Don't Listen

I know, I know, that last post was very short and pretty cryptic - sorry about that. This one is going to be a long, rambly one, so fasten your seatbelts if you are in for the ride.

So, the news, in a nutshell: I landed myself a new job that I'm pretty excited about. It's not just the change itself (after all, I celebrated my 10th anniversary at the Firm 2 weeks ago) and the fact that this will only be my 3rd employer, not counting student "McJobs" - I'm very loyal, me - but the fact that it was such a smooth experience.

As a bit of context for those who don't know me IRL - the last 1.5 years were mildly upsetting and very paradox, job-wise for me. The job-role I had before the current one was discontinued (at least in the team I worked in) and my headcount eliminated, which meant I had to find an alternative. Thankfully, I managed to transfer to the one area that I had always been keen to work in. The catch was, it was a temporary arrangement (maternity cover) and one-way ticket of sorts. Due to the fact that I was not only interested in the field, but obviously not bad at it, my manager and everyone else involved were keen on keeping me and thus we found a way to extend the deal (to the end of May to be precise) and were hoping that "something will come up". What DID come up was a massive reorganisation that thwarted all my hopes and "displaced" several people. I received the bad news 2 days before I left for my trip to New York and it was a big blow. Won't lie, I cried myself to sleep 2 nights in a row and possibly would have done so longer if said trip had not distracted me. However, if there's one role I don't want to see myself in, it is that of victim and therefore I returned to work after that trip determined that I would definitely squeeze those metaphorical lemons I had been handed into some damn tasty lemonade. Cheers!

Earlier on the day my manager told handed me the reorg bombshell, I received a voicemail from a recruiter. It was for a job I had applied for in February. Actually the first application I sent out, realising I better start looking into a Plan B before Plan A won't work out...which it didn't. I was invited for an interview the day after my return from NYC. Unfortunately, the job posting had since been deactivated and was not even to be retrieved in the cache of the platforms it was posted on. Ooops. I had only a dim recollection of what it had said...Be that as it may, the interview obviously went well and after some more weeks of silence, I received a very good offer the Friday before last. I will begin in July and since I have annual leave to use up to in my current job, I am looking forward to enjoying 7.5 weeks of summer vacation in between.

The whole experience reminded me of my first job move from Coma HQ, where I had worked for 9 years, to the Firm. Several of my colleagues at Coma HQ were frustrated and bored, but kept "reassuring" one another that it would be so difficult to find something out in the real world, since after a long time in a civil-service-ish environment nobody would want you, regardless of qualifications. Somehow, this was just the common assumption. Well, I applied for ONE job exactly and it led me to the Firm, one of the most coveted employers out there, with a notoriously rigorous interview process and an unfavourable ratio of applicants vs job offers. 

Despite it being such a prized employer, I have met my fair share of frustrated employees at the Firm during those past ten years, but they are very reluctant to move or even start looking for something else as everyone believes that they will have to work for a fraction of their salaries and will lose all the many perks and goodies they have been enjoying. I never really challenged that. Guess what - not so, at least in my case. Yes, I won't have those perks any more, but I won't have to supplement my income with a side job. Far from it. 

So, yes, I have proved the sceptics wrong twice, finding a great job with minimal effort. Whether this new one will work out for me, we shall see, but  - guess what - I have a feeling they won't tie me to my swivel chair with masking tape and I will be free to go if I don't like it.

This post has been bubbling inside me for a while and I really wanted to share my thoughts in case you have been held back by superstition or bad advice yourself. Don't listen to the sceptics, but trust your gut instinct and give it a go. If nothing comes out of it the first time, it will be a good experience and you'll rock it next time. 

A few weeks ago (before Bombshell Day) I had lunch with some colleagues and one of them asked me if I was worried with that damocles sword of being out of a job dangling over me for over a year now and I replied that, while it wasn't the most pleasant of experiences, deep down, I was very calm and confident and believed my mantra of sorts ("everything will be alright")  that was strategically placed on my work laptop: