The job I have had for the last five years is being eliminated in June.
When I first took this job, I had significant reservations. The company is old, and traditional, and very hierarchical. I wasn’t sure I would fit in to its culture. But I somehow passed the interview process and got an offer at a challenging time in my life, and I thought the relative stability of the place might be good for me after the career upheaval I had just experienced. The question for me was how long I would stay.
My manager and my team turned out to be wonderful people and I stayed at the company longer than I have been anywhere. The work was challenging, and often stuff I hadn’t done before; I learned and grew in the role even after twenty years of doing this kind of work.
A major change in the way the company approaches learning is bringing all this to an end. My manager is retiring after decades with the company, and I am coming to terms with the fact that I will probably never see some of my team again as they work remotely in other states. I have been through layoffs before, and it’s not even worth critiquing this one. I don’t really like to blog about work anyway, and I’m not really resentful as much as I am sad.
I guess I’m writing this here to mark the passage. These people were important to me, I learned from them, and I will miss them.
