teresa

In my world coffee has become the new lunch.  Lunch is expensive, calorie ridden, and time intensive.  When two unemployed or as I would prefer to look at it burgeoning entrepreneurs need to get together to discuss synergies or just share twitter tips for success they meet over coffee.  And over coffee may actually mean just a regular cup of coffee or perhaps iced-tea, and likely not a grande mocha or frozen coffee slurpee.  I see this as a good thing.  Good value.  Often better acoustics.  I welcome this transformation of the casual business meeting.

Recently at a Vistage meeting one of my fellow members rather passionately shared with me his views of what my next steps should be as a free agent.  I later commented to another gal that I felt like his energy was a little much and I wondered what had inspired such passion.   She shared with me that I hadn’t shown much emotion with the group regarding my personal and professional situation so perhaps lacking that sense from me he was working to inspire.  I don’t know if I have always been this way or I learned it somewhere along the way although I do tend to be pretty even in my emotional response.  Although I shared with my group that I had experienced a moment of high emotion so that they not consider me completely broken.  Looking back on it I think this was one of the funniest moments of our last days.  I think it was Thursday, our last day.  The office was a disaster area.  Picture a 10′x10′ pile of trash and an equally large area of paper recycling with another pile of stuff that we thought was of value to the company.  I was working to finish a project which I had already determined I was doing for my own ego and reputation not necessarily to make the company look good.

In the middle of this the Simpson Strong Tie rep walks in to share information about a new product.  Having my office with direct line of site to the door I received nearly all of these interruptions.  He asked for Elliott.  I shared with him that today was our last day and that it was probably best to get in contact with the Reno office.  He was apologetic and I replied with some standard response such as, “it is what it is.”  I went back to my desk and picked up the phone to complain about something to Elliott which was often standard at least when we were alone in the office.  In the middle of my rant to Elliott the rep returns to the office.  I turn around in my chair and look at him like, really… we are not going to buy, spec or care about your product right now, I told you it was our last day.  Phone still to my ear I said, “what?”  After no response from the rep, I got out of my chair, walked toward him and repeated, “what… (after no response)…WHAT?”  The friendly sales rep looked a little shocked and eventually said, “I just wanted to let you know I was just at another structural engineers office and they said they were hiring, I thought I would let you know.”  I said well they wouldn’t want me they would want Elliott, who then appeared from his office to help calm the situation.  I did eventually apologize sincerely and explained I was having a bit of bad day and I was embarrassed to have snapped at him.  He seemed to understand.

I think the phone conversation in between the reps appearances was another moment of near disaster.  Elliott intercepted a phone call, while I was on the phone, from the fire sprinkler contractor requesting backgrounds.   Elliott sent me an email to send backgrounds to the guy.  A few minutes later I get an email from Jeri (a drafter in the Reno office), who had been forwarded this very email from Pete (boss) saying Jeri check with Teresa to see if she has this handled.  After a few seconds of general confusion and mounting anger I realize Pete was now receiving a copy of all of my emails and appears to be micromanaging my efforts to complete a project on my last day.  I swear to Elliott that if this is how he wants to treat me I will, like the rest of his recently departed staff, leave right now and let him pick the pieces up if he feels it necessary to micromanage me, who does he think he is, and more importantly does he not trust me.  So I fired off an email to Jeri explaining I would be handling the project through that day and after that she should take direction from Pete, I copied Pete and asked him to explain if he thought we had agreed otherwise.  I then sent an email to Pete saying something to the effect of what you are now getting my emails?  Turns out he had no idea he was getting my emails, his recently departed IT guy set this up before leaving, so in his own general confusion he sent what he thought was an email to him to Jeri to delegate a task that he couldn’t have completed.  I eventually calmed down after both incidences although realized how easy poor communication can escalate when you are harboring anger and sadness that you haven’t yet dealt with.  I think these experiences about had me covered for the anger phase.

I later for only a split moment put myself in the sadness phase.  Driving to Reno the weekend right after our last day I decided to channel my mom’s style of anger and sadness management and play a few songs to capture the mood.  I had previously heard a song which I laughed out loud when I listened to the lyrics.  It was about a relationship,  it seemed to perfectly capture the idea of what Elliott and I were saying goodbye to, unfortunately for the life of me I can’t remember the name or lyrics from that song that came to us on the radio.  I did however explore the Garth Brooks version of our situation.  I have always remembered mom after the divorce with our dad would play a few songs over and over and over again.  Two of the common songs were The River and The Dance.  The Dance is about would you dance the dance again if you knew how it would turn out.  And The River is can you continue to get back into the river even though you don’t know for sure where you are headed.  The Dance is more retrospective, and The River is really to me about dusting yourself off and keeping going.  I started to cry when I played these songs and in normal fashion didn’t want Elliott to see me.  I am not sure if it was the memory of my mom’s sadness and pain, or the realization of my own, or perhaps both.  Although I think these songs are perfect for how I feel.  Given what I know now I absolutely would dance again for those seven years.  And I am repairing my life jacket and plan to be back in the river soon.

