Jan 26, 2011

Depression

I've just not been writing as much as I'd like to these days and I think that a lot of that stems from my depression.

Why so blue? Quite a few reasons, I imagine, but one of the biggest is my day job.

I've been at this job for going on five years. I spent the first four as a manager of a group of internet developers working on a fairly major account. Things changed in March and really changed in May when I was laid off. They brought me back in August where my job definitely changed -- all of those guys I was managing had been fired in March -- but I didn't know just how much it'd changed until yesterday.

It's review time. As per usual with my last nine reviews, I filled out the increasingly-vapid paperwork and sent it over to my boss. Then, as an added twist this year, I had to mark on this large laminated poster that I'd done my review (hello, gradeschool!). There, next to my name, was not my boss listed as my immediate supervisor but someone else. Surprise!

And that's how I found that I'd been moved to another department.

I knew that I had been doing different work since I came back in August but figured it was only a matter of time before we expanded our team back out and I resumed my managerial duties. Nope. That's not in the cards.

Fortunately, I was able to hash this out with my boss -- soon to be my former boss -- yesterday at lunch. Apparently I just hadn't understood that I had returned as a "technical analyist" rather than a manager. (Funny, I kept going to those management meetings and no one blinked an eye). I'm hoping it was this lack of clarity and abundance of confusion that's been causing me grief. However, this means that not only do I have a new boss but that I've also got myself a new supervisor who, as just a coworker, drives me a bit crazy. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to handle her supervising me.

It's still something of a blow to my ego. Though my pay hasn't gone down, this is definitely a demotion and not the way I want my career to go.

Now that things are at least a little bit more in focus as to expectations and my role here maybe things will either cool out or, if nothing else, maybe this will motivate me to look for greener pastures where I can get back to what I want to be doing.