I lost my first job four months into it, after an unconventional beginning that at the time seemed like the first act of a great biography: a marathon interview with every senior at a small start-up with unicorn goals, a 10,000-word position paper as counterweight to my shitty grades, and a last-minute call that had me packing up my life the next day to spend my first New Year’s Eve as a functional adult in a dingy Glaswegian hotel, with a pack of Strongbow, a bottle of supermarket Glenfiddich, a fat-soaked donner kebab, and lots of weed.
Then I was let go on my birthday.
Nevertheless, it was as amicable a split as it could have been. The business deal for which I was hired never materialized. I was an Economics graduate amidst a troupe of film makers, with nowhere to apply my skills other than brewing coffee and making tea.
So I maintained a great relationship with everyone at the company, stayed in touch with the team, and continued to freelance for the company to make ends meet. Four month later I got my job back and a raise, and I stayed there for the next 5 years as company’s tendrils reached around the world.
Thus began my career of vicissitude, with two great lessons.
- Shit happens and it’s probably not about you.
- Never burn bridges.
This month I lost my job for the second time.
In stark contrast with my rather bloated title, the whole affair was unexpected as it was unceremonious. Within the span of hours, I was asked to pack up my things and leave. That very week I was advised to resign. The irony was, I had been drafting a set of dismissal process the very moment I was called to sit down with the company’s founder and managing director.
In the grand scheme of things, I think this is a net-positive. In a few years’ time, I may even be able to say that leaving this job was one of the best thing to have happened to me. Perhaps this very moment is a prelude to some serendipitous breakthrough, perhaps these whole 7 years are but the overture to greater things.
Ah well. Hope is a wretched thing.
I shall whine just a little, and close the chapter with some reflection. I have in fact learned a lot, and these are lessons that are better lived young.
On culture and being liked by your peers
This is perhaps my most catastrophic mistake. I made no attempt to disguise my contempt at office politics and scoffed at political machinations. I thought I was justified in thinking so, because for a small business with 80 people and pretty serious problems, the drama was excessive and distracting. Instead I focused relentlessly on the job, the clients, and the service, no matter how abrasive I must be in the process.
But in doing so I completely isolated myself from my peers. Sure, my reports loved me for being straight forward, effective, and transpartent, but this was a management team that needed consensus more than competence, that emphasized harmony rather than disruption, that sought stability instead of progress, that shielded feelings at the expense of facts, that valued hierarchy over transparency.
At smaller companies, culture and values are defined by how the management team conducts itself. It’s often a reflection of company leadership’s personality. It is entirely possible that you are not the right cultural fit at your company. If you want to stay, that’s something you must work around. One should never be too contrarian.
Which brings us to being liked… For better or for worse, this was their cutlure, which I uphended somewhat consciously through sheer force of will. The rest of the senior management team respected me, but they did not like me, because I made no attempt to build an amicable relationship.
The problem of not being liked is… people are not willing to protect you. And when shit happens, they’ll assume the worst.
On change
The Transtheoretical Model of Change says that the awareness of, willingness to, and readiness and necessity for change aren’t always aligned. I think that applies to organisations as well. I was brought on to clean up the company and take it to stage two – scale and growth. It was ostensibly the right time: company’s finally profitable, market is growing, competition has fallen behind… I would even argue that change was essential for a variety of business, operational, financial, and legal reasons.
Within the span of months I implemented a flurry of changes to company processes, staffing, vendors, and policies. The company’s ownership team had a very detached approach of management, so I was left to deal with day to day running and resolve one crisis after another – that and the premise of my job description gave me license, I felt, to take charge and make changes. In hindsight, I can understand how it may be perceived as arrogance. Even though the communication would have been better, at the end of the day, I was still an employee, and I knew I was not working for the entrepreneurial type that valued initiative and resourcefulness.
All of these imploded in the end. For all my sensitivities and sentimentalities – which I hide from work and unleash here – I utterly neglected the human element of work.
I think this was a mishap of youth. It isn’t always about the job, or even doing what you think is the right thing, and your best intention doesn’t negate its impact.
But I’m not sure I would have done anything differently, because I have followed my conscience at every step. Perhaps I should have taken a softer approach…
And so we live and learn.
#00117F 