I believe if Ingrid Michaelson was around back in those days mom might have played Starting Now over and over again.  I particularly enjoy this modern day, pop version of relationship drama.  I think the way the music builds to her angry rant is brilliant.  I feel it in my bones.  I listened to this song before this change in our life and I will listen to it after, mostly as a silly reminder of how not to feel about any time in my life.  I think its funny that my boss used to joke (maybe a half joke as Elliott often says) about people who quit the company were dead to him, and then  he essentially earned the same feeling from us.  Although that’s a bit dramatic don’t you think Ingrid?  I think I can honestly say no hard feelings, although those are all just words, the lyrics, the beats capture it so much better.

What songs define the major crossroads in your life?

I have a few ideas for blog posts (and have a few to make up to meet my personal quota) although rather than running them all together I think I will seperate them into topics. My first is an extension of something I am sure I have blogged about before which is the funny things that Elliott and I say to each other. The first time we realized it was with “I am just saying”. And I am pretty sure Krista and Joey use this same string as well. This is typically used while in an argument, when getting in the last word, or your side of the story. An effective way to append your side of the story is with “I am just saying”. To me it means, this is what I am saying, I believe it is right, I believe you are wrong, although I will let you continue to be wrong as long as you acknowledge what I am saying.
The other day though I discovered a new one which inspired Elliott to laugh out loud at me, effectively ruining our argument. I can’t now remember what we were arguing about. I think it was something to the effect of Elliott questioning (or at least that was my perspective) something I was doing and responded yes, “is that ok with you?” So “is that ok with you” has become an inside way to diffuse a situation. I think this a perfect way to go back to that teenage attitude of why are you intruding on my business and asking for approval when you know you neither need it or want it.
What are your funny sayings?

The last few weeks have been rather interesting. The day before leaving for our 1 year anniversary weekend I said out loud to my Vistage group what I had been working to internalize for awhile. And when I said it they looked at me like I was crazy. Why wasn’t I doing more to find answers, to take corrective action, to ensure the future of my job and even bigger the company? I have lots of reasons (maybe excuses) as to why and at this point those don’t matter.

I tried not to think much about it over the weekend although I did. And Elliott and I talked about what would happen if we lost our jobs. Or if one of us lost our job.  When we returned I eventually found out from my usual source that the straw holding the whole thing together was broken. At that point I understood that drastic measures would have to be taken, although at that time I still couldn’t understand how drastic.

It was not until the next week until we started to understand how drastic and even at that point the information we got was spotty and vague at best. I didn’t fight for a chance to stay and ‘they’ were not inspired to go out of their way to find a way for either of us to stay. I am still not sure why although I believe as many have told me already, it was just meant to be this way.

Elliott and I feel like we went out of our way to leave things as tidy as we could. We undid 2 years in about 3 days. We purged, recycled and organized. It may not have looked that organized although good luck finding someone else to work so hard to be let go without ever even really being told they were being let go. Unfortunately it was my source who provided the most honest, helpful and timely information, a list of “the survivors” via email on Tuesday (I think), Thursday would be the day. It turns out Wednesday should have been the day although hindsight is always better.  The news spread differently than ‘they’ had planned.

We unfortunately missed the farewell speech, which meant we were missing some closure. Although I think we also missed the tears. I think having information trickle in gave us the opportunity to absorb the idea. Not everyone else had that chance. One coworker who was also let go called crying to say goodbye. I joked later with one of “lucky” ones to stay to tell everyone else to please not call crying, she didn’t think it was funny. We have not yet hit a phase that has been sad enough to cry about the situation… at least about our situation. The saddest part is the number of people that were effected, and also the unraveling of years of work by the founders and others to build something they and we believed in, to have it come undone and so quickly.

I think the way to process with and deal with something like this is to look for the lessons learned. So far I have these. Involving families with business complicates everything. When times are good, it may not be an issue. Although when times are tough it may keep you from being flexible. Elliott and I hope not to work together when the next doors open, although there is chance we may not heed our own advice, who knows. For our family specifically I think we need a little more redundancy. Also I think the entanglement of the business owners and their personal finances significantly complicated the matter and I think made the company less nimble.  Also, don’t count on credit, in life or in business. Metrics are key, track leading indicators, have a strong grasp of the trends and respond accordingly. Have a nest egg to cover expenses when times are slow, so that you can stay in business comfortably and position yourself to be around for the upturn.  Those are the biggies for now.

So now I am working on my resume and my tan.  Working my network and looking for the answer to what I want to be when I grow up, or at least for the next chapter.  I don’t know if I ever would have left that company, although now given the chance to look for something new I chose to be grateful for the chance to relax, reevaluate, regroup.