I am an over-achiever to a fault. I am always looking to learn something new or seek out new experiences that open up my perspective beyond the existing limited one. Is that a bad thing?
I don’t believe so, but if I invest a large percentage of my time into something that is not servicing the goals I have for my life, then I will always choose to leave that thing behind regardless of its pereceived benefits.
The last year and 6 months I have been working as a Validation Engineer II with a sub contracting company that services pharmaceutical companies. Within about 8 months I got promoted to the position of Area Client Manager of WNY which is a equivalent to a regional manager.
Now I won’t get into too much detail on why I decided to take on this career path once again, but I’ll tell you this, it provided financial gain that was needed at the time. However, I did not forsee the emotional toll I would endure dealing with a management team that decided to string me along for 6 months without the appropriate compensation for my new position.
Now I see the value of money and I respect it. However, I value how I spend my time on this earth more than money. Therefore, my happiness, my family, and my businesses will always take priority over everything else. That is a contract I signed with myself when I left the pharmaceutical industry in 2014.
Anyways, to make a long story short, I took the new position on September 29th 2022. Again, I needed time to learn the position and devise a strategy on how to be my most efficient self. It took about 3 to 4 months to figure that out along with balancing everything else in my life. During that time I realized my management team was dragging their feet on the salary transition that was supposed to happen in late January/ beginning of February.
Keep in mind I had been working this position now for a few months with expectations and a lack of proper resources/tools to actually do my job effectively. Regardless of those , I still took care of my responsibilities in order to establish credibility in WNY. Of course not having the proper resources caused more stress to my life but I knew if I kept manufacturing results there would be no reason to question the salary compensation I was requesting. However, I began feeling more and more uneasy about not hearing anything about the salary transition. Therefore I requested meetings with my regional manager so he could clear things. After a few unsuccessful meetings, I final recieved an answer about the date I would recieve my salary transition. I was told March 15th woukd be the date everything would be taken care of. So I kept on doing what I was doing, expecting to hear good news on March 15. To my surprise, on March 15th my regional manager shared with me during our weekly check in meeting that they are dissolving my position. That would mean I would no longer be the Area Client Manager and I would be expected to travel out of state to service another client for a little over a full year. Immediately all the stress I had accumulated from this anticipation made me feel manipulated but also relieved. Why, because at least at this point I knew where I needed to put this new venture on my priority list.
I was mislead and manipulated by my regional manager/management team with no prior communication or updates. Therefore, I knew what decision I needed to make. Having this postion in my career field opened up some old parts of me that I enjoyed but the stress of it affected my overall happiness, devoured my valuable time, and also took my focus away from growing my businesses. Therefore, I took a few days to devise a plan to resign. My last day in my position was April 10th 2023.
I can literally feel myself slowly regaining that connection to my internal happiness. That’s how I know I made the right decision.
It is still a struggle readjusting to my daily routine prior to taking on a whole career but I know in a couple months I will be fully engaged in all the things that service my life.
I am sharing this to tell you that it’s ok if it didn’t workout. You determine what makes your life whole. If you have done everything in your power to make it work but your efforts were not valued then you have to evaluate what you value and your goals in order to make the right decision. It’s ok to not allow that thing you made a choice to invest in destroy everything you worked so hard for. Whether it is a job, a hobby, a bad habbit, a mindset or someone that no longer services your goals for yourself, make the decision to let go and choose yoy. You will thank yourself for it. Don’t invest too much time into the ‘pros’ that you don’t see how much the ‘cons’ are affecting you and everything around you. I chose to get back to those things that ignite me. So my message is to always choose you.