What reorg taught me about routine, career choice and saying no
If not for the reorganization, I would have missed out on some significant lessons
Let me start with a story. Correction. A horror story.
Two years into engineering, I hated the subject and painful routine so much that I never prepared for exams during study holidays.
I did have a timetable ready. If I planned to finish a chapter of Electronic Devices (or is it Electronic Circuits?) on Tuesday, by the end of the day, I would have successfully learned nothing but a single two mark question.
It was my best friend who helped me out before the night of the exam by sharing the essential questions. And there was the panic monster that gave me the capacity to learn two chapters an hour before the exam. Because I couldn’t imagine writing an arrear exam which means I need to study the same subject again.
It was my writing internships that kept me going during college, and when I joined Freshworks as a content writer, my dream came true. I loved what I was doing, and every time I saw my author name in an article, there was a sense of satisfaction.
Months passed by, and slowly, the feeling of routine crept in. I didn’t realize it at first. It’s just I wasn’t looking forward to Mondays anymore, and I thought it was a temporary phase. Before I could fully understand what was going on in my mind, a team reorg happened. My role was shifted from content writing to product marketing.
My whole routine went for a toss, and as a routine-hater, I should have been happy. But I wasn’t. I didn’t like one inch of this routine.
In place of writing about customer service, tech, and customer experience, I got product training and had to collaborate with the product team. Instead of pushing out content as quickly as possible, I had to depend on my colleagues to learn and do every task.
I didn’t like this new routine of starting from scratch that I hung to my content responsibilities for comfort. Though a new content team was formed, I still uploaded the articles on Wordpress. It’s like holding on to something dear afraid that the new owner might not take care of it properly.
This increased my workload and slowed down my transition to product marketing. At the same time, I couldn’t bring myself to tell my manager that I was finding it challenging to do all these tasks. According to me, it meant that I was incapable.
It was my manager who looked at my list of tasks and asked me to hand over the content-related ones to the new team. He also advised that I should let people know when there’s too much on my plate instead of taking up every responsibility that comes my way.
His advice was an eye-opener. It helps me turn down responsibilities without feeling bad to this day. And back then, it made me let go of my previous duties and adapt to my new role.
As I began to focus only on product marketing, I learned faster and started liking my new role. The change of routine didn’t feel like a burden anymore. And till now, no two days have been the same for me as a product marketer. There’s so much to learn, so much to experiment and so much to strategize.
If not for the reorg, I would have missed out on some significant lessons and never would have got out of my comfort zone. Thanks to the reorg, I learned that:
I should let go to adapt and move forward.
Turning down responsibilities when my bandwidth is full is fine.
There is a career path that suits my routine-averse personality.
So, what do you think? Did you find my article useful?
Author’s note: I so tried not to use the ‘Let it go’ gif. But, I had to. I couldn’t let it go :p
If you’d like to access my weekly article without manually searching for it, hit subscribe. To know what you’re signing up for, you can read my About page before subscribing.