've sort of neglected over the last few years. I hope you will join me in this new era unfolding with all its mysteries to come.
With Peace and Strength,
Ani