I’ve mentioned in my previous blogs about how I lost my job at the beginning of January. I was not on any type of performance plan and I was pretty shocked when it happened. I was not given any specific reason, just told that I didn’t fit into the culture (after 9 years?) and was given a severance package.
I was at the company for almost nine years and during that time, I had been involved in everything I could possibly be involved in. I was on the volunteer committee, I volunteered at a local elementary school, I had planned company social get togethers, and I was a co-chair for the United Way campaign.
I was told that if I was involved and continued to do a good job, I would have opportunity at the company. Management approached me to apply for certain opportunities. I applied for a team lead position that I was approached and encouraged to apply for. The position was given to a male coworker that had 9 years less experience than me, who I trained and taught him everything I know. He continued on to get a supervisory role, that I also applied for, even after coworkers went to upper management to let them know that he can’t answer questions and is completely unapproachable.
After that I continued to try to have a positive attitude. Being the idiot I am, I believed that at the right time I would be given the right opportunity. I tried again and the vacant team lead position was given to yet another guy that had less than 5 years of experience (I had over 14 years at that time). After that, I realized that I was done and I no longer gave a fuck. I started casually looking for jobs but wasn’t really serious. I just decided that I would do the minimal amount of work I needed to do to keep my job and would focus on other things.
I started going to the Appleton studio on Mondays and Thursdays for my lunch break and I found that it really helped me feel better about things. I was nervous doing that because I had a fear that leaving the building for that long would eventually get me into trouble. But I needed that time to get out of the negative environment.
A lot of people will tell you that the company that I was at was a great place to work. For the first five years I was there, I thought so too. Then I started seeing things that I wasn’t too impressed with and it’s a hard pill to swallow when someone who has no clue what they are doing gets promoted over you .
Am I bitter? I’m really trying not to be. For the first time in a long time, I feel happy and positive about my future. I don’t have stomach problems, headaches and the amount of anxiety I used to have. I felt sick driving to work.
Six weeks ago, I was scared and depressed. I sat at my computer all day applying for jobs. After two weeks I started getting phone interviews and often had 2-3 phone interviews a day. I have had five local interviews, a company flew me to Denver to interview for a position last week ( I would be working from home), and this week I will be flying to Cincinnati for another work from home position. I also have two other companies that I am in the process of interviewing with next week.
The other day, I saw this awesome and completely uplifting post on the Aerial Dance page. I love reading the sayings and thinking about how they could apply to my life. The post said,
“When you replace “why is this happening to me? With “what do I need to learn from this” everything shifts.
Everything happens for a reason. I realize that I was stuck and should have been looking for something that would make me truly happy. All of this happened so that I get to the place that I am supposed to be and where I can be happy.