My Story

My story isn’t special or isn’t new. Nothing that has happened to me is rare. These things have happened to other people. Knowing that, why do I feel compelled to write? Because people forget how to view the other side of the story. What’s my story? Like any other millennial, I was working throughout my college days. I worked for 50-60 hours a week and went to school full-time. When I got close to graduation, I started to look for work, while being a server full-time. I graduate in July and by August I figured out that I will be moving across country so there was no reason for me to find a full-time role in Chicago. I started applying different cities. In October I moved to Phoenix. I transferred as a server within the same company. After moving to Phoenix, I landed a contract gig with one of the largest staffing agencies in the country. After four weeks of being a contractor internally, I was hired on full-time. I was there for a little over a year. If you don’t know staffing, their years are dog years. 1 year usually equals 7. While working there, I was recruited out to be a Corporate recruiter by a different company. Something I always wanted to do. I interviewed there and decided that it was a great career move. I moved to a corporate recruiting gig. When I was there, that was the place I wanted to be. I wasn’t planning on leaving. I had big goals of upward mobility and moving forward. Alas, the company was laying people off and I was one of those people. After the layoff, I started interviewing. Found a few places that wanted to give me a shot. Grateful for the opportunity I took the one that felt right for me. Things happen. The manager who hired me, stepped down to travel the world and do some soul searching. They brought in a new manager with *25* years of staffing experience. This person didn’t know first thing about IT staffing. He could however, boast himself as the top IT staffing executive in the valley. He physically threatened me and intimidated me. I wasn’t looking for a new role. I knew how it would look if I left that job after less than a year. Everything else about that role was perfect though, besides my boss. While I had resigned myself to a few years of misery, I found a role that was the universe’s way of telling me to get out from under that person.  When this new opportunity came and they wanted to hire me, I took it. That’s where I am at currently. Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to be curious about the other person without judgement. Don’t say, “She has had 4 jobs in 3 years, she must be terrible.” That’s your bias showing. Things happen, people are sometimes awful. You have to do what’s best for you. You have to make your own decision. Don’t let other people’s judgement get to you when they haven’t give you the time of day to understand you.