One year ago

It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving week. One year ago today, I realized I was probably going to be leaving my full-time job.

I spent over 4 years at Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis. The organization has a great mission. I started out as the Marketing and Communications Associate (aka marketing department of one). After 2 years, I presented my boss with a proposal to promote me to a management role and let me hire someone underneath me. I shared some of the goals I thought we could achieve with a team of two. She agreed.

There were lots of changes in the next two years – a new boss, a new employee (twice), new goals and new challenges.

The Monday of the week before Thanksgiving, my boss asked me to meet with her and the CEO. In that meeting, I was told budgets had passed, but that (surprise!) my employee’s position was being eliminated and my current position no longer existed, either. Apparently this was something that had been planned for months and other staff knew, but they were just telling me now. I was handed a new job description with a new title and a plethora of new fundraising responsibilities. They told me to schedule a meeting for the next day to tell my employee, and that I would meet with them again on Wednesday to ask questions I have about the new role.

I was pretty shocked.

By Wednesday had a list of questions to ask my boss and the CEO. I asked questions about the new goals being presented, their expectations and how they anticipated things would work. I also asked what would happen if this new role wasn’t a fit. They seemed somewhat surprised by that last question, and didn’t have an answer. They said they’d think about it and they ended up putting together a severance package and presented it to me the next day. But that Wednesday, I walked out of that meeting and just had a feeling this wasn’t going to work out. That was one year ago today.

I had never left a job without having another one lined up. They asked me to meet again on the Monday of Thanksgiving week to ask more questions or give them an answer. On that Monday, I had a few more questions but wasn’t ready to give them an answer. I was leaning toward leaving but I wanted to have time to think about it over the Thanksgiving holiday, talk with my family and I wanted to be sure to not make an emotional decision. I said I’d give them a final decision after Thanksgiving but they didn’t want to wait. On Tuesday my boss told me they were going to move forward with finding new candidates.

The whole thing put a bit of a damper on my holiday season. I was still at Habitat to help them through the transition while they hired someone new (aka still have a salary for a while). I was preoccupied with the changes coming and anxious about the future, but I was putting on a happy face. I was applying for full time jobs and worried I would super lonely as a freelancer.  In retrospect, I was so stressed and upset and freaked out.

Life has a way of working out though, and now I love freelancing. I feel more creative and am enjoying my work so much. I think it was time for me to move on and I’m happier now. It’s just crazy how much has changed in a year.