Everything's Going To Be Alright

It was an innocuous Thursday. I had started it lovely with a walk in Botanic Gardens. Thursdays are days when i’ve scheduled most of my 1:1s because those are the days when we all used to go to the office — at least the people that I dealt with. So it seemed normal.

That was until the team meeting that I was late to (I’m never late, my earlier meeting — a contentious project had been running over), wherein my boss announced that he was leaving the company. I have been working for this boss, whom I really enjoy working with, for four years now and it’s been one of the most fruitful working relatuonships I’ve had.

I met him before I even joined the company — we had common friends — and he was one of the phone calls I made when I thought of joining. I initially didn’t report to him, but that changed a year into the job when I had to move teams because I couldn’t travel weekly anymore.

He took me in, despite my lack of qualifications to join his team and he’s kept me under his wing ever since. I feel so safe psychologically and just know he’s got my back. I can go to him when I have questions and he never makes me feel like I’m a burden.

I couldn’t believe the news and I honestly didn’t say anything in the team call. I think mostly, I was keeping myself from crying. After the call, I let it out and then some. Luckily, I have teammates that tried consoling me, but I was a mess.

My boss is also my neighbour, so we ended up grabbing a drink (I used up my 1 out of 2 slots for visitors on him) at my place! I' have been to dinner at my boss’s place but he’s never seen mine. I had calmed down a bit and I let out a stream of incoherent questions in no particular order, as they came to mind. It felt good to just sit and pretend it was normal times but also, knowing this was the beginning of a transition.

There’s still a lot of moving pieces that need to be sorted out — my boss has been in the company for so long, there’s just a lot of stock knowledge there and I want to soak up as much as I can while he’s around. I’m really happy for him but also incredibly sad for the company and the team.

I’ve never wanted to manage people but if I did, I would try to emulate the style my boss ran our team — lots of autonomy, room for mistakes and lots of overhead cover. I’ll miss the boss as a friend, too and hopefully we can keep in touch in this tiny island.

The shock will wear off eventually and I’ll probably fall into a funk, but we’ll try to make him proud of the team he’s built and the work he’s started.