Why I left - Part 1
There is something that happens when you realize that youâre the only one who can control your life. Your future. Your destiny. That choice lies in your hands and you solely have the power to change the entire trajectory of your life. Iâve been confronted with this numerous times, but most obviously when deciding to quit my past job and now my current one. Or, on a more positive note, when I decided that I needed to chase a dream, go live in Bali, and then go get my MBA in Management in Entertainment.
I would talk about my last job and me leaving, but it wonât help me deal with the current situation I am in now. And that is what is most relevant so I feel I should talk about that. Iâll revert back to the other story another time. So letâs talk about whatâs going on now.
I work for a company in the publishing industry which-to say the very least- is dying a very fast death. We are the Titanic, taking on water by the second, and trying to bail ourselves out with a spoon. For a publishing company, entering the digital world sounds like the solution, but the issue is that this field is already so saturated that attempting to transition your business model to match one of this industry will not yield much success. In simpler terms- if you change your business model to reflect that of an industry that is already saturated, your fighting an uphill battle.
I came into my current job almost exactly a year ago. I was excited. I was going to be making a lot more money than I had in my previous role and I was going to be officially transitioning into management rather than just being in straight sales. At this point in my career, Iâve sold in different products across different industries, built cold territories⌠I donât exactly feel the need to prove I can do it because I already have. I was going to be doing a combination of training sales representatives, acting as a manager of the highest yielding sales team in the organization and working hand-in-hand with my director and upper management to provide insight into processes and products, while also acting as a project manager/ main point of contact for our major clients. At least that was what was supposed to happen.
The First Sign
This was and is a learning moment and should be for everyone. Take my advice. If you go to your welcome lunch at a new job and you leave feeling uncomfortable, you probably shouldnât show up for your first day. I wish current me could give past me that advice. I showed up for my welcome lunch before I started at my current job, and only 3 people showed up out of a team of 10. One of them was my soon-to-be boss who had already met me several times. The other two were two of the ladies I was going to be working with. I was technically supposed to be their manager. I got there and once the conversation started, it became very obvious that neither lady wanted me there. They were short with their sentences, didnât ask my questions, and left me to do all the work of supporting the conversation. They didnât want to get to know me nor did they care, and they made it very obvious. At one point, one of the ladies- letâs call her Dee for now- turns around to me and goes, âThere seems to be some confusion amongst the team as to why you were hired, so tell me to your understanding, what have you been hired to do?â Um, okay. Odd question. In fact- interview question? So I explained what I had spoken about with my boss and VP- the training, the organization, being a main point of contact, etc. etc. Once I finished, Dee without hesitating said, âWell thatâs not what we understandâ. Um, okay. At this point, I looked over to my future boss for some support or back-up or literally anything, Â but he didnât say anything or indicate otherwise. At the time, I told myself that he wanted to make sure I could swim with the sharks and so he was throwing me in to see what I would do and how I would act. In retrospect, this whole situation was wrong. Utterly, completely, irrevocable unacceptable.
