Reflecting on the transition

I took my laptop across the street to the brewery.  They have a patio with picnic tables where I can enjoy the weather, sip a beer, and write as I reflect on the week.  My laptop even picks up my home wifi signal, although it isn't quite strong enough to do much so I've switched to my phone hotspot.  

Two moving trucks are parked in front of the entrance on this side of my building, one of them a company I've been reading really good reviews about.  The Amtrak passed by just now.  The conversations around me compete with music playing through the speakers.  

My mind wanders without direction.  In high school, I marched in the New Year's Day parade in London.  I was selected to write articles for the local paper that were sent back home to be published while we were there.    I remember using the word "wander" in one of my drafts and getting feedback from my band director about how it implies a behavior that is aimless.  And although, for that article, I did change it to a more intentional verb, today I use wander in the aimless sense.

Today felt frantic.  I'm not at my best because I'm still not sleeping well.  But there is a sense of urgency as I realize my time is limited.  And my case load has exploded in the last month.  We currently have more good cases right now than we have had maybe since the pandemic.  And several of them are very heavy on claims analysis projects.  More cases keep coming in.  Documents are rolling in that need to be reviewed and analyzed.

The reality of how much of what I need to do are projects that current staff can't pick up and continue if I don't finish them, is hitting me hard.  In some of the cases, we don't even have all that we need yet and may not receive it before I leave.  It's a never-ending cascade of details I need to make note of and act on.

It's interesting though that I don't feel the same level of chaos with regard to this transition in my personal life.  There is almost a sense of peace in the decisions I'm making, which is a bit interesting to my rational mind as I think about the uncertainty of my start date and the certainty of my new lease start date.

I have two other points of reference to compare to that starkly contrast this transition.  The most recent is the transition to living on my own as my ex-husband and I separated.  That was the first time that the decisions were solely mine.  But his voice was still so ingrained in me that I really struggled to separate what I wanted from what he would want.  I was also in a cloud of emotions as his abrupt decision to end it all was still so fresh which created a heavy fog over my brain functions.  Sometimes I wonder how I functioned at all in the midst of it all.  I admire all I accomplished in those early months.

I remember the biggest question I had that I didn't fully understand until the decision was done and I was living with it was whether I, myself, had an aversion to noise or whether my aversion was to the complaints of my ex-husband.  The studio I was considering (and ultimately chose) is feet from very active train tracks and across from a brewery.  The potential for disrupting noise was great.  Today, I laugh as I remember the car alarm that continuously went off last night.  I had spent my marriage trying to minimize our exposure to noise for my ex-husband's benefit to the point that I didn't even know how I felt about noise.

It wasn't the only decision in those first months where I felt paralyzed because I didn't know what I liked and wanted.  I often only knew what I would have chosen for my ex-husband's benefit.  Eventually I got braver and braver to just try things so that I could learn my own likes and dislikes.  It turns out that I love the sound of trains and spend many evenings and afternoons with my windows open so I can listen to the live music across the street at the brewery.  And the car alarms last night were just a minor annoyance. The leap of faith I took in choosing this apartment paid off more than I could have ever imagined.  But in the moment, there was so much stress in the decisions I had to make.  I still remember the tears that flowed as I sat in the leasing office talking about my options.

The other point of reference that I find myself making comparisons to is our transition as a couple in moving south.  The role he played was in prematurely emptying our house of probably a majority of our worldly possessions.  We didn't even know where we were moving to before half our house was empty.  I have really mixed feelings about that.  

In the moment, I laughed it off but I think that was to cover how unsettled I felt.  Our ultimate destination depended on me getting a job somewhere we would enjoy.  That was a lot of pressure.  And this was as we were coming out of couple's counseling after his emotional affair, where our counselor focused more on my tone of voice than his own decision to invest in another woman.  I had convinced myself that he had done the work he hadn't actually done and that his words without actions were sincere.  I suspect I felt pressure to prove that I was worth it.

My role in that transition was almost everything else.  I managed so much of the sale of our home, finding an apartment, setting up insurance, etc.  What I need to coordinate now is actually less than I dealt with in that move.  Except this time, I don't have to make decisions based on what he would want.  I don't have to feel guilty about pushing for a downtown apartment.  

All I need to do is listen to myself.  I don't have to consider anyone else.  I don't have any reason to feel guilty about my preferences (not that I ever deserved to feel guilty).  I am not affected by someone else's decision.  In that way, it makes this transition far easier.

But I will admit there is a quiet loneliness in it all.  There is no one to share this with who truly gets it.  There is no one to sit with me at this brewery as I reflect on the change.  There will be no one at my side as I step into a new city where I know no one.

Being single is in this transition far better than being married to him.  But being single isn't better than being married to the fantasy I imagined him to be.  I still remember the ways I convinced myself he was such a great partner when it came to the logistic of things like moving.

It's starting to rain now.  I need to finish my drink and go home.

Reciprocity at work

I currently have one of the best working relationships with one colleague I have ever experienced in the context of a larger office that doesn't see me or value me.  I am very sad that I will be losing that specific working relationship as I move on to a new job and office even as I'm anxious to find a space where I am valued on a greater level.  (Time will tell if my new office provides that space.)

I tried to communicate some of this to this colleague of mine and express my appreciation for the autonomy and growth opportunities he has given and for the advocacy he has done for me, even when it wasn't in his best personal interests.

He told me that I have given far more to this office than I have received and that I owed nothing more.  In the moment, I tried to push back against that.  It's like I put more weight on the value I receive than the value I offer.

A big strength of mine is my work ethic.  I care deeply about the quality and timeliness of my work.  I care about how it fits into the bigger picture.  It contributes to the meaning I strive to find in my life.  It also means I give a lot to my employer in every job I hold.

That has benefited me in countless ways as I leave almost every job with colleagues who deeply respect me, advocate for me, and provide glowing references.  I suspect it has opened doors it might not otherwise have opened.

But so often it has created imbalanced employer/employee relationships.   My most extreme example is the private law firm I worked for about a decade ago.  When my overtime hours got too great, they switched me to salaried and gave me a quasi manager role so they didn't have the pay the extra hours.  When I put in a leave request to take a week vacation, they sat on it and sat on it because they had leaned on me so much the office couldn't function in my absence.  I suspect they would have ultimately denied the leave request had I stayed long enough to find out.  I gave and gave and received very little.

When I left that job for the government, I told myself that I was going to be a mediocre employee so that I couldn't be taken advantage of like that again.  Not surprisingly, I didn't succeed at that, although I did learn to set the boundary of not giving more hours than I was being paid for.

In my current job, I have been doing the work of two positions, for the pay of the lower of the two, for almost three and a half years.  They posted the other position two years ago and I even interviewed for it but they made some excuse that didn't make sense about why they couldn't fill it.  

When I talk to colleagues across the country in that higher level position, I have discovered my unique skillset goes above and beyond the typical responsibilities.  I'm not saying there aren't more like me out there but we are rare in the specific value we bring to our offices.  It's left me feeling very alone in some of the work I do because when I get stuck, I haven't yet found anyone to turn to that has those particular skills to talk me through something, like I do for others from time to time.

My current boss doesn't know that though.  As we sat down this week, he didn't even know what I did to know what he would have to distribute when I left.  I guess it is hard to value something you have never taken the time to understand.

As I start to wrap things up at work, I recognize that I don't have it in me to do less so I just hope my next office does a better job at seeing the value I offer.