Crossroads in January

Work is a never-ending fountain of drama lately, and just as one spring bubbles down, another takes its place. Hopefully all of this is vague enough to preserve the anonymity and credit of the institution for which I work.

I said candidly in the team leaders' meeting on Monday that I felt that we needed to address what happened during Black Friday 2020, with regard to assigning new projects to teams that need to concentrate on meeting our old and new clients' expectations. There was agreement and so the idea was to ask for a 'retrospective' meeting run according to Agile principles, with the team leaders and management. Then we could figure out what to do differently next time. My suspicion is that management will not want a retrospective, but I might be wrong.

Anyway, I felt at last that I'd conscientiously and thoroughly thought everything through. I could pause the hamster wheel of thought, and no longer wake up in the night and not be able to go back to sleep, no longer stay awake until 4 a.m. because I was too worried. I'd just need to tell myself that I'd been over all of these problems and have come up with a few solutions and explanations. This week I've finally begun exercising regularly again, too.

So I thought that I might finally settle down. I had, for a while. But ever since my last 1-on-1 meeting with the now-CEO and a human resources colleague, I'd been sleeping badly because he didn't answer my question if there's a plan to coordinate task assignments during Black Friday 2021 so that my team is safe from Aug. 15th to Dec. 1st. He said that there were plans to have a steering committee, but was vague about what its aims would be.

... Then in a new meeting on Thursday — that's where the next round of drama began. This time it did not involve my team directly, so I'm temporarily cheerful. Besides I'd asked colleagues for 'spoilers' because I had no idea what the meeting was about when it was put on my calendar and I didn't want to be in suspense. After the meeting I started randomly chuckling for the rest of the day whenever I remembered that the CEO had said that I'd 'pushed for' the new teams that have in fact been making me miserable for months; T. (who was also in the meeting) also said that she found that part amusing. Presumably he meant 'pushed forward,' because I have participated in the planning for those new teams?

But hearing how exhausted and disillusioned other team leaders are was saddening. I remembered them being bouncy and resilient and calm, two months ago; but today either they were just having a bad day or there was a major metamorphosis. We talked about their perspective today; and by the evening I was so wound up and anxious that for the first part of my vocal coaching lesson after work, my coach just worked on restoring me to a halfway calm state again. But on the whole this one is a fight I can sit out; I've just thought of a few methods and techniques to try to create positive change in my own sphere of influence.

But, in general terms: If being in the company is ruining my health and I've lost faith in the leadership, I need to face up to what is happening to me and keep asking if it's worth the cost. But it's been so good to me in the past and of course I adore the colleagues ...

What I'm thinking of is gathering more technical skills that are still useful to me now, but also helpful elsewhere. Also, learning data science for journalism, and beginning to build up my competence in a new but semi-related direction.