I’m just not a ‘career’ person. I didn’t even realise the difference between a job and a career until I moved to London a few years ago. I have been very ignorant about the world of work for the longest time, because I guess my parents didn’t explain to me, but I got very lucky to get to the place I did.
I work for an agency in London (well I did until yesterday, but more about that later). It’s my first real one – with a salary, tax, manager and all of that kind of stuff. Now I realise that I really outstayed my welcome here. I joined when it was a start-up – the first employee after the two founders – and I just stuck around ever since.
I just kinda made myself useful and was treading water the whole time, because I was really out of my depth. I didn’t know anything about marketing before I ended up here, but I just turned up, listened to instructions and never complained.
As time went on, the agency grew and I stuck with it. I kind of become a manager (it was really informal) and progressed to a better role over time, but it was never my aspiration to climb the ladder like that. I wanted to create my own business, but I just didn’t know what yet.
Years go past and because my bosses had been good to me, I just wanted to stay there. I didn’t know anything different and I was frankly terrified of job interviews, because I felt like I didn’t know enough to even get the same role at a similar place.
I didn’t realise that in this career path, you’re supposed to job hop for a few years to gain experience (and salary) until you settle for the thing that suits you most. I was just happy working for this place where they took the team out for lunches at least once a week, and all the young ones in the team really had fun together.
We went from a team of 3 to a team of 12 from 2012 to 2015, and that’s when the problems started. One person left. Then another. Then another. Then the founders had an argument and one of them left. Then the other one left the company to the non-executive director.
Throughout all of this, the turmoil was exciting to me. I didn’t see the bigger picture and didn’t even notice that we weren’t rehiring throughout this whole process. The team was dwindling at the same rate that our work was. We were losing clients at the very same rate, and because the team was getting smaller too, they managed to make it work.
The boss was barely in at work towards the end, and we thought nothing of it. Our office went from this big space to a cramped WeWork room, but we took advantage when she wasn’t around by using the in-house table tennis room at every opportunity we could.
One day the lunch session actually lasted two hours, because there was no work to do and she hadn’t could back yet. Then she did – and she had something to tell us.
There was a reason why our monthly pay (literally the day before) was late. It was because it was the end of the road. The company was being liquidated. Today. It’s over.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
