This job checks all the boxes, but...

The unexpected feelings of not much, after getting everything you think you want

I’ve been wanting to reflect of the past 2 years and 2 months I spent not working, but it never felt urgent or important (to anyone else) so I kept postponing it. But today is merely the third day I’m officially back employed and I still have 3.25 hours before a meeting, so I decide I’ll write something here.

Sorry for the bunch of “I”s. Do expect some more.

So yes, I got myself a writing job at the last company I was with — a job that I reapplied for after failing to qualify for last year, and have went above and beyond during the 3-months-long interview process this time, to get.

Two years ago I took a career break. I resigned from a secure, high-paying, yet unsatifying job without any clear plan other than to “decompress, see what’s out there, and try and make a living from writing, consulting, and probably teaching”. Vague, yes, but I was burned out after 15 years in Tech and wanted to step away from technical and business-management-y roles.

And now I landed myself a job to write at a decent company in an industry that I knew very well. This is literally perfect as I didn’t leave the company hating it. I genuinely can see how the company is imperfect but absolutely good enough.

The job ticks all my rational criteria of “what my ideal next job would look like”:

• I want to write full time.

• I want to write about business and tech.

• I want to interview people, surface their perspectives, and spot worthy stories.

• I don’t mind a pay cut.

• I don’t want to do people management nor project management.

• I don’t care about career advancements anymore.

• I want to get close to the data business again.

• I want to work remotely for a global team, ideally with European culture.

• I’d like to be able to make the best with of all my previous knowledge and experience and get better at the craft of writing.

You’d think I’d be elated. Yet I am not feeling celebratory of getting the job. Instead, I came out of the recruitment process feeling underappreciated, underrecognised, and underrated. Long story short: I got offered a more junior role than the one I was applying for — a different role that was never there in their opening in the first place — with a job description that left me feeling like I’ll be expected to bear the responsibilities of the original senior role anyhow, and I couldn’t budge the budget they said they had for the role for someone in my geo.

The best I can describe it is, imagine you had been putting money into a box for an emergency fund. Then after 8 years you open that box up and it’s filled with shreds of Monopoli money.

As a high-achieving people-pleasing perfectionist who is wired to give more, hoping that the investment counts towards something, finding out that your reputation, the trust you built, and all the goodwill demonstrated couldn’t even give you an extra 10% wiggle room in comp that you feel you deserve — which is already a fair self-adjusted stepdown from what you had in mind for the original role, sucks. Worse, you take much pride in your negotiation skill, yet this is the best outcome you get.

The outcome matters less than the process of getting it. Everything is contextual and relative.

In a funny twist, despite the lack of outcome and flexibility in comp negotiation, there’s also satisfaction that comes from knowing I have tried my best and this is truly the best deal I can get from this company. That maximiser bug.

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Interestingly, I am also surprised I don’t mourn the end of my funemployment that much.

It helps that I spent the last week of my “retirement” perfectly the way I wanted it. And I have done everything I wanted to do during the break. Five road trips, loads of side projects, physically and hormonally back on track, and all housekeeping are done up.

In a nutshell: That’s a two-years well spent with no regret. I’m absolutely ready to enter the new season.

This time I’m treating it like it’s a job — not a career, not a hobby, and not a vocation. But let’s see how much can I actually stick to giving 7 when being given 7.

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Something I’ve also been mulling over is how apparently there are more financial reward in churning out corporate content marketing than in solving novel problems by producing and advocating for ideas.

So I don’t mourn the “end of my freedom” as much as I slightly mourn the idea that I had before going into the break — how I could use this time to build multiple streams of income, making a better living writing, teaching, selling courses — now that I have all the time in the world to do so.

But also at the same time, I felt completely at peace with this job, having been through the experiment because I know I have tried and can go back into the default path of 9-5 without the whatif’s. No regret. Been there, seen that, done my best.

That’s all for now. I’ll share other fun observations and lessons learned some time soon. Or not.

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Originally published on Proses.ID.