Happy Path

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Getting dumped is the worst. You question your self-worth. You may also become really, really sad if you loved that person but they no longer loved you. And if they went the extra mile of detailing why you were an unacceptable partner? Well, that was really twisting the knife.

My television job broke up with me and I was in a really bad rebound relationship. I was with the kind of guy I never looked at twice, was never interested in before and couldn't picture myself dating in a hundred years. FinTech was my short, introverted, humorless boyfriend.

I was shell-shocked and the things I was doing didn't make any sense. I could follow the steps of clicking on a link and filling out a form, but there was no understanding behind it. I was repeating patterns. It was everything I could do to keep my head above water. I couldn't remember the last time I worked so hard at a job. Even my notes looked like the ravings of a mad woman. They were disjointed and repetitive and I couldn't always decipher what I'd written. Once while reviewing scribbles made during a team briefing the day before, I read Everyone laughed in the meeting today. I don't know why.

I'd catch sight of myself in the window while riding the bus or subway during my commute and think Damn. I look sad. Hopeless, even. But I made a deal with myself: learn whatever you can and try your hardest until Christmas. If you still feel this way at the end of December, you can quit because no job is worth this misery. Just give it a chance.

The friendly Mexican in our group, who had invited me to join him for lunch, continued to be friendly. He was jocular by nature and knew a lot of people in various departments; he was the kind of person I'd been in my former job. One day, he invited me to "go to security" with him. I'd had a particularly bad morning of trying to decipher a bank system to no avail. I was feeling pretty low, but he wouldn't take no for an answer.

"Come. Come with me and I'll introduce you to some people you should know," he said, leading me up to the second floor and toward the other building. I didn't even know where we were going, or if I could find my way back to my desk if Felix suddenly dropped into a sinkhole.

"Sometimes we need to pick up discs," he said as we walked. "They will have those at security. And sometimes you need to give them discs," he continued, "so it's good to know who works in this area." If we had been a cartoon, I would have been Eyeore, dragged along while Tigger bounded in circles around me.

We got on the elevator. Felix talked more about these discs, as if I knew their purpose. We got off the elevator and waited to be let through a security door and into an office area. I was introduced to one, two, three people as "the new Julie". I shook hands, smiled, nodded, engaged as best I could. We picked up the much lauded discs and headed back the way we had come. Felix happily imparted what he thought was work wisdom as we walked. To my untrained ear, it meant little. He dropped me off at my desk.

I sat in my chair, dazed. It felt like someone had just knocked on my door and given me a code I'd need when I picked up a package in six months. I'd been given information, and I knew there was a package and a code involved, but there was a huge information gap. Without background understanding, it didn't make sense. What was in the package? Why did I need it? I was getting really tired of the lack of context that might enable me to build a complete picture of my job and the workplace.

The trip to "security" tugged at the edges of my brain for the next couple hours. I thought how rude it was of me to respond to my colleague's friendly overtures with blank stares and what must have seemed like an ungrateful attitude. This guy was trying to help me out and there was no denying he could be an excellent work resource and ally. I felt like I owed him an explanation and I got my chance at lunchtime. He was walking toward the cafeteria and god only knows where I was going when I saw him.