I had been working on a Fixed Term Contract since April for a global technology company. When I started there was a lovely lady called Lydia. We hit it off straight away and I really enjoyed working with her. Unfortunately she left after a couple of months. She had been there for 3 years and had quite simply had enough. Since the interim CPO had started her life had become quite difficult. Once she had resigned she was able to open up to me a little bit more.

Unfortunately I experienced some of the challenges she faced, to the point that my mental health was being affected. I decided at the end of August that I needed to resign. I couldn’t just ‘suck it up’ for the sake of being paid at the end of the month. When I resigned I was immediately put on garden leave and it all happened quite quickly.

I felt very jaded after the experience. I had only been there about 5 months but it had taken its toll on me. The day I resigned I instantly felt like a weight had been lifted.

Interestingly I had spoken to a lady a few months earlier about a situation that she had been in where her employment was terminated during her probation period. She hadn’t taken this well and was still seething about how she was treated. She had a lot of negative feelings, her confidence had been knocked and she was in no state to really be looking for jobs.

My advice to her was to write everything down that she learnt from the experience and then find a way to move on. Just a couple of months later I found myself in a similar situation. Slightly easier for me because I had taken the decision to walk away but quite honestly, I was also seething from how I had been treated and how I had been spoken to.

It’s not in my nature to hold onto negativity. It’ doesn’t serve me in any way to harbour negative feelings so I turned my thoughts to positivity and moved on from it.

For anyone that has experienced a not very nice place to work, just know that you’re not alone. It happens to the best of us. It has nothing to do with you but everything to do with the people that haven’t behaved as normal, kind human beings should.

I have a second interview tomorrow so there is light in the future. I’m feeling great about ELEVATE and it’s great that I’m getting interviews.

Onwards and upwards.