purpose

Contrary to what TikTok influencers might have you believe, the majority of your working life will feel like exactly that - work. Hard fucking work. Some days you'll feel like you haven't the time to breathe or think - you're too busy. Other days you'll have so much work to do that it feels like you're permanently carrying your colleagues along for the ride. It may even feel like you've turned up to the blitz with a dustpan and brush. The important thing is that you do turn up and that you put the work in. Very little in life is handed to you, so to grow and be successful you'll need to get your hands dirty.

For years our Glasgow office was cram packed full of people like that, proper grafters drudging through the marshlands and minefields together. We lasted as long as we did (and put up with as much shit as we did) because we were all in it together. When we were up shit creek, we'd pile into a meeting room together and we'd sort it. Different people with different skillsets from all different departments, working together and getting through it. Then once the job was done we'd kick off our boots at the nearest pub and raise a glass or five to celebrate a job well-done. It was the team we had that made the bullshit worth it. That's what great culture and camaraderie can do for a company. We really were just like one big, chaotic, dysfunctional family.

It was never going to last forever, because nothing does, but I feel like the COVID-19 pandemic brought a premature end to a culture that was like no other. Some of my more critical colleagues blamed the company being bought over for things going South, but that's not what I see. Had we still had that same level of togetherness that we had pre-pandemic, we'd have rolled with the punches like always. 

In recent weeks and months however, the notion of running manically around that battlefield armed with household cleaning equipment has been much less appealing, given that only a third of the old gang remains. Being physically separated for eighteen months was the silver bullet that stopped the team right in its tracks. Those of us who survived the GSW are still bleeding to this day. For the ones who do still work here and do still come into the office regularly, things just aren't the same. We've been trying to rekindle the old office atmosphere ever since we got back into it, but the pessimist inside me says that things will never be quite like they used to.

The way people work has changed drastically in recent years. Hybrid working is definitely the future, but I still hold firm the belief that the role, the perks, the salary, the title, are all the things that get you in the door. It's the people and the culture that keep you there. I'm still sceptical as to whether it's possible to establish that same human-level connection when working remotely, given time has proven that it's highly difficult to even maintain existing ones.

Two years ago, once the novelty of permanent home working and drinking every night eventually wore off, we all found ourselves in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Work-life balance was at it's worst ever - and we couldn't so much as drown our sorrows together afterwards. I think at that point we all collectively started to wonder what the fucking point of it all was. I'd started to ask myself some questions that have complicated and illusive answers. Gen Xers and older might roll their eyes here, but this was the start of my quarter-life crisis.

I have, in essence, started to question whether I've made the right decisions in life so far. Since the start of the pandemic, colleagues at work have been pulling their reserve shoots and flying off towards new and lucrative opportunities. Meanwhile I've been sat pawing at the cord, trying to answer the same question for myself. Should I stay or should I go now? My quandary is that, year on year, I'm finding myself furthermore surrounded by people who love their job. Bar tenders, teachers, salesmen, marketing execs, engineers, software developers and even nurses. They all have their own gripes with their jobs for sure, nurses especially, but objectively they love what they do. When I ask myself if I love what I do, I'm not so sure.

I work primarily on projects building primarily Windows servers. I enjoy the craft, the satisfaction of finishing a build, the processes and checklists that get me there - most of which I wrote. The "getting shit done" element of any job brings satisfaction in itself, makes you feel like you've achieved something. But that alone isn't enough to keep you engaged forever. Meaningful work does. If you have a mission that you believe in, if you regularly loose yourself in your work; if you sign off each day feeling like you've really made a difference, that's how you know that you're in the right role. Unfortunately, a project-oriented role just isn't giving me that job satisfaction like I thought it would. I don't get to see first hand the difference that my work makes to people's lives. I'm just one cog in a much bigger machine, so abstracted from the reality, or at least the perception of reality from ground-level, that it's impossible not to feel like a component of a human conveyor belt. I spend my days moving from one urgent request to the other, consumed with technicalities and processes and desensitised to the actual problems at hand. 

