Part 2: 8 lessons I have learnt during this difficult period

Hi guys, here's part 2 of my journey changing jobs at 46. I've shared a lot about why I found myself in that situation in part 1, hence in part 2, I'd like to address some of the issues I have had to face in the last 12 months and some of the important lessons I have learnt. I have had a lot of time to process everything that has happened in the last few weeks. I think that is right to take stock now and review through my blog - here are the eight lessons I have learnt in this episode. 

1. Boy, I sure found out who my friends are. 

I have spoken to a lot of friends in the last few weeks, some have been a lot more forthcoming than others. I have been moved by some of them, in the way they have gone out of their way to try to help me through this process - everything from being there for me, to finding out where I stood legally when it came to employment law to helping me find a new job and just being there for me when I felt emotionally exhausted. One friend even met up with me after a particularly stressful day and took me out for coffee and cake; but it goes beyond what they did for me, it's what they said. In such a situation, the person who needed to find the solutions was me - I couldn't expect anyone else to fix the problem I was in, I had to be the one to clean up this mess. I wasn't expecting anyone else to try to intervene or help me, but having my close friends give me that vote of confidence meant a lot to me. There were some friends who noticed that something was wrong after I made this post on Instagram and immediately reached out to me and asked me what was going on. The key way they helped me was to help me be logical and pragmatic, when facing a crisis, it is natural for your thoughts to be bouncing around your head in a random manner - this is not conducive to guide you to work out any kind of solution, so talking to them forced me to present the information to them in a logical manner which helped guide me to my solutions. This is no different from visiting a sick friend in hospital - you're not a doctor, you're not there to offer medicines or treatment, but you are simply there to let them know you care and offer emotional support at a difficult time. 

2. Boy, I'm sure glad I'm nothing like 'Ross'. 

I'm financially comfortable - I've got plenty of money stashed away in various investment schemes and most of all, I don't have any debt to service like student loans or a mortgage. I know of this guy whom I shall refer to as 'Ross' (not his real name) who left his job earlier this year under similar circumstances and he has four children, the youngest of whom is still only five years old and the oldest son is starting university later this year. His wife isn't working as she has been very busy taking care of the children all this time and things were okay when Ross was working, able to generate enough income for his family.  But the moment he became unemployed, they had to dip into their savings and that is not an infinite pot of money; that money was actually meant for Ross and his wife's retirement but now they are using it to pay their bills and children's school fees - which leaves the question, what the heck is going to happen when Ross and his wife reach their 60s and want to retire? Now to be fair to them, they are careful with their money, Ross isn't exactly using his retirement fund to spend on expensive summer holidays for his family (in fact they canceled their holiday plans to save money when Ross lost his job). Unlike Ross, I don't have any dependents, I still have my passive income from my property portfolio and I could even go a long period without a job - Ross on the other hand, simply doesn't have that luxury because of the fact that he has four children. He's started a new job and he has told me that he hates that new job but he doesn't have a choice when he has so many mouths to feed: Ross is utterly miserable today, I'm not. That's the harsh reality for many people who choose to have children - thus I'm sure glad I'm not in the predicament that Ross is in. 

3. Boy, I'm lucky to have found something else super quickly. 

I already have another job offer on the table, nothing is confirmed yet and they're going to come back to me shortly with an official proposition - I'm not going to talk about it yet but they've made it very clear that they do want me on their team. This has given me a good reason to move on with my life; I could have spent the next few months arguing and fighting with my former employer regarding the way I left; I was offered some money but I have been reliably informed that I could fight for more. I really didn't want to go down that path as they could simply engage lawyers to drag out the process to create a lose-lose situation: so for example, if I want to fight for £100,000 of compensation, they would make sure they drag the process out so long that I have to spend more than £100,000 in legal fees so even if I do get the results I want, it still wouldn't be a victory. That's the kind of bitter dispute involving lawyers that I have seen happen in divorces whereby the divorce is so acrimonious that the only winners are the lawyers who spend ages fighting on a case like that. Nah, what's the point - I'm just going to take what they offered and start focusing my energy on my new job, where I can be most productive and reward my new employers for having shown such faith in my abilities. I've seen a friend come through a bitter break up with his ex and he is still posting a lot of passive-aggressive rhetoric on social media - I don't even want to talk to him about it, it's a Pandora's box I don't want to touch but the fact is, being angry and bitter like that is a vicious cycle: it is a very slippery slope you don't want to fall down. I'm choosing to avoid it by focusing on my future. 

