So I did it!

When I applied for health insurance, I estimated my last day at my agency, figuring on a 3-week notice. Then I decided I couldn’t handle that, and would go for 2 weeks, because in my mind I had been waiting 3 months! I had planned to turn my notice in the next Tuesday after the 3-day weekend. What I didn’t expect was a phone call from Johnson the Thursday before. He said we would be having a meeting the next day where my name would be mentioned, and “not to worry, it was all good things.” And he had even spoken to our director about more money for me. I took a moment to ponder, and decided it was only fair for me to speak up. “Listen,” I said, “it’s funny you should call me about this right now…I think I have to tell you, I had planned to quit on Tuesday.”

“Wow, that’s not what I was expecting to hear…but hey I think that’s actually pretty great,” Johnson said, “The manager in me wants to ask what it would take for you to stay, but from a designer to another designer, I’m actually kind of envious. I think it’s a great time for designers in our area, and I know you’ll be successful no matter what.”

I was shocked. Pleasantly of course. Adrenaline pumped through my body, and I felt extremely grateful that my husband Ben was standing by my side as the conversation went on. I felt elated and frightened at the same time. “What does it all mean!?” I kept crying. Why would this happen right before I quit, and was it meant to be, was I supposed to stay? Or was it like…a test? I felt totally confused and yet still at peace. I was pretty sure I still wanted to quit, and felt so grateful that Johnson didn’t freak out on the phone.

So Friday I went into work. The big announcement was, they were changing how resources would be allocated, but the guy who would be in charge of assigning designers didn’t want to interrupt the “HP machine,” so that group would be separate, with one of my favorite coworkers at its head. Our managers would still be the same, but I would more commonly interact with her rather than Johnson (since he did very little managing, mostly resource allocation). And they announced that I would be officially called the HP Brand manager.

After the meeting, our Director pulled me into the conference room with Johnson and the new HP director. “We want you to stay” they said. Our director admitted that I had been underpaid, and said that mine would be the biggest raise they were giving that year. Later I calculated that it was around a 28% increase. If you’re wondering what I made before, think of a middle-to-low income, something you can get by on and do ok. Then the raise would be like ok, now I can really live, or reasonably have a stay-at-home spouse, which 2 of my coworkers had (which is why I always knew I made way too little). A little bubble of positive energy started to fill within me.

They asked if there was anything that would help me make the decision. I said that the money helped of course, and something else I had always thought would really improve things would be profit sharing, so people would feel like they had shared responsibility and reward for their work. Everyone laughed at this, saying “you’d have to write us a check.” (Because the agency was still pulling out of the recession.) I also shared that I had felt unappreciated, doing the job while not having the title, and they seemed understanding. I left the meeting still feeling a bit unsure, but more and more positive about the idea of staying.

I mean, picture this. There were 5 things on my list of “wants.” I wanted the title for the job I already did, and I didn’t want Johnson to be my boss anymore. These things were nearly about to happen, since my projects would now be assigned by someone else. I sat down with the HP director, and felt really good about working with her more in the future. But she did mention on a personal note “I know this is your first job out of college, and you may decide you still want something different. But if you want change while staying here at our agency, I am offering that.”

I called Ben crying, and told him everything. I felt like emotions were pouring out from every pore. Not all bad emotions, just so many: happiness, validation, excitement, but also nervousness, distrust, sadness at giving up my dream.

I told Ben that I was leaning towards staying. I would have to tell my favorite client that he wouldn’t have a fulltime contractor to work with anymore, and cancel the health insurance…but there seemed to be so many reasons to stay. I went to lunch with my best friends at the agency, and we talked about how great it would be to have vacation days and maternity leave, which I would lose as a contractor.

That afternoon, I finally stopped bouncing around long enough to do some real work. I sat there doing my HP project, and realized “this is what I’m going to be doing from now to infinity.” And I started thinking of my other 3 wishes: to work on different clients, to no longer sit 4 feet away from someone else, and to be in charge of my own destiny, answering to only myself. My little bubble of positive energy popped suddenly, and I just felt depressed.

I called my parents on the way home, once again tearing up in confusion. I told them everything that had happened, and half expected them to say, “Do the responsible thing. Take the money. Keep the job.” But to my gratitude and relief they said “it sounds like staying at the agency won’t make you happy.” My mom said I needed to find my “sweet spot,” in my job, and my dad asked if there was any possibility of contracting with the agency rather than working for them directly. Well maybe, I said…

The next day I called my best friend Pez and walked her through the latest events. “Is it a sign that, just as I was about to leave, and right before I turn in my notice, they offer me so many of the things I want?” I asked. “I don’t believe in that” said Pez. “I think you need to make the leap, because even though change is scary, it can also be really good.”

And my forever-loyal husband kept telling me he would support me no matter what. In the end, it was his belief in me that made the decision. He didn’t mind shouldering the bulk of our bills for the next few months while I got on my feet. He just wanted me to be happy. “And I would love for you to go in there and say, ‘Fuck that and fuck you Johnson!’” he exclaimed. You don’t really know Ben is serious unless he swears.

So that was that. Despite the money and some of the changes I had wanted, in the end I wanted to be my own woman. So I sat down and wrote my notice. I mentioned I would love to contract with the agency, and said how thankful I was for the experience and mentorship they had given me. Truly, I was and am grateful!

