The Double Standard of Professional Reputation

 As discussed in my last post, I'm leaving my current job. I have surprised myself with how motivated I've been despite all of the aggravation I expressed previously, but I have accomplished a lot in this last week and think that I have maintained my good reputation with my team. 

In an effort to maintain that motivation, I read a few articles on the importance of not checking out in your last few weeks in a job. One of the driving factors for me was definitely my reputation. I like to leave things better than I found them, and have accomplished that in many of my past jobs. My problem with the articles is that this expectation of maintaining a professional reputation does not go both ways. The leaving employee is expected to continue to be as reliable, hard-working, and dedicated as they were when they first got the job, which is fine. However, nowhere in any article that I read did the writer encourage the same for the soon-to-be former boss. 

I can understand that, in some ways, the decision to leave may feel like a reflection on the boss. Truthfully, up until about six months ago, I really loved my boss. He asked me at one point to let him know if I was starting to look elsewhere so he would have a heads up when I was leaving, and I honored that when the interviews started rolling in. While there had been certain changes in his behavior before then, what my husband has referred to as "microaggressions," they were covert and not something I paid much attention to. I might have waved it off as he had a bad day or something. After I first gave him a heads up that I was interviewing, he seemed to distance himself from me. 

When I first started, my mentor told me that in the group I had joined, they really encouraged people to find their passions and to pursue other avenues if the work they were doing wasn't what they wanted. I suppose for her, and our group director, that is true. But my boss has been a real jerk since I told him I was leaving, as I mentioned in my last post.

One article I read mentioned how your boss might be dragged before his boss to find out why you're leaving and may disparage your character to save their own skin. I don't believe this happened in my situation; however, I do wonder if my boss' failure to maintain communication with me over projects and such that the group director wanted me to do contributed to his getting hauled into the director's office. I told my boss, and my mentor, that I wanted to do more policy related work. My boss did mention a few projects during one of our touchbases, but after that, it was crickets. We were supposed to meet biweekly but I think most of our meetings were cancelled in my last few months because of time constraints or him being out of the office.

The article also mentions the recruiting process being difficult, and that actually makes more sense for my situation. Honestly, I don't know many people who would want to do the work we do. We basically take the information and data found on audit and analyze it for an enforcement action. There's a bit of auditing necessary, some legal aspects, but it's not really audit work and it's not really legal either. The closest thing I can compare it to is, well, law enforcement, except that instead of taking someone to jail, we might impose a sanction where we monitor an entity for a period of time. The goal is to help the entity improve their processes and correct whatever failures were found on audit. Our money penalties are like a fine or a speeding ticket, a really expensive speeding ticket. However, since it's all paperwork based, it's not exactly the same as an actual police officer. 

Before I told my boss I was interviewing, he was trying to hire another PMF to join our team. The two he was interviewing both didn't work out. One cancelled the interview because she was offered another job and the other one, to whom he actually made an offer, turned it down. I later learned that the one who turned down the offer was somewhat naïve about what it means to work in government. She apparently waxed poetic about how she was going to change the world. My pseudo boss told me that I seemed more grounded, and I guess after 10 years of working in state government, I felt lucky if I could make small changes in my unit, let alone the world. 

Most of the PMFs from my class wanted to work at State or USAID, and even if they didn't want to work at those big agencies, they wanted to work in policy. I recall many of my fellow PMFs discussing their spreadsheet hierarchy of the positions they were looking to obtain. Some had "A" and "B" list agencies or positions. I had a very simple goal: to find a position, any position, in the federal government. I actually was offered 3 positions: a budget analyst at DOL, a position at SBA that I don't recall the title, and the job I accepted. I also almost was offered a job at OMB, but I received my onboard date shortly after that interview and after I let them know, they advertised the position for which I was being considered. 

My point is, there are a limited number of people who would actually enjoy doing this work. I took this job because it was a foot in the door with the feds. I recall telling my old state coworker that I could do any job for three years (I didn't realize you could apply for other jobs as career conditional, but I ended up being here for three years anyway). For someone who enjoys analyzing data and really getting into the nitty gritty, an auditing or financial position may better suit them. A lawyer or paralegal would likely prefer more litigation or appellate work, even if the appeal is to an administrative law judge. Since I've been there, someone has left at least once a year. In my first six months, two people left. Another person only lasted a year and left at the end of 2020, and then the last person before me left in April of this year (though she'd been on detail since October). The other problem is that they don't always replace the people who leave. When the second person left within six months of my start date, they didn't replace him. Then after the 2020 person left, they didn't replace her either (though I think they were planning to replace her with a PMF). Now, they have three positions to fill, but they'll probably only fill one or two of them. 

While I can understand that my boss is probably frustrated with having to find more people to hire and train, I still don't think it's fair that I am expected to maintain my integrity while he can do a complete 180 in his treatment of me. I had this happen with a previous attorney I worked with, and our relationship was never the same. Unfortunately, it is a bridge burned, and while I did not light that match, I didn't try to put out the flames either. I'd hate to see that happen here. The article I linked above leaves the questioner with this piece of advice: "Just make sure that you handle your resignation as professionally as possibly. Make a plan to transition your work to your co-workers and stay positive. Your boss will get over your resignation. You'll need that boss for a recommendation later, so play nice right up until the end, regardless of the reaction you got."

