Musing on New Job Eve
Mar. 14th, 2022 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ayelienneit was unexpected, this time away from a work place. A little more than six months. I am not sure I've ever had this much time not working since my first job at age 16. The global meat grinder known as "the Pandemic" wore all of us down, stressed us all in ways seen and unseen, over the last two plus years. I was employed for the initial wave, actually was traveling for most of February 2020 and suspect I was exposed to the virus at a minimum and perhaps came down with a mild case right before the lockdown. But work didn't stop for me or for so many others employed in the tech space. I had been working remotely for seven years prior to January 2020 but there wasn't enough time to adapt to the new, local workplace we moved into before everything shut down. Remote work was what I was used to. I wasn't used to the deaths, or the sky turning orange, or the cloth masks, or a million other things we figured and felt our way through in the intervening months. Eventually, the vaccine arrived and with it came the hope of some normalcy, even if it wasn't a normal we were completely familiar with. But then came the Delta wave, and we hunkered down again for the summer. The layoff came at the beginning of September.
When I recovered from the shock of the layoff, I had a decision to make. How hard and how soon did I need to look for a new job? I halfheartedly applied to a position and was relieved when I didn't hear back. The truth was, I needed to step away. I was not well in spirit or mind or body; like so many of us, I hadn't had time to grieve and there had been so much to grieve. I halfheartedly applied to two more positions, had an initial interview for one of them. I wasn't upset when they said my skill set wasn't a match for their revised needs of the job. My friends wanted to help me, but they asked me what I wanted to do or how I wanted to spend my work day and I didn't have a ready answer.
I didn't know how I felt. I hadn't allowed myself to feel for so many months, because I learned feelings weren't helpful to me in a pandemic. I had too many other people and things to take care of, there wasn't time to feel.
But then, there was time. Unexpectedly, there was time.
I stopped worrying about what my next job was going to be. I stopped visiting LinkedIn, turned off all the job alerts I had signed up for. I played video games where I built cities or managed kingdoms. I solved puzzles. I found a great recipe for roasted chicken and made it often enough that I don't need the recipe anymore. I sat in a chair and stared out the window. A lot. Omicron came, the next wave of our Pandemic. I stopped the occasional indoor dining. I stayed in. Gained weight. Sometimes I tidied the house and sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I listened to big band music, but often there was no music (which would be shocking to people who know me well). What was I listening to? Silence is what I was listening to. I was feeling my way back to myself.
The work would come in time, I knew, and I wanted to feel my way there, even if the path wasn't clear, even if I didn't really know what I wanted. I had friends who understood and supported this and I have walked enough journeys with myself to trust this feeling my way through. I may not know the end, but I know how to take one step forward at a time; with each step forward a new one appears. I treated myself gently and with trust.
Slowly, a new work future began to take form; one that felt right and aligned with the person I was becoming today. The person who had been given time to recover themselves from the wreckage of the last several years. It took a few months for the offer letter to arrive, and it arrived right on time, just as the bank account needed an upward trend after months of a downward one. The timing was clear, time to get back to work.
And so it begins again tomorrow morning.
And I am ready for the next chapter.
When I recovered from the shock of the layoff, I had a decision to make. How hard and how soon did I need to look for a new job? I halfheartedly applied to a position and was relieved when I didn't hear back. The truth was, I needed to step away. I was not well in spirit or mind or body; like so many of us, I hadn't had time to grieve and there had been so much to grieve. I halfheartedly applied to two more positions, had an initial interview for one of them. I wasn't upset when they said my skill set wasn't a match for their revised needs of the job. My friends wanted to help me, but they asked me what I wanted to do or how I wanted to spend my work day and I didn't have a ready answer.
I didn't know how I felt. I hadn't allowed myself to feel for so many months, because I learned feelings weren't helpful to me in a pandemic. I had too many other people and things to take care of, there wasn't time to feel.
But then, there was time. Unexpectedly, there was time.
I stopped worrying about what my next job was going to be. I stopped visiting LinkedIn, turned off all the job alerts I had signed up for. I played video games where I built cities or managed kingdoms. I solved puzzles. I found a great recipe for roasted chicken and made it often enough that I don't need the recipe anymore. I sat in a chair and stared out the window. A lot. Omicron came, the next wave of our Pandemic. I stopped the occasional indoor dining. I stayed in. Gained weight. Sometimes I tidied the house and sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I listened to big band music, but often there was no music (which would be shocking to people who know me well). What was I listening to? Silence is what I was listening to. I was feeling my way back to myself.
The work would come in time, I knew, and I wanted to feel my way there, even if the path wasn't clear, even if I didn't really know what I wanted. I had friends who understood and supported this and I have walked enough journeys with myself to trust this feeling my way through. I may not know the end, but I know how to take one step forward at a time; with each step forward a new one appears. I treated myself gently and with trust.
Slowly, a new work future began to take form; one that felt right and aligned with the person I was becoming today. The person who had been given time to recover themselves from the wreckage of the last several years. It took a few months for the offer letter to arrive, and it arrived right on time, just as the bank account needed an upward trend after months of a downward one. The timing was clear, time to get back to work.
And so it begins again tomorrow morning.
And I am ready for the next chapter.