This quarter-life crisis hasn't plagued me for long. It's not like I've felt completely dehumanised since starting my career eight years ago. In fact I'd like to think that nobody starts their career feeling like that. If the warning signs are on the door, don't walk in. For me, a crisis of purpose began around the start of the pandemic. I was in a third line team providing technical support for Windows Servers, but after three years in the role every day felt the same. I felt like I was never making any progress with my work. So I further abstracted, moving into a team that works only on projects. Suddenly I'm in a role where I'm getting shit done constantly. In eighteen months I've gone from a stagnant workload to one of the biggest closers on the team - but I'm still not happy. So naturally, I start asking myself what the hell's wrong with me. I started to cast my mind back, hoping to work out what went wrong by figuring out what's changed in recent years.

In December 2018 I moved from a 2nd line Data Protection team managing UK Backups and DR, into my first 3rd line role on the Windows Server team. The team was small and the workload was a tall order, but the level of technical knowledge, the effervescent personalities and the cohesion of the team was something you'd look at from the outside and couldn't help but wish to be a part of. At the time, I associated that team, their laid-back sensibilities and level-headedness with moving up in the world, with graduating from 1st, to 2nd, to 3rd line. In a few months I was part of the gang and before you know it, I was added to the on-call rota and picking up my own projects. I was fully-knighted 3rd line loon and the sense of belonging was incredible. So comparing then to now, what's missing from this picture?

Then, my drive was to move on up, become one of the gang, the in-crowd. I wanted to learn quickly and impress them, prove myself capable. Now, I don't feel like the same person anymore. I guess that's life in part, but there's more to it than that. Pre-lockdown Aedan feels like a total stranger and now I've started to change in ways that are scaring me. I'm becoming cynical, embittered and angry. Often I've work coming out my ears, leaving me very little time for people and even less patience for them. That isn't me at all. I'm not exactly an extravert, but people are a huge center point of my life. At weekends, once work is off my mind and I'm relaxed, I feel like I'm a totally different person. When I'm on holiday my mood improves with each passing day. It's only when I start back work again that I'm back to my negative working self within an hour. Why is that?

At first, I came to the same conclusion as many. It was the new company and the way it's being run was just pissing me off. Maybe I was reaching the natural end of my time here, so I started the job hunt.

I applied to nearly 40 roles in six months. Of those 40, seven arranged a screening call with me and two proceeded to the technical interview stage. The rest either rejected me straight away or never responded at all. In the past few months I've seen hiring managers change job descriptions for roles after I've applied to them. I've seen roles I've applied to been suspended  'pending review' for months at a time, leaving me in limbo as if I'm a last resort. I've had hiring managers tell me that I fit the profile for a job they have coming up - but then they never get back to me. I've even had hiring managers show an interest in hiring me, ask me to share my salary expectations and then suddenly decide that I'm not experienced enough for the job. All in all, I was reminded of what a wholly demoralising process the job hunt truly is. I found the job hunt itself making me anxious, bitter and angry - and that's when it hit me.

I'm satisfied when I feel like I'm being heard. I feel I'm being heard when I'm around people who are willing to listen. I'm surrounded by people who are willing to listen when... wait... never. Actually never. When I work from home I'm alone, at least in a work sense. Our team dwindled during COVID and their replacements are permanently remote, so even when I'm in the office I often end up sitting alone. A factor in itself that discourages me from going. I often sit in the office thinking, "I could be sitting on my own at home - with a cat on my lap too!" As someone to whom people mean a lot, I do spend an awful lot of my time alone! Perhaps this is where the issue lies.

Serendipitously, an internal role came up a few weeks ago. It was one I'd been thinking about for a long time and really felt a calling to. And so on a random Tuesday, after deciding against it the last time it came up, I finally decided to apply. The worst they can say is No after all.

~ Aedan.