This is my problem. Of course, I'm going to "play nice" and do my job, but at the same time, I can't help but see the double standard. I know it's not necessarily common practice, with privacy issues and what not, but what if a future PMF finds out that I used to work in this division and looks me up? We do network, as I spoke with one who was considering my agency. And as this article points out, the former employee also has the ability to blast the company on various social media sites where people research the culture and experience of former employees. I also liked that this article states: "If you make people feel like they’re dispensable, the damage runs far and deep." I know in the articles warning departing employees not to check out, they point out that you never know when you might have to work with your boss and/or coworkers again, but doesn't that go both ways? I don't plan to return to this division or even this area of my agency, but that doesn't mean that one day I won't need to work with these people again. It's going to be awkward and uncomfortable for everyone if it happens.

Bottom line, while it sucks to lose an employee, everyone should try to remain professional. To steal a line from Bridesmaids: "Why can't you be happy for me, and then go home and talk about me behind my back like a normal person?" I don't encourage bad mouthing or gossip, but go vent to your family/friends if you need to, lament the loss, but don't take it out on the employee. Clearly, it wouldn't be such a huge blow or loss if that employee sucked, so don't make them regret the time they spent working for you. And as the last article I shared said, remember that your other employees are watching.

Take this job and. . .

 So, it finally happened. A few weeks ago, I was offered a new position. Surprisingly, it was exactly the position I wanted, but didn't think I could have. I literally had a five year plan to get this role and I cannot express my glee when it was offered to me five years before I expected it! 

It's a policy position and I am stoked! The entire reason why I went back to school to get my masters was to work in policy. It's why I chose to get the degree I did instead of going to law school. After working for years as a paralegal, I realized that I was tired of defending bad laws and I wanted to do more to create good ones. That said, I didn't want to be a politician, so policy work seemed the best option.

For the last three years, I've worked in compliance enforcement, which means that I was still at the end of the line. Insurance plans came to my division when they'd done something wrong, and our focus was on punishing them for not fixing it timely, or in some cases, helping them to come into compliance. The analysis part was interesting, but the work was really demoralizing for me. I think I realized that I needed a new job after I had to take an action against a plan with which I heavily sympathized. It was in a region that had been devastated by natural disasters, but nobody in my division or group was willing to consider these events as mitigating factors. I realized then that I was still doing what I had wanted to move away from: enforcing bad laws or regulations.

I had multiple interviews for various positions in my agency, but none of them panned out and, truthfully, none of them were really interesting to me. I mean, a part of me would have jumped at the chance to just get out of compliance, but I knew, deep down, that accepting a job just to get out of the job I had started to hate wasn't a wise choice. Talk about the possibility of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire! So, when I received an interview request for the position I've accepted, it felt like my stars were aligning. The interview went well and within two weeks, I had the offer and I was making plans for my departure with my boss.

Since then, I've really started to have issues with my current position, and my initial feelings of regret for leaving my team are quickly morphing into indifference. For starters, my boss insisted I needed to stay on for four weeks, which unfortunately put me starting my new position while on vacation that was already approved. I thought about altering the vacation as I'm not actually going anywhere, but I am attending an online residency, and I didn't want to have a hectic schedule my first week in trying to work around attending the seminars. 

Then, my boss asked me to create a summary of my current projects so he could reassign them, which I did. We were supposed to discuss them at a meeting, but then he was out the day of the meeting. Since he had scheduled the meeting, I assumed he would schedule another one. This was my mistake, I should have been more proactive, but then he announced he was taking vacation during my last week and, as far as I can tell, only one of my current projects was reassigned. 

It's also felt like he's been in denial the last few weeks. I gave a briefing to our group director and received high praise from multiple people for how I handled it. He started to say how well that would serve me in my future, but then seemed to realize that my future wasn't here, and finished his sentence with something like "wherever you end up." This was after he condescendingly said in a meeting before I told him I was leaving that my projects were really just "juggling balls" and that none of them required a lot of attention. After the latter comment, I started to feel unvalued, which just further supported my decision to leave. 

I'm disheartened as I really liked my boss and my team. It would be nice to leave a job simply for a better opportunity and not because I desperately want to get out, but that's really only happened once or twice before. Similar to how I am with relationships, I'm usually well over a job by the time I leave it. It's just that I've been strategizing how to get out of something for so long.

There are some downsides to the new job, so don't go thinking I am expecting everything to be perfect there just because I'm disappointed with my current situation. I'm an early bird in my current role and my agency has flexible hours, but when discussing my schedule with my future bosses, they made it clear that those early hours wouldn't work for them, at least not on a daily basis. On the flip side of this, if I continue to get up as early as I do now, I can utilize that time for writing, and maybe finish TWO novels this year instead of just the one.