4. The "Kevin" from Belgium situation

Allow me to share with you a story from my university days in 1997 - I went on a few dates with a Belgian guy, let's call him Kevin (not his real name) and it didn't really go beyond a few dates. He seemed to be the kind of guy I ought to date: he was good looking, he was my age, he was funny and my gay friends kept telling me how lucky I was. There were a few things about Kevin I didn't like though - he had shoulder length hair and I didn't think I knew him well enough at that stage to give him an ultimatum like, cut your hair or we're through. I was kinda stringing him along - I was busy at university anyway so when I had nothing better to do, I'd give him a call to hang out. I could feel like he was really into me but I just didn't quite feel the same way about him, like he was alright I suppose but I wasn't exactly enthusiastic or excited about him. Finally, Kevin had enough and he said to me, "that's it, I'm sick and tired of being your last resort, you only wanna hang out with me if you have nothing better to do. I really like you but if you don't feel the same, then be honest with me. No, I don't want to be the guy you call when you're feeling down and need me to come running to make you feel wanted." He was right - I should have been honest with him, I wasn't fair to him at all and yet at the same time, because all my friends liked him so much, I didn't want to give him up. Anyway, after that confrontation, Kevin said goodbye, he told me never to contact him ever again and I didn't know what to say. I did try to apologize to Kevin, but no, he wasn't interested in my apology. I remember thinking at that time, oh no what will our mutual friends think of me now? 

I can see the way my friends and family were very proud of me when I managed to get that job - it was with a respectable firm, they had a nice office in an expensive part of London, they paid me well and I had a fancy job title. So when people asked me, "what's your job?" I was able to make it sound as if I was a very successful investment banker who was earning a lot of money. In short, it was the kind of job that made you look good, but as in the case of Kevin, I wasn't really that fussed about the job; to be perfectly honest, I wasn't happy there because I didn't get along with the people there at all. Yet from the outside, if you didn't look into the details, damn I looked good. When Kevin effectively "dumped" me, I wasn't even that upset about not seeing him again since I didn't like him that much - like he was alright I suppose, but he wasn't exactly my first choice. I was more upset and worried about what my friends would think if they asked me, "hey what happened between you and Kevin? I thought you two were so good together? He is such a nice guy - what did you do?" I was kinda seeing Kevin because I didn't like the alternative of being single and unloved - by the same token, I was in that job because I didn't alternative of being unemployed and having to look for a better job. It was quite telling that I was more concerned that my friends would think that I was a jerk to Kevin when we broke up, rather than "oh no, I have lost the love of my life!" Well, he wasn't. Likewise by the same token, when I left, I didn't think, "I've lost the best opportunity I've ever had - it was my dream job." It was more like, "how am I gonna explain it to the people who matter?" 

5. Is it the industry or the people that was the problem?

So I have considered my options and it looks like I am going to accept a job offer from a company that is from the banking industry, albeit to do a different role, a more technical one. Ironically, this was something that a previous job had prepared me for and when you get to my age, you have the benefit of having so many years of work experience that you can find yourself saying, "I have not handled this for quite a few years now but I used to manage this kind of project some time ago so I am familiar with this." I did contemplate leaving finance altogether and actually explored some options, looking at where my skills were most transferable but the problem was even if I did identify something I could do (such as sales training for example), I still lack the kind of experience and would find that transition rather tricky to say the least, I would probably need to work for a well-established company offering that kind of training and come in as a specialist on cross-border transactions, but that's easier said than done. Whereas if I stayed within my industry and simply chose to work with nicer people, then I think I wouldn't have a problem with that kind of arrangement. Thus let me compare this to acting, an industry where I have had a lot of experience as well - in my last big project in Kyiv, I had a brilliant time as I really got along super well with everyone involved. However, in a previous project in Budapest, it was a real struggle because I really hated some of the rude British idiots involved. After all, this risk of running into idiots is present in any industry so leaving finance wouldn't solve that problem at all. Thus I just have to be a lot more careful whom I work with. 

