It’s coming to almost a year that I was fired from my six year career. In that same month, I came far closer to checking out early that I had in my life just by the stress that job caused me, which coincidentally is what got me let go.
I’m in an infinitely better job now and have been since October. An amazing manager, a good small team of coworkers that doesn’t have any interwork drama beyond shift griping. I’m not micromanaged, and I have a level of agency and freedom that I have no experienced in the workplace since, well, forever.
This has come at the cost of pay and some amount of stability. I didn’t expect taking a $5 paycut would hurt me and my spouse as much as it has. And this has put an additional level of stress on both of us, even if I can safety say that it’s not the kind of stress I was experiencing last year. I want to apply to a different position in this company, but there’s a one year waiting term for all new employees before trying to move into another department.
My spouse is going through a series of struggles that I will not go too mcuh into depth, but it involved having medical issues that have so far haven’t been able to be diagnosed properly, as well as trying to accept that because of our financial situation, we will likely not own a home or have kids.
I tell her she shouldn’t blame herself for that, we both had career setbacks for different reasons. I don’t think it really takes that kind of pain away, and I’m certainly not going to downplay it.
So overall, it’s been one mixed bag this last year. But I can’t help but often feel this sense of futility to it all.