(Continuing on this earlier post)
When last we left off ...
I was performing a role within IT - for which I didn't have the title, nor the level - for close to two years.
Naturally working like this benefits the employer as opposed to the employee - they get more work and labor from me at a lower amount of compensation. On top of all this, I was subjected to a regular and routine hostile work environment thanks to a toxic individual (who due to perceiving me as some sort of threat to their existence and status, chose to denigrate and deride everything I did - right or wrong), along with several project managers who had a rather dubious relationship with the manager PM.
And at that time, despite all the success in our group, the company chose to lay a bunch of employees off as cost-cutting measure. We all knew this was coming months in advance.
... you can probably imagine the stress I was under that week ... because at the time none of us knew whom exactly they were gonna let go, and who'd survive. Me and the lead PM talked about it ... we figured best to update our resumes. On top of that, I had just bought a house not too long ago.
When that fateful day came, the company had sealed off one of the floors, and had black screens blocking of the hallways. If you were scheduled for an early morning meeting on that floor, you would be taken into a conference room, told your job was eliminated, and exited from the building by security.
A meeting did come on my calendar ... but it as from my then director for all of us. When I got there, it was only then that I noticed the fellow Lead Test Analysts in various areas were not present. That's when we got the news ... all of them had been laid off.
I sat there listening to the director talking ... he said all who were at this meeting had their jobs in tact. This left me w/a strange feeling, though I was to performing this role, I was technically still listed as 'Lead Test Analyst' -how and why am I still here?
After the meeting, the director and my then-manager stayed behind and told me that I was moving to a new group, and that my job title and level would officially change to match what I was doing (production deployment).
Well I found out which group, and I tell you - I wasn't exactly ready.
It was one that let's just say, had a 'reputation'.
That reputation was one of being VERY difficult to work with, to engage with, to get any assistance with issue with, that had a variety of strong and challenging personalities, and so on. They were also a team that was always on the radar of upper management due to a number of high-profile and high-severity issues.
I remember the first time I met with them and THEIR leadership. The idea of someone dedicated to production deployments - and I in particular - wasn't too well received. I even recall one of them saying (in polite terms) that I wasn't needed.
Fortunately - that VP who had previously supported me - was also at this meeting. He believed in me and was confident I could help this group. So on I proceeded.
Life certainly wasn't fun. I had no guide on how to help this group, other than being told - 'fix their problems and tell them how things should be done'.
Somehow, something told me that wouldn't work in this group. Plus as I would later find out, some of the managers were either incompetent, toxic, and both.
So I decided to take a different approach. I decided to observe, listen and ask folks where they needed help. Despite some resistance and skepticism from many, some did speak up and tell me - they needed help sequencing and communicating their deployments; they needed help navigating the IT change management process; they needed help with some of the maintenance windows, and so on. And one by one, I started helping the teams by taking on some of those tasks, and by helping teams organizing their releases. I also took over owning the outage windows from our infrastructure vendor, and turned it into a regularly cadenced event with a plan and all the necessary communications.
This wasn't by no means easy. After all, I was still reporting to my previous manager reporting to that previous director who didn't really offer any kind of support. And some of the toxic managers in this group took every opportunity to belittle any accomplishments, or magnify any mistakes along the way. Of course still, there was resistance to me as an 'outsider' and as someone who wasn't a developer or analyst.
But over time, and with some patience - the organization got more disciplined and got better. As well, one of toxic managers toxified their way out of their job. And after awhile, I even shepherded some regular release schedules for each team - to allow for for predictable deliveries of solutions. Of course, all of this took time and effort and energy AND well ... time mostly.
Lots of late evenings, lots of overnights, lost of weekends. Most of that time I never have ever really gotten back in the sense that it's never been really compensated for.
But over time the group got better, and eventually we succeeded in being one of (if not the) top producers of changes for our respective business areas and customers.
So ... did any of this lead to anything more or better? Tune into Part 3 to find out.
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