Fix up

I want you to read this post if you are at the verge of quitting your job.

You want to quit this job because you are unhappy.

Unhappy about what? recent changes in your team, a culture shift? or maybe the thought that work is not fun here anymore? or maybe you are worried that you are going to get laid off? or maybe you feel that you are being undervalued? or maybe you feel that you are being underpaid? or maybe some other thing(s).

That’s a lot of “maybe”s. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, because the thing is, “you are unhappy” and you must do something about it.

Ok, so what can you do about it?

I realized that we have two options here.

Option one: shut up.

Option two: fix up.

Shut up means you literally shut up, grind your nights and weekends, focus on finding a new job, and quit your current job.

Fix up is a messy route. I have seen the best engineers whom I have worked with to shy away from this path. It takes a certain level of clarity, courage, and bravery to pull it off. (especially if you are living paycheck to paycheck like me - lol)

Here is how to fix up. You write down all the things that you are unhappy about on a piece of paper. Promise me that you will be brutally honest with yourself while writing this list. And here is the difficult part: You are going to go to your leadership team and share that you are unhappy and read them the list that you prepared. That usually means scheduling a call with your manager, or your manager’s manager (in case of a larger org), or your CEO (in case of startups). Meet up with the person you are most comfortable with (and that ideally will be your manager and in some unfortunate circumstances not).

Fix up will not just try to fix the situation for you. It has the potential to fix the situation for your colleagues who are in the same boat as you. It is going to empower your leadership team to do the right things. It can even save the entire company.

Here is a side note for people who are in leadership roles who are reading this post: The best thing that you can do for your team is to create an environment where one feels to “fix up” without having to get an offer letter from another company. I don’t know how exactly you are going to do it but I will leave it as an activity for the readers.

Back to you now. I want you to seriously consider this path because it might be the shortest path to regain your happiness.

If you are in good hands, your leaders are going to empathize with you and act upon the feedback that you give them or find a way to help you. I will give you an example: I tried to “fix up” before in one of my previous jobs (but with a new job offer though - I was such a coward, lol). I spoke with the CEO and my reason was “work was not fun anymore”. The CEO acted immediately. He had a bunch of interesting work for which he was not finding time/people to do. He proposed I team up with him and try it out. So for the next few months, I reported to him directly and we tackled the project. That made me regain happiness and at the same time helped the company move on to the next phase.

I mentioned courage and bravery at the start because you have to try to “fix up” without getting a new job offer. In my above case, I did with an offer and that is a waste of time for you and the people who chose to interview you. Imagine all the time I spent preparing for interviews and all the time and energy of the company (that extended an offer) spent interviewing me. Imagine all the things that I could have done (like watching Cartoon Network or something) instead of preparing all those nights and it is such a waste to decline job offers.

So, go ahead, be brave, and fix up!

Best case, you are happy again.

Worst case, what is going to happen? Your leadership team doesn’t act up on it. I can hear the paranoid human inside you screaming, “What if they blackmark me for saying things aloud? Are they going to fire me because I am not a culture fit anymore?”. I will run by your script here. Let us hit your deepest fear, “They are going to fire me”. Well, what if they do fire you? What are you going to do?

You are going to prepare full-time for interviews sitting at your comfy little house and appear for interviews and get a new job. And you are happy again.

The reason why one might not choose to fix up is because they already gave up hope on their leaders or it could be that they don’t understand the cost of switching jobs. Switching jobs is a costly act, you know! Both for you and the company. Especially in startups where one person gets to work on a lot of diverse stuff. Think about the struggle that your colleagues and your company might go through when you choose to leave them. Kind of sad, right? I am not suggesting that you should not switch jobs at all (lol, look at my LinkedIn) - you should switch if that is what makes you happy again. Remember “your happiness” is your core metric. When you are happy, you can make wonders happen and do your best work. But I guess your company usually deserves a fix up if you think it is going to help the company (with or without you).

~ ~ ~ ~

I would like to thank svs for listening to me through a career chat and offering his suggestions. That conversation made me think about and write down this blog post. BTW, if you are looking for a new job, you have to talk to him.

And thanks to git rebase -i - that is where I copied the word “fix up” from.