Reflections

Moving On

• By fannieb
• January 25, 2015
• No Comments

Her decision to look for a new job was not a personal one aimed to hurt Corey, her boss. She had struggled with making it, but did based on her realization that it was a business decision, pure and simple. Celeste had gradually come to the understanding that she was in the business of living a struggle free life or at least a life where she had minimized expending effort that caused unnecessary anxiety and which in the end did not yield the results sought after in the first place. Ten months in to her tenure at Chanteur she became acutely aware that many of her coworkers subconsciously believed that accomplishing their work had to be difficult – but not merely difficult as in challenging, difficult in the sense that getting anything done required effort tainted with and unholy angst. And, the end results of these efforts were almost always subpar, a big aspect of the division’s culture which did not sit well with Celeste.

She also observed their belief in quick fixes that addressed symptoms of problems and not their root causes. This idea was also counter to her interpretation of how life worked. From her life’s experience she had come to believe that an inward change was necessary before “best practices” borrowed from others (a “go to” solution for her company) could take hold and work to solve problems and improve inefficiencies. Celeste came to think that Corey and others at Chanteur needed to look inside to take an honest inventory of their shortcomings and then work to improve on them. Only after some basic business skills were developed could solutions that had been viable elsewhere work for Corey and at Chanteur. She saw Corey’s failure to master basic business skills as one of Chanteur’s big problems. But Corey failed to notice that not reading and addressing important emails, always talking in fluffy generalities when tactical discussions were necessary, or even his short attention span of 15 minutes was a problem. Celeste believed that many of her coworkers were their own worst enemies and had become roadblocks on their path to success; but, they could do nothing to remove these obstacles because they couldn’t even see them.

Celeste had gained this perspective by having been forced to take a hard look at her life. In 2002 she had become depressed to the point of resorting to therapy and taking anti-depressants. At that time she had been working for a Fortune 500 credit card company and she hated it. She left her soul at the door each day she swiped her badge to enter her office building. She felt like she was reporting to a penitentiary to continue a lengthy prison sentence. Her work had become unchallenging, her coworkers had become cold, and she felt like a number not a person who was not making one bit of difference in the world.

A few years earlier Celeste had been sold on the idea that she would be happier if she were her own boss and so had signed on to sell Mary Kay cosmetics. She had done well in building a team of independent consultants and soon became a Sales Director. The attention she craved to be someone and to make a difference had been delivered and she saw Mary Kay as the solution to her malaise. She believed that becoming a director would free her from the pain and suffering she experienced at work. And it had for a couple of months – the two months following her promotion to directorship and the month she quit her job to pursue Mary Kay full-time. But she soon realized she swapped one type of pain for another.

When she quit her good job with good benefits to pursue this dream she did not have a well-baked plan. In order to continue to have health insurance benefits Celeste married Jody, her now ex-husband (she had liked him well enough then). And ten days later she kissed corporate America goodbye. That was her plan. But Jody was unskilled and his income was not enough to support the two of them, especially with a big chunk of it suddenly going to cover Celeste’s portion of health insurance. Within a couple of months they had eaten through her 401(k) savings to fund her entrepreneurial dream. She was back at work in corporate America only six months later. She had failed to see that this dream was merely a quick fix without the real possibility of freeing her from her despair. She had failed to be honest and tell herself that she was not cut out to be a salesperson who could make a livable income based solely on the commission from her sales. She hadn’t been aware that her efforts, no matter how disciplined, would not get her what she was after because she had not analyzed the situation, determined what would be required to sustain them financially, and had not been aware that the lure of happiness in self-employment was only that, a lure for her, especially in the state of mind she had been in at the time.

The solution for Celeste back then had been external – Mary Kay directorship and the dream painted by a compelling recruitment campaign that took root in Celeste’s receptive and willing mind. The problems Celeste had faced and that caused her such utter misery at work were not something that could be fixed from outside her self. But back then Celeste thought they could be.

Struggling financially, Celeste resignedly stepped back into a corporate job. Being strapped for money caused her to realize she needed to fix her dire financial situation, which had been exposed by her recent failed business venture, but that had been broken long before. She realized she needed to dig herself out of the debt she’d created, much of it from stockpiling Mary Kay products to hold on to her prized director position, inventory that she would never sell. Celeste was in debt for prior fiscal transgressions as well though – buying brand name clothes, electronics, and dining out frequently, even when her bank account did not support the practicality of such spending.

It was in this crisis that it became clear to Celeste that it was make or break time. She needed to get the burden of debt off her back if she was going to experience any kind of peace of mind. And so she started a plan of tracking her finances – actually balancing her checkbook and focusing on paying more than the minimum amount due – and clawed her way out of debt. That was in 2003 and it took her a little over four years to do it, but she had. This was the beginning of her transformation and it was around this time that Celeste had read the book Up from Slavery which highlighted other places in her life she was not living with complete integrity to self.   She discovered she was cheating herself. She had advantages that her ancestors, people of color, had afforded her – freedom, the right to vote, access to quality education – and she was, in essence, squandering them.

Celeste’s transformation, which began in the shambles of her dream, had started from within as all transformations do. Without this insight no change sticks. Celeste’s coworkers at Chanteur, including Corey, were not far enough down life’s path to recognize this. But she was and in seeing this glaring disconnect she knew that she couldn’t get to where she needed to be: working with people who weren’t afraid to do the tough work of inward reflection and behavior modification, people who went after being and doing their best, well equipped with this insight.

So in 2011, Celeste started looking for a new job in an environment where people held beliefs about life and the folly of struggle that were more similar to hers. She needed this in order to continue to grow and evolve. For Celeste, deciding to move on was a business decision, really. Though some of her colleagues’ unconscious behavior and the frustration Celeste oftentimes experienced because of it raised an ire in her that had made it feel personal and had caused her to hesitate at first. She was concerned how her boss would view her, treat her, once she followed company policy and told him she had an interview for an internal job. This was a moment which she dreaded because she was loyal to a fault and had not wanted to hurt his feelings. But in the end she was able to boil it down to the fact that it was just a business decision and not personal. Realizing that what was right for her, regardless of Corey’s thoughts or feelings on the matter, was what counted and she took that first step.

Photo Credit: Transformer18