Change: A Short Story

Photo credit: careeraddict.com

Change: A Short Story

Nearly 6 years ago, I began employment in a small but heavily funded startup of 3 industry behemoths. Times were exciting, creating something from nothing, while I rebuilt my life from almost nothing after a bad relationship. In the summer of 2010, I was living in the parents' basement of my (girl)friend while we renovated a rowhome in Baltimore, to later sell for a sizeable profit. As things went in my life, I gave it my all and put every dollar I had into something that wasn't even in my name. As the summer grew warmer, my money was quickly gone and I was down to my last $.50 when I got two jobs as a mall cop and stocking shelves at Target. In May that year, I left a very easy and cush job at a large telecom company with great co-workers and increasing pay. Anyway, getting this job with this cool little startup was my dream at the time. It was challenging, but in a good way. It was full of reward and traveling and meeting new people, rebuilding and growing into myself was a beautiful adventure.

Along the way, I asked for things I wanted and thought would benefit the company, like me spending time in London to work with the local European teams, traveling to Boston, Cork and Singapore to do training as we built our teams. Everything I asked for, I received, in the exact manner I asked for it. Lesson here: be clear in what you want and the words you put out.

In 2014, we were fully acquired by our parent company, EMC. We lose the smallness and the nimble nature we'd built to the big corporation. In 2015, we woke up to the news that Dell was buying EMC and this month, that all became a very real reality. In 6 years, I've gone from being 1 of a few hundred very impactful employees building something awesome, to 1 of 140,000 employees without a voice that carries any weight. All of this is the due course of business and how things go, and it's not necessarily bad. My boss commends me on my ability to deal with major changes in stride, and my steadfast attitude when it comes to big news and organizational changes.

Today, however, is the day I say WHAT IN THE ABSOLUTE FUCK!? My co-worker and I are due for an upgraded phone in 3 weeks and just logged into the site to check on our options, expecting to be greeted with the beautiful iPhone images to choose from and THERE ARE NO MORE IPHONES! Our world has been turned upside down, in a matter of seconds. We knew this was coming, but didn't want to believe it would happen to us. We heard horror stories of Dell employees being forced to use Dell mobile phones, or worse: no corporate phones at all!

As I stress myself out about this, I bring myself back to reality to remind me that it's just a phone, just a temporary piece of technology and the other options are just as good, if not better. But moving away from an iPhone just seems ludicrous to me, after having one for 6 years straight. What even ARE other phones? Do they work? They certainly don't iMessage or FaceTime, do they? Do they have the same emojis? How do you find them? So many questions ... So many emotions.

The point of all this is, I can take the ending of relationships, the change of seasons, the departure of other employees, traffic, delayed flights, sickness and other life challenges with ease, grace and good attitude. But losing company paid iPhone privileges ... it's just another sign that maybe corporate life is no longer for me, and while at one point this was my dream job, dreams change as we expand ourselves through life and the ending is near and another beginning is approaching.

The end.

The OC