Hey all,
Sorry I haven't been writing on here much. I have been doing a lot of thinking and a lot of stressful times have been my life for last few weeks.
It's all starting to settle slightly, and now that the dust is clearing, I can see a few things:
1) The transition of a new boss is not as easy as you'd think it would be, because it's not only your reactions you have to deal with, but also your team members. Lesson learned.
2) Having your coworker you worked most closely on your team leave when your new boss starts is stressful. It's basically like getting a whole new, slightly more miserable version of your previous job. That and less people talk to you, since, you know, there's now fewer people on your team and everyone has to pitch in.
3) Having a co-worker who you're friends with at working die suddenly does not bode well for your workflow.
I had a moment last weekend when I sort of had a malaise, about life, death, about 'what's the point of everything?' I thought it was just all the changes at work. It would pass, I thought.
Two days later, I found my coworker passed away over the weekend. Coincidence or not, it was a complete shock.
My colleague was funny, smart, witty, professional, and classy. She was everything you could hope for in a coworker, and I had an inclination that someday we would be hanging out on a patio, getting to know one another better, perhaps even be friends.
That day never came.
While I know I couldn't have changed what happened, there were times when I wish I would have paid closer attention to what people were saying. This was one of those times.
I previously took the stance that sometimes people are going through something and give them the time to recover as necessary. What's become clear to me, with the loss of colleague, is not to wait. Don't wait for that time to come. Reach out, seek those that seem like something's off, and offer to go for a coffee, or to check in with them.
When someone says something about how low their emotional state is, check in with them. You can't change what happens to people, or what choices people make, but you can at least know you made the best choices you could....you had nothing to fear of missed opportunities, or perhaps conversations that could have changed the way things went.
To that effect, I'm reminded of one of my favourite poems. This one is for you, Joan:
If—
By Rudyard Kipling
(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Source: A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943)