6. Finding the balance between optimism and sympathy. 

Here's the challenge: how do you react appropriately to a family member or friend having to change jobs under rather stressful circumstances? On one hand, you don't want to be dismissive of the person's experience by trivializing it. If you do that, you risk coming across as unsympathetic and uncaring. But on the other hand, if you treat it as if it's a lot more serious than it actually is, then I can only shake my head and think, "do you think I'm that hopeless that I can't deal with a situation like this?" So imagine if you friend told you that he has just been given a cancer diagnosis, how do you handle the situation? If you don't take it seriously enough, then you come across as a selfish asshole who doesn't care about others - no, we're supposed to react with kindness, sympathy, empathy and compassion when we hear news like that! But what if we go too far, what if you reacted to that situation by assuming the very worst, "oh no, how long have you got left to live?" Oh, that reaction would come across as equally offensive. "I've only just been told I've cancer, nobody said I'm about to die! What is wrong with you? Why are you jumping to such morbid conclusions?" This is a tricky balancing act of course that people often get wrong, but the thing to do is to carefully observe how the other party is reacting to what you're saying an adjust accordingly and quickly. I had this problem with my sister, once again I know it's not a question of malice, it is just a function of her poor social skills. She was probably seeing the issue from her own point of view, about how she would cope in such a situation rather than looking at what I would do then - therein lies her mistake. 

So let me share with you what happened with my sister: I told her that I'm leaving my old job with two month's salary but on top of that, I've just scored a role in a major ad campaign which is for a Crypto trading platform and so when you add the two together (two months pay + what I will earn by starring in this ad), I will have the equivalent of several months of salary despite not having worked since early June. Allow me to be blunt: that's a LOT of money, it is a considerable windfall. That's far more money than my sister would earn in the same period - she will be putting in 75 to 80 hours a week in Singapore whilst I'm not working. On top of that I'm also currently negotiating a new job with another company which has promised me to match my salary and add a little bit on top of that in order to convince me to work with them. So I'm going to first do this ad at the first week of July before going on holiday. I will visit three countries on this trip: Luxembourg, Germany and France. Because of the windfall I've had as a result of what has happened, I'm going to stay at some really amazing places which are expensive but heck, I am feeling pretty rich right now. For someone who has lost his job earlier this month, actually I'm doing quite well now. Of course, it was nasty leaving my old job under those circumstances but it does feel like I've fallen into a muddy swamp and come up smelling like roses. My sister seemed to be fixated on the part of the story where I had fallen into the swamp whilst ignoring the part that I'm now smelling of roses. When I shared all this information with her about everything that has happened so far, my sister said, "I see things are looking up for you a little." A little?! Seriously? Even if she didn't mean to insult me, that was a poor choice of words. 

I think my sister is so sleep deprived having worked 80 hours in the last week that she probably hasn't processed the information I've given her. She probably skimmed through it, didn't pay attention to the details (especially regarding the windfall) but felt the need to respond. So she has come up with an inappropriate response, she probably felt the need to say something but misfired on this occasion. I can make all kinds of guesses as to why she said something so inappropriate but the bottom line is that her social skills aren't great and my sister was probably trying to acknowledge just how stressful leaving my old job was. Yes I get that, when you're going through a difficult period, you need validation - you need someone to acknowledge what you're going through. However, if she wanted to do that, then she needed to address specifically the part of the unpleasant experience that I went through and express empathy like, "I'm sorry you had to leave your job under such circumstances, you were not appreciated there and I'm sure you will find a better company to work for very soon. I know how much you have to offer and there will be another company out there which will be right for you." But we've moved way past that to the point where I've not only found another job, but I've sorted everything out and she thinks that things are looking up "a little" for me? Allow me to contrast this to the reaction of my friend Nick when I told him the same news: he said, "that's wonderful news, let's meet up and celebrate! I'm very happy for you!" Contrast that to my sister's reaction, I'm sure you can now see why I was frustrated the way my sister reacted? 

