What I quickly found out while working at my last job was that I was trying to fit myself into this big puzzle piece but was the odd shape out. I didn't talk like them, I definitely didn't look like them, I didn't act like them and I was forcing myself to smile day in and day out when I was so miserable deep down inside.
At first I thought I was going to love the open concept of the office layout. I mean how many offices have an open layout where the CEO is sitting in a cubicle right next to you? Well, I can say that that 'oh this is so cool' feeling quickly went away. As a manager, I needed my privacy and my space. I loved my team more than anything, but many times throughout the day I would need to work on sensitive information that a regular team member could not see. It wasn't convenient getting up and going to a conference room every time I needed to do so, and most of the time all the rooms would be unavailable and being used by other managers that were selfish and not respectful of others time and they would hog the rooms for hours at a time. Bottom line I missed my office, but when I would talk about this open concept, I pretended that all was well in my world.
During the first year of working closely with my boss who was promoted shortly after I started from Director to VP, I had to sit back and watch her make a lot of bad choices. Now, don't get me wrong, my boss at the time was young and extremely intelligent and definitely knew her stuff when it came to lots of things. One thing that she didn't know about however, was managing people. Managing people is something that I excel at. I definitely know a thing or two about it. She was so concerned with the business and the numbers, that she left her people in the dust. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that she didn't realize how important the people were! Without the people you have nothing! Why didn't this intelligent young woman know this? Instead, I found myself in meeting after meeting listening to her speak along with other executive staff members and it was becoming clearer and clearer that they didn't really care about the people. They would just try to make you think that they did. They would try to throw numbers at me and kept crying about 'the data'. Well guess what? I wanted to tell them to shove their data where the sun don't shine! Of course I didn't though lol! I held my composure and continued on trying to fit in day after day, month after month. I kept telling myself as long as I had my teams back we would be fine. I'm a loyal person by nature so I did my very best to shield them from the nonsense, and helped them to stay focused so we could get our job done.
I'm a realist and no I don't have a college degree; what I do have is years of experience in the corporate world within my industry. I'm good at what I do, I'm sharp, and that comes from pure experience and hands on work along with being self taught over the years! I'm a hustler by nature and can catch on quickly if shown how to do something. What I found was happening was that some of these other employees (outside of my team) would try to make themselves feel and look so much more important by using these HUGE words that didn't even sound like they made sense! Like seriously, anyone that has to use 4-5 very large words in a row that had to be googled for a definition, is a person that is desperate for attention; they simply want to be the center of attention. Listen to this craziness; I actually tried talking like them! I vowed to increase my vocabulary over a period of time. Guess what - I sounded ridiculous and it just wasn't me! In the field I'm in we speak from the REAL dictionary! I speak the truth and I speak logically and I speak so people can understand me. What good is a conversion if its one sided where only one person knows what's being said? Honestly I don't even know if they knew what they were saying half the time!! So I quickly scrapped that idea and told myself to never ever try that again! I will only use words that make sense and sound right so that everyday people can understand what I'm saying.
I went though the last 6 months thinking that something was wrong with me. I woke up day after day asking myself why I felt so bad and why didn't I feel right. I was losing confidence and had started doubting myself, all because of certain people that were absolutely no better than I was. In fact I was better than some. I didn't look down upon people, I was fair, and I spoke like a normal person. The problem was, I had let these people fool me into thinking I was the one that needed to change. I was down on myself and was truly distraught. I've worked so hard over the years and hadn't come this far in my career to be second guessed and made to feel like I didn't have a voice.
Enough was ENOUGH! I woke up several weeks ago and decided that I was worth more than they would ever know! I made a decision to never again let someone treat me as if I wasn't good enough or didn't fit in. I made the decision to leave my job because I was unhappy with them and I was unhappy with the person that I was becoming because of them. I encourage you to all to do the same! Do not ever let another person try to change who you are!! Will it be easy - heck no it won't! The thing is, we only have one life to live and most of us spend more time at work or on the road for work then we do with our own families. That's just facts. Why on earth would we choose to live that time being miserable? Snap out of it and ask yourself if you are happy? If you are not happy then do something about it! It's really as easy as it sounds! It won't be easy all the time, but you have to take risks sometimes in order to make the changes that we want in life become a reality. Don't waste another day doing something that makes you unhappy! Make the change today!! #pursue #your #happy❤️
