Well, that was intensely painful.

[flexagon]

On Monday it happened; I lost that cute little team that I started 2.5 years ago, and I did not crack and tell them early in our team meeting... but maybe I wish I had. They were devastated, and I'm not saying that lightly or to brag. Exactly as anticipated, it got so much worse when they realized that they might not get their expected new teammate because the new manager wasn't just going to go ahead with the plans I'd made. There was anger. I tried to explain to this new manager that the team felt betrayed, and he tried to tell me that seemed "immature", and I didn't quite slap him (mostly because this was over chat). Our director's town hall about the whole thing didn't go as well as his, honestly, usually do. My people -- not my people anymore -- cried in some of the goodbye 1:1s, and I worried about them, and I worried about maybe being a shitty leader who can't create resilient teams, and I worried about other people being such shitty leaders that they immediately start to kick apart whatever nice thing they're handed, and maybe that's not my fucking fault, huh.


Thursday, my very last workday, which I faced on 5.5 hours of sleep, was the most exhausting and the first to at least have better outcomes. There was a nice meet-and-greet with my new team (yes, there's a team I picked up, also, and in a way I'm getting them back because, like, I founded them back in the day!), a hot-seat situation with anonymous questions. And the new manager and I both did a meeting with the devastated team, and came clean about the fact that we both felt surprised and screwed over by various aspects of the reorg too! Raise your hand if you think Director could have done better this week I said, and all hands went up and it was like tension hissing out of a balloon. I also, and this is separate, had an entirely different idea that may help this new manager with the other half of his team..... taking pressure off the ones I care about. This entry must be incomprehensible, sorry, the point is that I exhausted myself and I cried too, and the squirrel had such a bizarre workweek that it sounds like a parody of corporate dysfunction (executives dysfunction?). For our date we were just zombies together, and not in a Halloween way.

I was grateful to have "coffee" with motyl and a couple of other work-friends, scattered into my two days at the office. Relationships outlast companies all the time; once I'm out I think I'll get a lot more systematic about making some of these work-friends into out-in-the-world friends, maybe even using something like these.

Now I'm flying to Costa Rica, beginning a swoosh that will take me very quickly through a lot of November. With my teams changing, and That Thing happening next week while I'm gone, I feel like I'm posting this from an even more liminal space than an airplane usually is. What country will I come back to?

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-be-away-from-my-desk-on-november-6

Yeah... far far away.

Comments

[nicki]

It'll be the same country, just one you might be more disappointed in than you thought you'd be. Elections don't change the country, elections just tell us who we already are.

[flexagon]

I wish I agreed with you, but I think the decision of who has positional authority does make a difference -- or at least augur future differences.

[nicki]

I'm hoping that what we have been getting is an extinction burst, but I don't know how long that would take for an entire country.

[ckd]

I hope the trip gives you what you need.

(I've had my own share of new lines in the Reorginator output this year, but with less direct impact on me since Mongo only pawn in game of life.)

[flexagon]

I am envious of Mongo.

[tactilemuse]

As someone who is also deeply involved in the corporate world, I feel this post with every fiber of my being. Our work place has been very chaotic lately and it's honestly left me feeling shell shocked. I'll send hope that we both weather the end of year storms as best we can.

[flexagon]

Ah, I'm sorry that you too are entangled. It's nice to think that this post made sense to someone, even though I also wish it made sense to no one! I'm glad for both of us that October is over... THIS month contains some holidays.

[randysmith]

Wow, I'm so sorry. That sounds like a large CF (I almost said "gigantic", but then I reflected on both of our likely scales for CFs). I hope your old team manages ok. I hope *you* do ok. And I hope their new manager grows up :-(.

[bolson]

> that seemed "immature"

Sounds to me like 'people should just be worker cogs and do what they are told'

:-/

[flexagon]

It was uncomfortably close to that. And also with some hint of "the worker cogs ought to be deeply sensitive to his, their new overlord's feelings". To be fair though, a couple of days of near-open revolt scared him straight and now he's planning to hire more in line with what the team needs. Maybe, indeed, the same candidate I had in mind.

[jadia]

Oof that sounds rough. Sorry to hear that. But enjoy your vacay!

[flexagon]

I am listening to the rain falling onto jungle foliage as we speak.