Bringing My B- Game
When good isn't good enough.
I’m determined to still set a positive tone for 2025 (ha) or at least lead with the upbeat before delving into the muck. So, I haven’t been employed full time in 10 months, which is to say, holy fuck! There was a three-month contract gig somewhere in there at least. My unemployment ran out in December (and Oregon claims I was overpaid in 2021, the last time I collected unemployment, and wants $330/month to pay off the $7,707.42 they say I owe and, sorry, that’s not going to happen!) so I’m currently living off my savings that got a little severance bump in 2018 when I was let go from a job I’d been at for 11 years and 11 months. I only got one month’s severance from Pinterest last year and one paycheck from the other job that let me go in 2019. That’s a lot of letting go since I moved back to Portland. And now I’m a homeowner who owes $6,000 in property tax. Why would I ever pay taxes again, considering, you know, everything?!
Last year was brutal. The current job market is the bleakest I’ve ever encountered. So so jobs on LinkedIn get over a hundred applicants after being listed for a few hours. I apply to things I have zero interest in just to up my chances of getting a nibble. I was offered a chance to interview at Meta for a contract job that involved reviewing sensitive and/or offensive content for $24 an hour. Many minimum wage type jobs in Portland pay over $20/hour now ($15.95 is the official figure) so fuck Meta.
Back to that positive tone, in the newish year I’ve seen a wave of job openings that actually have potential. I’ve been getting bites. And in a lucky twist, I was about to apply for a remote, well-paying job that I’m completely qualified for when I noticed a former coworker was now at this company! I reached out, he responded positively, I got an immediate referral and a recruiter reached out within 12 hours to set up an introductory call. Wow. Is this how things are supposed to work? Is this the reaching out to your network that everyone advises despite it being obvious?
I’ve never had a referral work out in either direction, so I’ll remain cautiously optimistic. Should it really be this hard to get to speak with a gatekeeper, though?
It’s tough out there for middle-aged ladies who don’t care to be a rockstar or bring their A game. I aim for a solid B. The wild thing about getting the boot last year is that if I had been asked to rate myself, I probably would’ve said a B- or at worst a C+. Certainly not an F.
I knew that I didn’t “exceed expectations” in 2023, but apparently I “didn’t meet expectations” for the entire year. Like any of them? You’d think someone would’ve noticed and said something? No, because my manager was on maternity leave and I reported to another team’s manager (while sitting on a different team altogether) and no one ever brought up issues with my performance.
I originally had written an obsessively detailed missive about the ridiculousness of Performance Improvement Plans a.k.a. PIP culture that’s rampant in tech and tech-adjacent fields. No one needs that minutiae and I’ve had practically a whole year to let it go. For the unfamiliar, this is the legal documentation that’s a precursor to firing, disguised as a coaching plan. Once you’re put on a PIP that’s it, say goodbye.
The guy who just gave me a referral was one of the rare souls that survived a PIP because he was involved in a high-profile Black History Month activation that everyone loved. He still got fired six months later. During my three-year tenure, five writers (and a shitload of designers) got let go on a very lean team. This wasn’t the norm I was accustomed to. I don’t think there are any norms left, so I won’t get surprised again.
I naively thought if I completed my tasks correctly, I’d be good. But I got fails on every single one for offenses like forgetting a period at the end of one of my bullet points in a 20-page doc, not liking the formatting in another doc, despite not having a template or agreed upon style, and the final straw, using plural (they) instead of singular (it) in referring to a business when that was the CORRECT usage per the style guide I helped put together!
Ok, I see what this is now. No one uses the term gaslighting correctly anymore but this was practically Trumpian. I question everything now. Like I thought I wrote a,b,c well but did I? Am I completely incompetent and unaware and this is what perimenopause brain fog feels like? Have I obliterated my brain cells by becoming a mid-life stoner? Am I actually autistic? (I was diagnosed with ADHD in my 40s, so anything’s possible.) I’ve always thought I could read people pretty well and have an easy time carrying on conversations. Now I’m paranoid that I’ve misunderstood social cues for the past five decades and my work has always been subpar.
Well, I’m about to find out because I finally got offered a (contract) job last week (I didn’t advance to the next round for the referral job) and I started it today. It’s at the sixth largest tech company, and I can only hope that my B2B copywriting skills don’t contribute to societal collapse and/or enable sentient AI to rise up even though that would be more exciting than the current state of affairs.
Do you watch Severance? Those fails sound like they came from Milchik's recent performance review. Sorry - but congrats on the job!