The third week of this new job has started, and the training has winded down. I feel that the true colors of the role are starting to shine through. I’m starting to observe certain behaviors of my boss, my co-workers. I can see the dynamics. Compare how things are done to how I would manage them. Put myself in the shoes of the boss, me as the new hire. What’s really interesting about taking a step back from management and back into an individually contributing role, it kind of shows you the weight you were carrying. How much was loaded onto your shoulders. I’m not trying to take anything away from anyone, but it’s almost as if I expanded my capacity of what I could take on and now took ten steps back. I just have so much room left over.
What’s even funnier is I remember when I was contemplating leaving, I remember thinking, “Well this is my comfort zone. I have this job down”, when referring to managing. I was so used to what was on my shoulders it didn’t even feel heavy anymore. I almost didn’t even realize it was there. In a way its kind of like trauma, it still stays in the body somewhere. Just tucked away. Comes out in other ways. Subconsciously.
So now that I was expanded to max capacity for years I’m coming back to normal. Living slowly. Having time in my morning to write this. It’s interesting because I see other people I work with stressed out, the ones that are shooting for management. The others are like me, completely content. I’m starting to think leadership is a young man’s job. I just don’t have the energy for it anymore. If someone asked me in this new company to go for it, I honestly would say no. There’s no amount of money that would make me want to take on that level of responsibility again. The difference is palpable. And my peace is priceless.
So I sit here this morning waiting for the work to come in. Trying to find things to call into. Building up my pipeline. It’s very simple really. In the grand scheme of things. But I am coming from living in pure chaos for years. I was thinking this morning about how I moved from operations leadership to sales leadership right before the pandemic. No one ever trained me, I had to train myself. Then also lead with confidence. Then be the leader through the toughest time on a sales floor. How all of that led me to a complete mental breakdown. Well, that combined with a lifetime of trauma.
So now I sit here and I wonder, is this all the job entails? I have time to take mental breaks? Zero new emails? I don’t have 10 new IM’s when I return from lunch. 100 emails a day, all of them marked high importance. And that was just normal to me. I didn’t think it had any impact. But without it it feels like im missing something. Maybe I’m just not used to being free of the stress.
The Girl Without A Face 