On the call with HR!

The smiling faces on the video cam conducting my interview were designed to calm me, and they did.  It was a pleasant 1-hour discussion on what comes next, and the process for departure.  No, not travel.  Bummer, huh?  Should I use a different word just so you don’t make an association with something you love to do but can’t?  How about the farewell process?  Stop drifting and let’s continue.  So, during the interview, I was genuinely polite and appreciative.  No point in being otherwise.  Moving forward was a certainty, and goodbyes could be made easier.  Isn’t there a saying about how moving on is easy, but leaving things behind is hard.  Well, it felt like moving on is hard, and leaving things behind was easy.  It shouldn’t have been like that!  Not after 20 years! Why was it, though, aside from the “payroll” addiction?

I was 24 years old without a care in the world when my father convinced me to leave Lebanon, and head back to Dubai, UAE, to live with them.  I had a crappy job.  Let me rephrase: a crappy paying job.  I had, still have actually, an innocent intellect.  I remember getting my employment acceptance to my x-company, for the position xyz, reporting to a Mr. Butt in Abu Dhabi.  With little exposure to the world, I got so confused by this letter that arrived six months after I applied. I had no idea if it was a joke.  I mean, what was I supposed to do?   For God’s sake, was I really supposed to report to a Butt? It must be a prank, I thought!  I was that innocent and unaware of anything outside of my immediate environment. 

Luckily, it was a real offer!

I started my journey with my x company on August 1, 2000.  I was part of an organization that I had heard about at university during classes when technological breakthroughs were being explained.  *Mark of <Company>.  At the time, I wanted to stamp this statement on my forehead.  A tattoo, possibly.  So proud and  excited.  I started working with the conviction that my success is attributed to the weight of the company that backed me.  I reached a point, for I was no longer of that same innocent intellect, where I learned that the company’s success was in part attributed to my role within it and what I did with the authority and trust given to me for outstanding performance.  Now is a good time to check out my CV.  Yes.  I am looking for a new challenge. 

Starting the job was just like that.  For the innocence I started out with as a tourist in the city of my life, and for all the new attractions I have visited since, I know, for a fact, that working at x-company was as perfect as can be.  Some of the best years of my life.

So why was it easy to leave it behind? 

Much like an apple, I suppose.  Once picked, it  looks, smells, and tastes appetizing.  A few weeks later, it is still an apple from the outside, but it is spoilt, moldy and inedible.  As I bit deeper into that apple, as in moved higher in the ranks, I started to notice the spoilt parts. It seems that the circle of life is really nothing more than a sine wave, or cosine.  Let’s not argue which; Hakuna matata.   

Life is underlined because it’s really a “fill-in-the blanks”.  Let’s give it a try.  Circle of moods..hmm..works…Circle of companies…that works too…  Ok, let’s try circle of the digestive system…definitely works, but with high amplitude for that one!!  What about a circle of thought on the night I was a gun found at that crime site; very high amplitude, and the shortest wavelength.  But it was that night when the ability for manipulating time was proven. I’m getting ahead of myself. I meant ‘will be proven’.   I digress.  Let us go back to that 2nd day.

These were tough times.

My x-company is currently on a downturn point on that wave these days.  My opinion.  Blame it on market conditions, poor management, or if it is too large to steer.  Whichever the explanation, compounded with the above or not, the real explanation lies in my judgement, which, at this point in time, was very much shaped by my x-company.  Shaped by the “old” company, as many who work there, and were part of its past refer to it. What an acknowledgement that it indeed has changed.

I could not get along with the way the management style, which I was part of, has changed in order to acclimate to the changes taking place all over the world.  It seemed like the whole world was changing to something that I did not like nor wished to comprehend.  Wasn’t even going to try.  Not at all.  How many were adapting to these changes and how the values that used to reflect success, were so easily swept under the rug and replaced with self-defined criteria and enforcement of “necessary” actions for the sake of a new so-called success scale. 

Those who preached and practiced, were now only preaching.

In an over-populated world, where competing for positions to sustain and achieve personal wishes, is a place where memories fade quickly. Content becomes a tiny segment of the wave of ___ (blank), and wishes adapt to the position within that cycle.  So it is my scientific conclusion that in this world, some have become shortsighted, from setting objectives to taking remedial actions. Ride that one wave.  It has all become about short-term, quick wins.  Social media, hi-speed internet, the word insta(nt), getting a job immediately after losing one – hint hint.  We used to live for special and extraordinary moments.  Now we live for the next moment, and we feel disappointment if these next moments take time to happen.  We want instant gratification, and we want it NOW!

In short, I said my goodbyes to the *Mark of <Company> back in 2016.  That is probably the reason why it did not feel bad leaving it behind. I had left sometime that year but hung out to satisfy my “wish” segment of that cycle.  That segment kept going lower, as the company segment kept moving lower on that wave.  I was content with a demotion resulting from restructuring, and with that came a deduction in bonuses, incentives and entitlements, but hey, salaries were not deducted.  My wishes played along.  “Payroll” rush to the rescue.  

Anyway, after the interview, I realized that my boss reacted to the company’s downward movement on the wave cycle by cutting out the part that he felt could satisfy reversing that trend.  I mean, come on.  I know I’m overweight, but to think that by releasing fat people, the company would just bounce right back up to the “good” times? That is just ridiculous.

Enough messing around. 

I’m not fat, but what I truly meant to say is that after moving from a position to a higher one every 3 years during the first 15 years, it is my conviction that I, and those who worked with me, have outperformed the market, other business units, and my own performance expectations…Every.  Single.  Time.  As a technical expert and/or manager (yes, check my CV.  I started as a geologist, and became an Area Manager [a big area] for a unit too).  That kept me going and gave me a sense of worth, belonging and an unwavering self-satisfaction for an aspiring professional. 

Suddenly, though, I knew something big had changed; when instead of weighing in on performance, it was the expectation that many should blend in a role, any role, that was decided for them based on availability rather than capability.  It should have hit me like a slap in the face, that these days, my worth and potentially your worth in a company is not very much dependent on what we can contribute but rather on what we are asked to change to.  If you are in such a position from an expectation aspect, it’s time to hit the keyboard and write something. Seriously, find where your contributions matter and spend your effort there.  

THE CHIEF SAID “ATTENTION!!”

My job became to accept and to do as expected.  Had they thrown a uniform, a flag and a tent, it would have been like the scout days at school when “do first, complain later” applied.  Accepting to move on in part, took a day, but I came to terms that what had happened was for the better.  There was no right or wrong.  Only if we get along or not.  If we see eye to eye.  This job wasn’t for me anymore, and I wasn’t what my management was looking for.  Eventually, with utmost certainty, I will end up finding myself in a place that values my contributions…where I know I will make a difference, and somewhere where skills and attitude such as openness, ethical exchanges, and transparency make the foundation of a successful organization. 

I believe my x company will have a very promising future, and I pray with all my heart that it does.  I am blue-blooded after all.  To avoid conflict of interest, I do have company stocks as well, and current stock-prices suck. With that, I wish you, dear reader, a pleasant and productive day. A la prochaine.