This article is bittersweet as I’m grateful for surviving another round of layoffs, while having to say a familiar farewell to colleagues, friends, mentors, even people on the hiring panel that gave me the opportunity to show them what I’m made of.
I’ve been managing anxiety around the fear of being cut this round for a few months, so there’s a wide range of emotions settling in while a huge weight has been lifted. At least until the next reorg.
I personally struggle with how my identity is so intertwined with my career. I question if that’s healthy sometimes, especially when I consider the impact losing my job would have on my life.
There’s an emotional pattern that’s becoming more clear to me, which is that I have the same feelings for friends who lost their job as I do for those who’ve lost a loved one. I become distant with the intent of giving them space to grieve. In reality, I’m avoiding awkward conversations knowing there isn’t anything I can say to make things better, so I don’t say anything at all. That’s just me treating people the way I would prefer to be treated in a time of hardship, but probably doesn’t make me a good friend.
In my preferred isolation after a loss, I would practice looking for the bright side of a scary situation. That would require shifting my mindset towards optimism, evaluate potential, and taking steps that lead to overcoming challenges to influence a positive shift. Wait, I just described my day job!
I hope my former colleagues see this as an opportunity for a new beginning. I’ve heard some have quit tech altogether to follow their dreams. That would just end up being tech of a different variety for me 😆
If it’s not obvious, I’ve put myself in their shoes mentally. For me, having a premortem mindset is a natural part of risk management. But, it’s extremely anxiety inducing when you’re analyzing your own livelihood. You’ve taken steps to mitigate risk, but haven’t hit all the goals yet. The industry is changing fast and that’s causing a massive amount of people to deal with uncertainty. That amplifies the fear of being unemployed. It wouldn’t be so bad if the number of open roles in tech outweighed the number of people looking to fill them.
Some people pursue a career in tech for that sense of security. I know someone who wanted to get into cyber security because they heard it can be lucrative. I warned that if they don’t have a passion for it, they risk being miserable. Maybe that’s just my skewed perspective based on what I find fulfilling? I love security tech and need to have solid understanding of it to support my work, but I find the day job of a cyber security engineer to be mundane and boring. That would feel like someone forcing me to fit into a box that I can’t wait to escape from. I enjoy pentesting my own software, finding vulnerabilities and hardening servers, but if I had to do that all day every day I’d be miserable. But, if that’s how I paid the bills then I’d have to manage how I felt about the work. Knowing me, I’d probably go on the hunt for a project that I could propose to leadership to spin up a new initiative, just to fuel my ambitious nature and to keep myself entertained. That also has potential of becoming a problem if you fail to meet the expectations of your role at the same time. That’s where it helps to be a workaholic.
I’ve recently started watching Mr Robot, which is strange considering it’s technical foundation and accurate representation of security work. The similarities between me and Elliott are interesting. His perspective on society sounded like my internal voice. Only, I have chosen the opposite path. I probably would have taken the job that made me a multimillionaire in 5 years, regardless of how it conflicts with my core beliefs. Money is a key requirement for playing the game, which is why we all have jobs, so I’d probably put my morals aside to achieve my goal of financial freedom.
If there’s anything I’ve learned about finances, it’s make as much as you can while keeping expenses as low as possible. I’ve known multiple people who have pulled that off, retired in their 40’s, and are living their dream. They’re the ones who introduced me to the term, the fuck you fund. You build up enough of a financial cushion that you could easily walk away from your job. While that’s a great goal, it’s not realistic for many of us. Especially those who don’t have a six figure salary.
Well, I had the opportunity to work on a project tonight and my emotions put me in the mood to work on my next song. Instead, I decided to write this article to process my emotions publicly and to honor those people who I’ve had the pleasure of working with and learning from.
I’m thinking about making a video sharing what I’ve learned navigating the corporate tech world. If it helped one person it would be time well spent. All I will say, for now, is that I’m wondering if I’ve made it this far because I fight hard to avoid being put in that box I mentioned earlier. I like variety, so I thrive when I get to wear many hats. That could be a factor in why I’ve been lucky enough to have my leaders position me as a contributer on numerous high profile initiatives as our organization evolves. This time, designing practical AI solutions that a senior leader called ‘groundbreaking’, while playing several roles to deliver, may have been my saving grace. Who knows. All I do know is being agile seems to have paid off, so far. I guess time will tell.
As I bid farewell, I wish you all the best of luck and hope that this shift leads to you fulfilling your dreams. 🤗
