2017 Decisions – Good or Bad? Maybe Both

I am sure everyone out there made decisions that immediately turned into sort of regrets. Although I believe each decision we make in live is a good lesson for the future I do know there are some bad decisions I have made in 2017. 🙂

As much as 2017 was an amazing year in which majority of it I carried my little baby girl to term and finally met her in December it was also a year of bad decisions. One after another too, until finally, I was done making any major decisions in August.

So, what decisions have I made and what did I learn from them??

In late March I have given my two weeks notice to my manager. He reacted like such a DIVA  that I was in shock and probably am in shock until now. I mean the guy was main reason why I have decided to leave because he was a bad manager but I never thought I would get a silent treatment and nasty looks. I took it for a week and then I couldn’t come back for another week of that treatment so what I did is I made manuals on how to do things, since I was literally the only one to know how to do certain things. On Friday I have made last manual and I have sent it to the owner of the company so he knew I did them and then on Monday morning I have emailed everyone that I am no longer coming in. What do I regret most out of this one; me making those stupid tutorials. No one ever thanked me and I felt like such a criminal leaving the company. Not that I needed some damn medal, but an acknowledgment that I have made them would have been nice. The good thing about this experience was that I will never make the same mistake again; it’s not my business if someone doesn’t know how to do things after I leave the company.

Well, after I have left that company I found out that I am pregnant. Damn did I regret leaving that company in such a rush at the beginning but then I realized it’s a good thing. I was constantly under a lot of stress at this company and during pregnancy I needed to be as calm as possible.

It was April and I definitely needed a job and I needed to find one before I was visibly pregnant (trust me, almost no one will hire a pregnant woman). I found something quickly at a small flooring company. It was such a stupid choice of mine that I don’t even want to talk about it. I knew from the get go that the owner of the company is a scam. He was way too concentrated on how great of a person he became. It was such bull shit that it hurt. I can only blame that one on my pregnancy hormones I guess.

I stayed home for majority of April and at the beginning of May I got a pretty good gig through a hiring agency at a tech company. It was pretty funny because I was to replace temporarily a lady that was going on a maternity leave. The timing of the assignment was pretty perfect too. The only thing was, the job was EXTREMELY boring. I couldn’t do it because it was so boring and I felt like I will not grow in this company but I knew I have to suck it up because I won’t be able to find a job now and I knew I will start showing very soon.

And then my my best friend told me about an opportunity at the company she was Operations Manager. I was excited about it, she told me that I would eventually just do my own thing and not be completely under her. I was definitely worried about being under her because I saw how she works with people when we used to work together in the past. She was worried about my direct way of being and that I definitely don’t kiss ass but she knew my work ethic was stellar. I promised her my attitude will be good. And so I quit that boring gig, again pretty much overnight, and started working with my friend.

It was a job that I wanted to keep because it offered growth opportunity and it was something I enjoyed doing. My friend though, total fail for me. She is definitely one of those people who are dominant as managers that make their employees feel dumb. That’s how I constantly felt, on top of that she only half trained (or that’s how I felt) me an expected me to guess things and then she would lash out on me right in front of other people since we all set in the same room. So what did I do one day; I talked back just the way she talked to me. Of course that was frown upon, I mean she was the manager so it was okay for her to be a pissy asshole but if someone talked back it was a big no no. So at 21 weeks pregnant and totally showing I lost a job.

I was so pissed off that I didn’t suck it up but how could I handle this treatment every day. Literally everyday I was worried what will she yell at me for and every day I was bending over to make everything perfect for her, but it was never enough. Yes, mistakes were made but not because I was careless, it was because I was not trained for the job.

I did get a job in August that I stayed at until the end of my pregnancy. More than that I was extremely successful at my position even though I went into the cold water. I worked for a non-profit company as a grant accountant with no prior experience in such a work and I was able to succeed at such level that I was considered for a senior role at the company. I totally believe I would have gotten the role if not my advanced already pregnancy. I knew the department needed a new manager and they needed one that will be there for a while before taking a longer leave but I wanted to see if I was able to do the job. When I expressed my interest in doing more I immediately became a temporary manager and got more duties to perform. One might say that they used me, but I see it differently. They trusted me with very serious management of large contracts and they didn’t regret it. I loved doing that job, I felt appreciated and felt that I am definitely needed and appreciated 100%.

All of that while going through the best experience of my life; the pregnancy (there will be a separate post about the pregnancy)

So in 2017 I learned to go with my gut feeling from the get go, not mingle friendship with work, and I definitely learned to know my worth and not expect any less than that.

Who else had an interesting 2017?

Cheers to new experiences in 2018!