OUT WITH THE OLD
I’m starting a new job tomorrow, and a friend asked me three questions about how I was feeling about this seemingly huge step. She asked:
1. A. Are you excited about the job?
2. B. What is it going to cost you?
3. C. Do you know your boundary lines for the job?
Now the questions seem simple enough and the first two I knew I had dealt with or at least understood enough to already be dealing with it.
So let me give you first a background about why I'm writing about this job.
For the past 10 years, I have been somewhat idle as pertains work. I mean I had a something doing, but it wasn’t anything that required much of my brain power. It didn’t have opportunities to network neither did it afford a room for growth or otherwise.
Why did I stay? prior to that job, i worked in a law firm for 2 years with 2 amazing partners that really pushed me. They gave me assignments I knew nothing about and drove me to find them out for myself and they would scold me (not harshly) when I didn’t deliver. So there was pressure, and I grew and I met people. In fact, they introduced me as the 'madam' of the office to their clients, just to give me an edge and respect.
I wasn’t used to pressure at the time as it was my first real job; i was the only staff with the two of them at first.
After a while, I decided I wanted to tow another career path. I was going to be a tax lawyer. I don't know if this is because I was called a tax collector when I was much younger, but i do know that i had many legitimate reasons why it was the right path for me, and i was passionate about them. I resigned with the amazing men and started to work with my immediate past boss.
Super intelligent , free spirited, go-getter, street smart and free giving man. Yes he was quite generous but that’s not why I worked with him.
He lived in the same compound as me at the time, and as with other neighbors we all knew what each of us did. He was an accountant and I was a lawyer, he needed my services sometimes and i was happy to oblige since he paid well. This a side hustle commenced.
This was after I had the thought of becoming a tax consultant.
I registered as a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, with no previous interest or background in tax or accounting. I studied hard, even built a reading table and all, paid for and attended tutorials, bought extra reading materials and books, and I still failed the course.
It was at that point I thought it would be best to resign from the law firm and work in a place that would afford me the opportunity to learn about taxes from these experts. i believed that being im that vicinity would mean that i would work first hand on tax related issues and thus learn as i had learnt from my previous employment, which would in turn mean that i would pass my exams.
Yup, i had it all lined up.
I got in there and lost steam. It wasn’t an
organization like I'd expected. I was coming from a place of structure, where
everyone had a role and had to carry it out or be scolded. Where it was
imperative to do your research and do an great job, a place you were expected
to attend meetings on your own and worse still, do great at the meeting, you had to learn to communicate.
I entered into absolute chaos.
Somehow I got comfortable in that chaos for 10 years. I did get the Tax Certificate. I didn’t have to take the exams any more. Certain people of certain qualifications and ‘work experience’ were exempted from taking the exam, with just a letter head and my CV I had sufficient experience, and I paid for the certificate.
For 10 years I was on cruise, no control. I had highs and lows and couldn’t figure out why; I was on a cruise and my generous boss funded it.
It wasn’t until last year, I decided it was time to go. At this point, my boss had made me HR/Admin Manager for three affiliate companies and my salary got a little bigger, but the joy of that was short lived. It took me all of 6 months to find the problem in the 3 companies, and try to resolve it, but then i I realized, quite shockingly that the management didn’t want the problems resolved only tempered, I lost interest.
It wasn’t meaningful for me, I needed something meaningful.
It came to me in my period of introspection. it was time to leave and start my life afresh if i had to, I couldn’t see myself there any longer, I had outgrown everything. I had no shrinkage left. So I decided I would relocate, to get a fresh start.
When I told my boss, he seemed happy and was in support, in fact he promised to add to my funding. I was happy too.
I have Mentor based in Lagos, and i see her once in a while when she visits Abuja or when i visit Lagos. i met back in 2012. This lady suddenly calls me out of the blues to ask if I was available to do some work for her; my immediate response was yes; i mean why not, I need the money and I don’t mind a side hustle for now, and most importantly, how could I say no to her? She has been an amazing person to me.
After my first 2 weeks, i had panic attack after panic attack because she was pushing my buttons, she always had to remind me that i said yes so i had to do the job and that she could replace me at any given moment. It was legal work, way different that i was used to. so many people in my immediate circle didn't even know much about the job as lawyers themselves.
At one point there was a delay that wasn't really my fault, and she to me 'if I don’t get this by Monday then ill find someone else to do the job’. i was mad, i was exhausted with the pressure, i was torn between losing my relationship with her and maintaining my sanity and i chose my sanity, so i decided that being a person that doesnt do halfway or mediocre jobs, that i would do my absolute best to meet the Monday deadline and then quit while i was still ahead.
Somehow its the opposite. I'm resuming there tomorrow. Do i like that sort of pressure? no but i learnt something valuable from it.
Back to the three questions raised by my friend, my responses are:
1. A. I'm not overly excited by the job, I understand that it will pressure and teach me, I also know that the pressure it has already shown me has redirected my way of thinking, I have already in the space of 2 months had to offload certain types of behaviors especially in my manner of communication, my ability to think things through, my decision making process, swift thinking, self-regulation, how to respect without being subservient and other amazing things.
So I know that I have to go through this process, and i'm building strength every day, but this is a new battle to me, I do not want to disappoint her or myself.
Also, i know this job is just a stop, unlike in the past where my only plan was to write an exam, obtain a certificate and possibly work with FIRS, i had no other plan.
2. B. To excel at this job; being a person that don’t quit or do things half way, I will have to sacrifice a whole lot of my old self; it will stretch and burn it out. I will have to become a different person, a new person I prefer to say. Why I seem scared is that I’ve been slouched for 10 years, I’m only beginning to learn to stand and I was doing it at my pace in my own time, this job will force me to move up the time line, and make it faster. I will love who I become at the end of this, but it’s the discomfort, the pain and the rewiring that keeps me on edge sometimes.
I am willing to see how much fight I can muster, what I will learn, and who I will become in this phase. While not losing sight of the fact that it’s just a stopover for me, it’s not where I’m headed.
3. C. This was the one question I hadn’t really thought about.
My friend explained it this way: would i allow them cross my boundary lines to prove a point? Would I in the process of wanting to show how much I can do, how much I know and trying hard to impress my mentor and her partner, remain bowed and allow them dump jobs on my table that aren’t part of my responsibilities.
I froze on that one. I was already doing that for free, taking blames that weren’t mine, designing letter headed papers which wasn’t part of my job and all. I was already doing that and I didn’t even think about it, It was actually my intention to do It till It was time to leave.
Because she asked me that I started to think seriously about it. Was I willing to Ma and Sir for that long? to be subservient and not speak out respectfully or disagree respectfully or explain my line of thought without fear, because I kept thinking to myself that I wasn’t qualified or intelligent enough to carry out the job, having been asleep for 10 years.
I don’t want to do that. I am not going to do that. That doesn’t fit into the picture of the confident woman that I am. I just realized that what my 10 year sleep did was to lull me to a sense of comfort where my basic needs where met and I could live the soft life, in a good house with a good car and no brain activity.
I tried severally; started an Instagram page called taxprof, my amazing friend tried to help, she would always recommend me to people and sometimes I would even screw that up. I was very comfortable and unhappy, but comfortable.
So yeah, this job may be scary, it may take a lot from me, it will allow me offload and expel a lot of my old self, it will teach me, it will wake me up that’s for sure, and it will expose me and give me a wider vision through the people I will meet.
That is enough for me to get started on my journey.
Comments
Post a Comment