Last week, I handed in my notice to my current (now ex-) employer, and said my goodbyes.
It was an unexpectedly positive and painless parting of ways, and I admit I was actually quite moved at how kind and supportive they had been in wishing me / us well on our journey ahead.
This wasn’t what I expected considering the tumultuous and shaky ride it’s been.
It was okay in the beginning. I was very warmly welcomed, initiated into the very close and tight-knit culture of the company, and quickly indoctrinated into the agency’s working process.
Within days, I was given projects to work on, introduced to clients, even allowed to participate in new business pitches.
I got busy enough quite quickly. In my first few months, my workload was full, my days were busy, my brain muscles were being flexed, and I got to continue doing the kind of work I’ve always enjoyed.
I was content.
But contentment was short-lived — which I suppose is natural as all “honeymoon phases” eventually come to an end.
It began ever so gently and almost imperceptibly. Nothing more than just constructive feedback, or so I thought.
It started with campaign reports, strategies, or presentations I made that were “too thorough”, “too complex”, or “too overwhelming” (for clients) to understand.
But those were easy to address –just simplify, cut back on the jargon, focus only on “big shiny numbers” that even a ten-year old would understand.
Then a little later on, the data itself became the point of contention. Or rather, the veracity and accuracy of data I analyzed. Numbers were “too low”, and the declining trend lines “didn’t make sense” — surely, there was either something erroneous about the system collecting and reporting the data (Google, no less), or I was mistaken in my analysis.
As the weeks went by, more issues came to the fore — recommendations met with outright hostility and vehemence, contextual explanations thought of as “excuses”, and cautious responses judged to be indicators of a “lack of knowledge” or a “lack of commitment”.
At this juncture, I need to briefly explain that my work revolves around Digital Marketing Strategies and Data Analytics — crafts that are both precise yet imprecise in that one analyst’s / strategist’s approach and take can very much differ from another’s where no one approach is right or wrong.
Things came to a head many months later after one disastrous ambush meeting where I found myself, and work I had done, suddenly undergoing intense scrutiny.
In just a span of 30 minutes, my data and analysis were questioned, doubted, and then eventually completely disregarded.
And as a result, recommendations I made, which were based on actual factual data, were now baseless and pointless — which further fueled the barrage of aggressive questioning that simply left me too stunned to offer any proper response.
It didn’t help that by this time, it had been a few months that my workload had already severely tapered down to the point of having days when I’d show up at work with absolutely nothing to do — a situation I hadn’t found myself in over two decades where in every other company I had been to, my to-do list was always as long as my arm.
By the next day, I was subject to the “heart-to-heart” talk of all “heart-to-heart” talks — which, in reality, was a lot more one-sided than what a “talk” suggests. My credibility was questioned, my willingness and desire to “make it work” was doubted, and my integrity shattered.
I was also told that “it feels to everyone that you don’t really want to be here, and are merely biding your time until you get your PR and then you will leave for another job”.
It didn’t help my case that my natural introverted nature made me far less outgoing and vivacious as the other women in the team, and this was construed as a sign of an unwillingness to “engage”.
I wasn’t fired that day. But I felt in my gut that my days were numbered.
So in the following weeks, I attacked each task, and each day with as much visible enthusiasm, vigor, and vivacity as I could muster. I broadcast every task I completed and every achievement I accomplished, over-explained every complication I encountered and showed how I successfully diagnosed and overcame every issue, and went out of my way to “engage”, “collaborate” and “share”.
I created as much work as I could for myself, inserted myself into projects that I wasn’t really involved in, volunteered for work beyond my own scope and role — whatever it took just to keep busy, and keep my job.
It did eventually get better. And by the end, my work managed to help the company secure new business, the new processes and approaches I introduced eventually became the new standard, and vital functions I fulfilled in the work process would leave a hole in their operations by the time I would vacate my post.
And I think that the supreme effort I put into the hardest part of my everyday work life paid off — that is, the part where I had to be more outgoing, more enthused, and more “engaged”.
No one would ever have to know how much playing that role every single day (among others) would be one of my biggest sources of stress, anxiety, and would be the cause of what had eventually become regular Sunday night panic attacks.
I debated long and hard with myself how I would handle this exit interview.
Should I tell them how their thoughtless words and actions sent me spiraling even deeper into the darkness that I was already sinking in?
Should I take the opportunity to finally defend myself and address, point-by-point, all their accusations?
Should I do them the favor of kindly suggesting that in the future, it would serve them well to keep an open mind when they hire people who are different from them?
Or should I just let things be and part amicably, move on, and just avoid making the same mistake in the future?
Being anything less than forthcoming is not in my nature.
But in the end, it all boiled down to understanding what kind of legacy I wanted to leave behind.
When I finally did have that conversation with my boss, I was fully prepared to be subject to a fresh barrage of accusations nuanced with perceived betrayal, and reeking with an unspoken but implied emotional guilt trip.
But to my surprise, she was kind, sympathetic and understanding of my reasons for leaving the company, and for leaving the country. There was no blame or recrimination, and she graciously expressed her gratitude for the contributions I’d made to the company.
She also allowed me to serve out my entire week’s notice, which would assuage any guilt I would have felt if I hadn’t been given the chance to do proper turnovers for work I was leaving behind.
But then again, I suppose this reaction was inevitable because I opted to focus on the other half of the reasons why I had to leave — my family, my mental health, and my need to go back home.
The coward that I am said nothing about their toxic work culture, their disorganized ways of working, and the fact that after the harrowing events of last year, I knew it really was just a matter of time ‘til I said my goodbyes.
I wonder if I’m letting them off too easily.
I wonder if I would’ve done them a bigger favor by speaking candidly.
And I wonder if I would’ve done myself a bigger favor by speaking my piece and clearing my name.
But in the end, I realized I’d rather be kind than be right.
In the bigger picture, I’ve come to realize that those traumatic encounters were not personal — objectively speaking, they were as upfront, as straightforward, and as harsh with me as they are with each other.
It’s worked for them for 20 years, and they are the company they keep — and perhaps I really just wasn’t the right fit, or maybe I was also still acclimatizing to a different culture, one that was contrary to the very non-confrontational culture in Asia.
And in the end, they kept me on, they did what they could to help me settle in (somewhat), and in the end, they did finally acknowledge that I wasn’t just a warm body to fulfill their diversity criteria.
A colleague once long ago said,
“I want to leave every place I work in better than it was before I came in.”
I thought that was beautiful.
So I think I’m okay saying goodbye never having spoken my piece but knowing that in the end, I’m leaving behind a tiny piece of me that will maybe be a positive imprint that lasts.