Coming out of the maze

[flexagon]

I am allowed to write about work again. After weeks of agonizing, an embarrassing number of flip-flops, several periods of threatening and bargaining, hours of meetings, and a lot of crying as if I had real problems, I'm officially planning to switch groups at work. Both teams sent out announcements about it today, which makes it real, although I won't move until July.

I'm not sure I've ever faced such a complex decision before. This involved, in part:

• Local manager versus remote manager?
• Be someone's first remote sub-manager... dicey... or be in someone's first batch of sub-managers ever, when you think that'll involve a major adjustment?
• User visible stuff with lots of cancelled projects and frustrating priority changes, or grungier less glamorous infrastructure with a better decision maker?
• Work for a major product, or a smaller team on which your mere presence will be vital for growth at your site?
• Work with superstar peers of varying degrees of friendliness, or unknowns who love you?
• Leave something you spent the last three years building some identity around?
• Keep a good relationship with a frustratingly flighty manager, or risk a steady-seeming but new manager?
• Work whose value is easier to prove, or harder?
• Manage two of your friends, who you like but that's the whole problem, or people less familiar to you?
• Greater challenge, or less stress?

YOU ARE LOST IN A MAZE OF TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL DIFFERENT.

And it's impressive how my brain managed to take two essentially good options and worry that much about it all. For a solid 10 days there I was convinced that either option was BAD... I mean, that either one would be the defining mistake of my entire 30s and I would spend all my time gazing wistfully over at the team I wasn't on.

In the end, a wildcard came flying out of nowhere on Tuesday: a very good engineer who is moving to our office, who was interested in the same two positions I was and misses the chaos of working on the visible stuff. (Girl, have I got the group for you!) She has the capacity to be energized by things that totally drain me. One look at her and I realized that a) she's my perfect backfill... replacement, upgrade! no need to feel guilty about leaving if she's coming in and b) that shit does totally drain me. I really do need a change. That's that, then.

Comments

[miyyu.livejournal.com]

Those kind of moments of clarity are so rare and wonderful. I'm glad you had one. Being somewhere that doesn't drain you is paramount.

[flexagon]

Thanks. I really had to wait for this one, much longer than was comfortable.

[niralth.livejournal.com]

Boy oh boy do I know where you are coming from! Three years ago I took on managing my sleepy infrastructurey engineering team, and it has been okay. Then a year ago I took on managing a second team too, a drama filled highly visible stressful oh my god the sky is falling every day, daily status emails to the CTO team.

Maternity leave is giving me lots and lots of time to go down the rabbit hole of "do I want to keep that team?" and "do I want to stay a manager?" thoughts. Ugh, endless tight circles of thought.

I'm glad that clarity presented itself!

[flexagon]

This would be your second maternity leave then? Congratulations. This sounded familiar, so I went and re-read your last LJ post (that's visible to me, anyway), which was on this exact topic and was from April 2011. It doesn't really sound like you were that sure about managing even the first team, at the time you took on the second one. :-/

It's amazing how the culture we're in encourages people to always take on the greatest challenge, whether or not it's appropriate. The choice I made was seen by a couple of people as the one that would present less challenge (even though I will have to learn and grow a fair amount there, too), and I really had to struggle with that. In acroyoga there's a core principle of "accurate self-assessment", where people are encouraged to decide for themselves "you know, I don't think I'm ready for that; let's practice the last variation some more." I wish that same principle were widely known and upheld in business, but it's not, which makes it that much more difficult to discover and stand by.

Hope this isn't a repeat for you -- LJ ate my first attempt at this, so I did my best to retype my thoughts.

[niralth.livejournal.com]

(LJ fully ate your first attempt, so this wasn't a repeat)

Yup, second maternity leave. Child 2 is 7 weeks old, and I'm basking in the knowledge that I'll never be pregnant again! :)

You are very right. I wasn't sure about managing but took on the first team. I still wasn't sure but took on the second. And now, at the end of my second maternity leave, I'm still not sure. I really hope I'm not proving the Peter Principle correct!

I'm not freaking out about it all as much this time around, because I know that:
* Working in software is still a great way to make a living and support my family.
* My employer is a lot more interested in keeping me than in seeing me in any given role. I see folks change roles all the time.
* I'm working 4 day weeks through the end of this year, so I hopefully won't feel so suffocated.
* I have a plan to fit in some coding again, between all the meetings and email. I really miss coding.

I'm really hoping that the coding plan, in particular, works out. I don't think I'd mind managing so much if I was still a direct part of the creation process.

[godream.livejournal.com]

I am way excited for you :) Congrats.

[flexagon]

Thanks! I am growing somewhat less excited. In a good, calming the hell down kind of way. :)