folio

A decade ago, a director took me under his wing to informally mentor me. He seemed to like the work I produced, but thought I wasn’t reaching my true potential. I had an unusual reporting line in those days, my role a bit of an orphan in the service hierarchy. All of his direct reports except me were senior managers. I think the reason he held onto my portfolio was because it gave him an interest, away from the increasing drudgery of service management.

Our positive working relationship was rather unlikely, because our personalities were so unalike. He was straight talking, and would swear a lot. If he had an issue with a board level decision, he would happily drop the F-bomb in front of a room full of execs. I didn’t expect to get on with him when I heard of this side of his character, but we developed an exemplary working relationship.

Though others saw him as a very tough boss, towards me he had a nurturing role, celebrating the work I produced, and fighting my corner. If he saw others taking credit for my work, he would immediately set the record straight. He would always celebrate good work, which for me was a primary motivator. I needed that positive feedback mechanism then to help me produce work to the best possible standard. For me, he was an excellent mentor, successfully eeking me out of my shell, and helping me to progress my career.

But alas, all things must come to an end. Eventually he’d go off to work for the world’s most valuable company, pursuing his dreams. And there ended the era of a hands-on manager, interested in my life and work. The manager that took his place was frank with me: “I have no idea what you do, where your work comes from, and nor do I care.” Well thanks.

That would be my first and only one-to-one with him for two years, while I’d just plod on supporting the organisation the way I always did, battling creaking infrastructure and high staff turnover while trying to deliver promised projects. Despite constant prodding, I wouldn’t be able to pin him down for an appraisal until the week before he left his position. I felt completely undervalued and demotivated during that period. And then came the permacrisis.

For the first few months of the pandemic, we were all just running on adrenalin, going above and beyond to facilitate new ways of working for frontline staff and a majority of our workforce suddenly working from home. But that scrum eventually just became business as usual: to be perpetually in a state of unrest, lurching from one crisis to another. And I suppose that’s when the burnout and fatigue began to set in. There were no positive feedback loops anymore. Just new management banging on about organisation culture.

Inevitably I would start glancing all around me then, wandering what on earth I’m doing with my life. I’d forgotten what made my role enjoyable. All around me, the personnel was changing. Nearly everyone I now work with came from another organisation en masse, each new employee bringing their old colleagues with them. Now in every conversation, they dredge up memories of the old place, pointing out that over there they had sprawling IT services, and whole teams that do what I do. How nice.

Maybe it’s unsurprising that I had a serious wobble the past two years, glancing around at the career progression of all my peers. Yep, they’ve all left me far behind: all of them. Perhaps that partly accounts for the gloom which overcame me. I felt stranded, stuck in a rut, unable to move. Constricted by my own mistakes years ago, and by that ever present brain fog that renders me immobile. I’d lost all confidence. Hence those unceasing blues.

But perhaps I’m beginning to emerge from that, seeing new possibilities. Perhaps I realise that my role now is to mentor others as I was mentored by others before. Perhaps I need to stand up again, to let all these new bods around me know that I’m here: that I’m the one doing the work in the background, no matter who else takes the credit. So perhaps I will seek out new opportunities in the organisation, which enable me to carry on doing what I love, reinvigorated by new relationships.

Some days I do remember why I love my job, and what a blessing it has been. It is only by the grace of God that I have this job at all, so let me be grateful, keep calm and carry on. Onwards and upwards, inshallah.