Another downside is teleworking. While we're still full time telework in my office because of the pandemic, there are signs that will be changing soon. When discussing my telework schedule, my future bosses said that most people in the office telework on Mondays and Fridays, with a few people doing 3 days of telework. That may change due to the pandemic and continuing to social distance (especially with the variants starting to be more concerning), but I had hoped to bump my telework days from 2 to 3. This isn't written in stone, but I get the feeling the new position is more in-person collaborative than virtually collaborative like my old position, so that may impact things. I had considered applying for the full time telework program as most people in my current team do that, but it doesn't sound like that's an option for the new job. I am hoping I can at least keep my telework days (Thursday and Friday) because I prefer working in the office on Mondays when traffic is light and no one is there!

The last downside is one I chose with the full knowledge of what I was giving up. Before I had this offer, my boss had told me of an opportunity for a promotion that would be coming right around the time I got this offer; however, I had already been interviewing when he told me about it. After thinking long and hard about it, I ultimately decided that if the right job was offered to me, I would be willing to forego the promotion because, at this point in my career, I'm more interested in enjoying what I do than making more money doing something I don't enjoy. If I was still making the salary I did at the state, I might have felt differently, but at the end of the day, if I'm going to spend 40+ hours a week doing a job, it'd be nice if I didn't dread it. Besides, while it may take longer to bump up to that higher salary in the new position, it's not like I'll never qualify for it again. 

Next week is my final week in this position and I'm definitely looking forward to moving on, but I'm trying not to check out before I'm gone. I worked hard to prove myself in this position and built my reputation on my willingness to learn and pitch in, so I'm not about to ruin it by screwing around now. But I will say, after some of the things that have happened with my boss in my last few weeks, it's difficult to motivate myself not to check out. I'm optimistic though that my respect for my colleagues will win out over my irritation at his behavior.

The Road to Becoming Published

When I joined my MFA program and subsequently finished my novel, I thought the hard part was mostly behind me. Sure, there'd be editing and revising to be done, but the book was written, right? Things should be smoother sailing now.

Boy was I wrong, but man have I learned a lot in the last couple of months. Let me start at the beginning. Around the end of May, I learned of a Twitter event called Pitch Madness, or #PitMad that was occuring on June 3rd. Apparently it happens every quarter, and while I could have waited until September's, I wanted to give it a shot. Essentially, writers can tweet three times with pitches for their books, including the hashtag #PitMad and other hashtags to help agents find your book (e.g. #R for romance, #A for adult, etc.). If an agent hearts your tweet, you then follow their instructions for submitting your query (usually you send a letter and however many pages they request).

I joined a challenge on Facebook to help me prepare called the Pitch Perfect challenge. I learned how to write a each aspect of the pitch and how to reduce my book to 280 characters. It was a lot to learn in a short amount of time, but I did it. I knew that I still had a lot of editing to do on my book before it would really be ready to start pitching agents, but I wanted to try this event. So, on June 3rd, I tweeted three different tweets. I got a heart from an indie/hybrid publisher, which was questionable. But then, lo and behold, I got a heart from an agent! I was so excited! 

The challenge I had joined also gave us tips on writing our query letters, which were really helpful as I drafted the letter, a synopsis, and put together my pages. I took a little over a week to put everything together and then I sent it out. A few days later, the agent sent me a nice rejection letter, which I was expecting. It was actually a relief to pull the bandaid off, even if I'm not ready to really start querying anywhere else. 

I plan to participant in #CarinaPitch on July 14th, which is directly with a publisher, and then do #PitMad again in September and December. I will have submitted my entire book through my MFA program in early September, and I think just having all of my chapters reviewed by tutorial instructors will give me more confidence in pitching agents in the future. 

I've also been working on my second manuscript as I'll need more chapters to submit for fall and spring semester. My current program plan has me graduating next summer, so I'll probably get about half of my second manuscript submitted through the program before I'm done. I actually feel a lot more confident about the second book just because I think it's a better concept and really just a better story. I'm hoping to finish writing it during National Novel Writing Month in November. I've been participating in the "camps" that NanoWriMo has put on in April and July. I'm planning to be at 25,000 words by the end of this month, which will put me just about done with the book if I write 50,000 words in November. 

But writing and publishing are clearly two different animals, and I'm really glad I took a chance on #PitMad last month. I've learned so much about what to expect with the publishing world, and am coming to terms with the idea that I might not get my first, second, or even my third book published. I mean, technically, I'm on my fourth book now. I wrote a really awful YA novel in middle school and then a really bad mystery in high school. The first I wrote and printed out, but have no idea where the printed copy ended up. The second I hand wrote and, again, have no idea where it ended up. So, maybe my second/fourth manuscript will be the winning ticket to being a published author. Time will tell!

I'm really glad I've taken this journey though. It's been really good for me to get back to my creative roots and I've enjoyed writing again. Even if I have to throw in the towel at some point and self publish, at least I'll fulfill my promise to my mother in some way. But I figure I'll work on my pitching game for at least a few years before I even think about throwing in that towel.

The road to getting published will not be easy, but I'm really excited to see where it takes me!