7. The last straw that broke the camel's back or the final paper cut before I bled out

I don't think the incident that resulted in me leaving my last job was that serious, in hindsight, it was the last straw the broke the camel's back. If I didn't leave over this incident, I can't imagine I would have lasted that much longer there given the way it became clear that the working relationship had well and truly broken down. Another common analogy that people would use to describe such a situation would be "death by a thousand paper cuts", each cut is painful but it is not enough to kill you, but eventually if you keep getting a few cuts every single working day, then at some stage you will succumb to all those wounds. That's not a pleasant way to die because your health is deteriorating with each little cut until you get to the point where that one last cut is enough to finish you off. With that in mind, I remember this conversation I had with a good friend back in late May - he was an outsider, someone who was a neutral third party and thus I was able to be brutally honest about all the frustrations I faced at work. He reacted by telling me that I needed to leave that company, it wasn't a good fit for me - he suggested that I ought to strike it out of my own, set up my own company and become a self-employed consultant. At that point, I didn't really consider his suggestion seriously. I suppose I merely wanted an understanding friend to offer me some empathy, to be my listening ear and then once I had gotten it all off my chest, I would be able to just get back to work. I did go back to him after I left my job and he could have said, "see Alex, I told you so!" But no, actually he was very nice about it - once again, he encouraged me to go solo and set up my own company and that it something I might still consider at some point in the future, as I do like that idea. 

8. Pull back the focus

I first talked to the people at the company I had just left in late November 2020 when I was already 44 years old and had been around in the financial services industry by then for a very long time already. So it was not like they let me step into an industry I had been desperate to get into by giving me a chance, in fact they chose to give me that job only because of my credibility in the industry that I had already established by then. I was fine before I met them and I will be fine after I leave. Furthermore, I want to pull back the focus even further to the year 1992, as I stumbled upon a very cheesy hit from that year when I was on Youtube. (See the video below) I have this memory of listening to this on my Walkman on the bus, on the way to school when a friend asked me, "what's that song you listen to all the time?" Thus if I could go back to 1992 and tell my younger self, "put down your Walkman for a moment and listen to me - you will get a scholarship to go to UCL, you will stay on in London after you graduate. You're going to establish two very different career paths - by the time you are in your mid-40s, you will have not just a big house to live in, but a sizable property portfolio. You will be traveling the world and be prepared for the fact that you will be forced out of your job more than once in your career, but you'll find something else quickly. You're going to be a lot more confident and have loads of great friends in your life." If you had delivered that piece of news to me in 1992, I would probably say, "okay, on balance that sounds pretty awesome! I wouldn't expect everything to be perfect and smooth sailing, but I'm happy with that! I can't wait to be in London!" The further I pull back the focus, the better the current picture looks and the more credit I'm able to give myself. 

There you go, that's eight lessons I've learnt from this difficult episode. If I may be frank with you, I had written another piece about the inappropriate responses from various family members I've spoken to but I'm not going to publish that post - it is what it is, my regular readers will know that I am from an autistic family. The challenge thus is to strike a balance: no, I don't want to cut them off and stop talking to my family - that would be too drastic. Many others have been in the same position before and they have managed their relationships with their families by lowering their expectations. On the other hand, I don't want to give them the power to frustrate me each time they act in a totally autistic manner - I already know they have no social skills, I already know that they do not know how to respond in such situations. But the bottom line is that I have learnt to turn to my friends for help in the first instance, I always make sure get the help I need before I inform my family of what has happened, so then I'm never ever in the position whereby I'm turning to my family for help before I speak to my friends. Heck, I'd rather turn to my readers for help before I turn to my family, but such is the way I have coped with this situation. I have recognized that the main person who has to find all the solutions is myself - yup, I know what I'm going through best so there's no better person to clean up this mess than myself, that's obvious and sharing with my readers like that is forcing me to present everything in a logical manner that helps guide me to the solutions I need. Thus I'm very grateful to all my readers for being a part of this process with me. I'm sure I'll have more to share over the next few days; thus until then, please feel free to leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.