I needed to blog it out today. Its been a while. I wrote this pretty raw at the apex of a big transition period in the middle of a mid-life crisis. I was compelled. So, I'm thinking it back to blogging because facebook is too short attention span and advertisey.
Last Day
Today is my last day at an organization where I have worked for the last 8 years and 8 months. I only know this exact time because it showed up on my Linked in Profile. Actually, it seems like two weeks and two days, no it seems more like 20 years and 6 months. (The Jerk). However long it was, it ended up being the most perfect fit for my life cycle timing. I found the job in the back of Parent Map magazine in a coffee shop on a walk with my infant daughter in the stroller. It wasn’t a coffee shop I regularly went to but I had decided to go for an extra long walk that day. I recognized the email address in the ad as that of my former employer when I was a Nanny. I called her up and said “I want that job!”. As with all of my work history in Seattle, it was a combination of who-knows-who with a side of favoritism (Raising Arizona).
It wasn’t however, the best fit for my career. Just months before I had been the Director of the Jewish Film Festival which I had grown from a small fledgling event into one of the premiere film festivals in a city with the largest International Film Festival IN THE WORLD ah ah ah (SIFF). Just last week someone commented on my SJFF baseball cap saying “hey, I went to that event years ago, it was great”. As the Director I had raised over 300K per year, managed a seasonal staff and ran a year-long marketing campaign, which in the first year won a design award thanks to the incredible designers I have worked with. (http://www.wolkencommunica.com/)
I pulled off a week of rich programming around 30 international films that brought 10,000 people together to explore the Jewish culture through the lens of film. Wow, that flew straight out the muscle memory of my fingers. That was the fun part. The hard part was working with a board of mircro-managers who weren’t so sure about my 30 year-old capabilities and an Executive Director who was quite literally a walking talking actual real life Dufus. Many hard lessons were learned, lots of public kudos and a clear internal mandate never to work in the Jewish community again. Too big a fish in a small pond, I thought.
I pulled off a week of rich programming around 30 international films that brought 10,000 people together to explore the Jewish culture through the lens of film. Wow, that flew straight out the muscle memory of my fingers. That was the fun part. The hard part was working with a board of mircro-managers who weren’t so sure about my 30 year-old capabilities and an Executive Director who was quite literally a walking talking actual real life Dufus. Many hard lessons were learned, lots of public kudos and a clear internal mandate never to work in the Jewish community again. Too big a fish in a small pond, I thought.
Then I became a tadpole in a drop of rain. I also agreed to work for ½ my salary, no benefits and a shitty title: Executive Assistant. It seemed worth it because it enabled me to have incredible flexibility and I could raise my kids as a person who had healthy independence and ample time to tickle, feed, teach, schlep and cuddle. It was hard on my ego but even harder to contain my personality. It was probably not so easy on my superiors either. I worked hard to find the line between welcome expertise and unsolicited opinions. I was not born to be a glorified secretary. Over the 8 years my title grew to Operations Manager and my hourly wage grew by 30%. Now that I am leaving, I feel like this title still doesn’t really reflect my contribution to this organization but I am proud of the legacy that I leave here and the Million dollars that I helped to raise for children who are grieving.
I worked hard to balance the growing job, the growing children, and our growing community of friends and family.
Besides being able to have the perfectly flexible job so I could raise my kids, I had three amazing women as mentors who reached into every corner of my life and placed handfuls of wisdom and strength that have permanently settled in to my soul and spirit. I needed them really badly. I hadn’t ever had mentors like this. Really they all made me want to be a better person and reflected my weaknesses and strengths back at me in that way that makes you pause for a second, decide to turn a corner, and take a step up to the next level.
Today, however is a big letdown. I am sitting in an office with two desks neither of which is mine. I am all set up at the round meeting table. I already feel like an outsider. My going away lunch was planned 3 days before my last day and then at the last minute cancelled. None of the board members knew it was my last board meeting at the last board meeting. It was uncomfortable and I made an overly emotional speech to an unsuspecting audience. After planning surprise lunch tributes to exiting board members and stepping down staff, and generally having a very personal relationship with most board members and staff, I feel unappreciated and a little hurt. This is what unintentional feels like. Unintentional.
Exits aren’t easy regardless. Having said goodbye to many close co-workers, I know that things will never be the same as it was when you had lunch together every day, showed up hung over and got teased, explored punchy together while doing mundane tasks, or just bonded over a mutual enemy –the boss or the board members. It’s hard to say "I’m moving on without your company as much as I might enjoy it". Front row seats at the transition of a relationship give me the tights. Truth is, time marches on and people get sick and have other shit going on that is more important than sharing memories over a chicken salad with lemonade.
If there is one thing I am good at, it’s maintaining friendships. Yes, I have lost a few crazy people on the way (no fault of my own of course, wink wink). I have also been able to hold dear many people I have worked with in the past and (thanks to facebook in part) translated most of those relationships into life-long friendships. I have a sharpness that pierces people right where they were hoping to be tickled. I also have a healthy sense of humor about myself and a generosity of confidence that makes people feel better about themselves. I know how this sounds but I feel like I leave people a little better off than when I met them, like a good girl scout.
What lies in the future is a mystery to us all
No one can predict the wheel of fortune as it falls
There may come a time when I can see that I was wrong
But for now this is my song
-The Carpenters
