Some crazy shit has gone down at my company over the past couple of weeks. While I’m largely unaffected, it’s destabilizing to say the least.
I booked a trip to Turks & Caicos just after Thanksgiving for the last week of January not thinking about how it was going to be the last week of the fiscal year (me and my bestie both went through fall breakups and needed a reason to take thirst traps on a sexy ass beach). We both still planned on working remotely between sobs and swims, but I truly did not think about the godawful timing of trying to get those last SALs in before FY24 was deader than my last relationship.
On that Friday, just a day into FY25 (one day after I launched this little blog), two of my coworkers got laid off.
Destabilizing.
Fast forward to this past Monday, I open my email at 6a and find an email from our CEO saying he’s resigning effective immediately. 20 minutes later we got an email from our new CEO.
Destabilizing.
Why? Because it shatters the illusion of security that we operate under all of the time. My manager reached out to our team and spoke to us individually and he asked me how I was doing with all of this. I don’t know if I’m just jaded, but I don’t pretend to think business cares about me. The truth is, business is business and there never truly is any security (PSA: if a company says “we’re a family,” RUN).
Even though I know this, I definitely was shook.
Why? Because all the ways in which I haven’t put my best foot forward immediately come to mind. My insecurities come from my shortcomings, my failures to show up and try–my lack of effort.
And I don’t always want to put in effort (see last week’s post). I’m a goddamn grump about work a good chunk of the time. I haven’t been the best employee, but me feeling insecure also told me that I cared at least a little. And I have something to lose (ahem, the thing that makes me money).
My manager told me the best thing to do is to make yourself indispensable–make it more costly for them to fire you than to keep you.
It shouldn’t have blown my mind, but it did.
Okay, but how do I make myself indispensable? Do your fucking job, and do it well. Make sure you’re hitting/exceeding whatever activity metrics you have set. Make bullet proof opps that you’re piping to your AEs–get that qualification info you need. Anticipate their needs and ask the questions you know they’re going to ask on the 20%.
You ever have an ex’s mom still ask about you? When you finally leave the company, that’s the kind of impression you want to leave–15 years later and they’re still telling your ex how much they loved you. That’s the kind of energy you need.
Oh, and PS. You can do your job well and do it in the sun.
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