Two weeks later, I would be a free woman, beginning my life as a freelancer!

Almost ready to leave my job

If you read my last post, you heard some of the reasons that I felt I should leave my old agency job. Really, it became inevitable: I had faced my situation, and realized there was only one conclusion. I couldn’t stay at a place where I felt so undervalued. I of course considered sitting down with Johnson and threatening to quit if things didn’t change, but I realized that what needed to change was…everything. I wanted to work on different clients, I didn’t want to sit 4 feet away from someone else and not be able to take work-related calls at my desk, I wanted a title, and most of all, I didn’t want him to be my boss. There simply wasn’t a way to make this all happen while still working there.

So instead, I started considering other possibilities. I called my biggest and favorite freelance client, who was very encouraging. He said he wanted to give me more work over the next year, at a faster pace; so for him, working with a fulltime contractor would be ideal. He did a quick estimation that the work he sent over would total around $15,000 over the course of the year. This isn’t a whole salary, but it is a good start. So I told myself I would jump in the deep end to do freelance full time. I didn’t realize that this would keep me awake at night feeling sickly nervous, curled up with fear of the future. I realized the leaving thing might be too extreme, and when I said “I’ll get a part-time job and do freelance for the other part,” it felt much better.

So I began applying for jobs. I applied for fulltime jobs as well as part time, just in case something seemed interesting, but the one interview I went to, we both knew the job wasn’t for me. It would be web design fulltime, and I would be the only designer at their workplace, which was in a building behind their house. Ehh, no thanks. It turned out they didn’t want to hire me either because I wasn’t very experienced in web programming. So that was fine. The next place I interviewed at was in Boulder for a company that promoted the riding of bikes. It was only $18/hr, but was part time, so I was pretty hopeful. Unfortunately, I think they saw through my white lie that I’m totally in love with biking (really my only eligibility was that I have a bike, but I live outside town so I don’t get to ride it for practical purposes very much). So they turned me down too.

But things at work continued to spiral downward. After my Christmastime revelation that my work situation was all wrong, I started noticing the wrongness more and more. Some coworkers would get their hands slapped for really little things, and others would be given top-notch projects when they were total slackers. One of my coworkers (whom I absolutely love), was requested to join another design team. I was so happy for her, but had to fight my own feelings of jealousy that she got to move onto new things, while I had gotten so good at my job that the powers that be couldn’t imagine putting me on anything new. The only way to keep my spirits up was to think “I’ll be out of here soon!”

In the meantime, I got to work creating an LLC. I wanted something that my husband (a hardware and software tester, who worked on contract) and I could both be under. I asked my friends on facebook for help choosing a name, and out of that got the word “Media.” It seemed to cover the fact that the only real thing our jobs had in common, was that we both work on computers. I wanted to call it “Insight Media” —as in, we provide brains, not just computer skills. But that name is taken in Colorado. So Ben suggested “Incite Media,” as in, “we will incite your customers to riot out of love for your product.” And the name stuck.

By February, I had an LLC, health insurance (that is actually less monthly cost than my agency plan – weird), and a wish. But I didn’t have the safety net of another job. In the end, I would decide not to worry about it. My number 1 priority was to be happy again. What I didn’t expect was what would happen right before I quit…

What made me leave my fulltime job

I decided that I really wanted to become a fulltime freelancer around Christmas 2010. It all started when my boss sent around an email that said "we don't have official reviews this year, but if you're interested in sitting down with me, I encourage that.”

[Quick aside: I’m going to give my ex-boss a nickname based on his real nickname: we’ll call him Johnson]

Myself and a couple coworkers chuckled together over Johnson’s email. Who would voluntarily sit down with that guy, and invite him to tell us exactly what he thought of us? Johnson didn’t make any secret of his dislike for me, and what made it worse at times was that he could be really nice, but he could also swing wildly in the other direction and be very harsh and critical. A bit like a snake that could strike at any time. I truly got a nervous feeling in my stomach when he so much as Instant Messaged me, and actual conversations left me short of breath.

But there were reasons that I should sit down and talk with Johnson. I had made 2 special requests over the past 2 years, and nothing had happened with either of them. The first was, I wanted to work less on projects for HP. I wanted more variety in my life. I also wanted to be the “official” HP Brand Manager. As time went on, I fulfilled this role more and more, but was never recognized for it. Johnson had actually hinted before that he might give me more of a leadership role, but during my review, all he said was “we should talk more about that.” I was confused since I thought that would be a big topic of the review.

So after 2 years of expressing these hopes, I still worked exclusively on HP projects, which would have been ok, but I also had made no progress on the front of a title or promotion saying I was the HP Brand Manager. When Johnson mentioned a review, it all hit me. I hadn’t made any progress in the past 2 years. I was stuck, and what’s more, I didn’t receive any appreciation or recognition for the job I did. I was depressed to the core. The best word to describe how I felt was foolish. I felt foolish for letting the agency take my very best work and not reward me for it, allow me to do an extra job without title, and not listen to me when I said I needed variety. Oh, and I was sure I made far less money than other producers at the agency.

So there you have it. These are the things that pushed me into thinking, “I need to get out of here!” But it would take a few more months of planning, fretting, and weighing my options before I would do it…