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This is a submission for the 2025 New Year Writing challenge: Retro’ing and Debugging 2024.

Towards the end of 2023, my department underwent a sudden change in management. I expected a journey in professional growth. Instead, what ensued throughout 2024 were relentless battles with identity, isolation, and indetermination.

Indetermination - being uncertain or undecided

Management changes are common in many careers. Sometimes you can see them on the horizon and sometimes they come as a complete surprise.

I had barely reached my first year. A year in gives you a pretty good lay of the land even if there are still many unknowns. I was certain of our operations and how my job function fit within them...and then I wasn't. I asked numerous questions, scrambling to find the path forward.

No matter how many questions I asked, I would never get the answer I was searching for.

There is no such thing as a predeterminate path. Paths are created when I decide to build them.

I started with what I knew, refined my questions and grew my knowledge. With each new discovery, I found myself building a path forward.

Isolation - being or feeling alone or apart from others

Amidst the management change, the department gained new members but also lost long-term ones. Not only had the nature of the work changed but also the team dynamic.

Isolation isn't always about being physically alone. I enjoy time alone and can work independently for long durations. Isolation also happens when there is a disconnect from those around you.

Challenges at work are plentiful. A supportive environment can help overcome them with minimal stress. Yet, I struggled to find support within my changing department.

There is no shame in tapping into other networks of support. I joined online communities with people in similar professions and attended networking events where I met others with similar challenges and goals.

Outside support helped me ease the isolation and discover ways to connect back with my environment and the people in it.

Identity - being who you are

Along with a solid support system, a strong sense of identity can help overcome a myriad of challenges. At the same time challenges can drastically shape who we are.

Naturally, there were adjustments made to adapt to my evolving work environment. It was the expected professional development like brushing up on technical skills.

Then there were the unexpected developments, such as the aforementioned indetermination and isolation, followed by the subtle loss of identity.

In hindsight, I see how blind I was to and by my hyper fixation on workplace performance. I thought I needed to be a certain type of person to succeed and became the type of person who believed success is contingent on perfection.

My challenge was never the change in management. It was the internal changes within me. I never struggled with perfectionism before, so why now? I never cared for salaries and titles so why do I feel awful about my own? I thought I loved design and coding. Why can't I seem to enjoy them now?

Sometimes you can see these things on the horizon. Change is the only constant after all. How else would I grow and achieve my goals?

Sometimes, though, they come as a complete surprise, and you miss parts of who you used to be.

Instead of coming face to face with those sentiments, I focused on my workplace changes and career growth. I assumed adaptability at work would resolve those sentiments, but it didn't.

Imperfection -

Due to the management change, I learned a substantial amount in web development, collaboration and leadership. I'm better adjusted to my workplace and approaching greater understanding of the wider field I'm in.

Going into the new year, I am still struggling with change in sentiments I cannot yet define. I don't plan on strategizing my way out of them though. I will let them be.

I will allow myself to be unsure, unfit, and whatever other uncomfortable feeling out there.

I will just be.