Post [Corporate] Traumatic Stress Disorder

I have officially been working a little over two months at a small IT company now after leaving the corporate rat race. My new job is completely opposite of my corporate job, and making that adjustment has not always been easy. I grew use to the stress, the lack of creativity and original thinking, and the fear of losing your job because of the tightening of the corporate purse; that may also had something to do with the fact that a couple of high-profile board members were involved in a stock options backdating scandal, but that’s another story. Deep down, I knew that my previous working situation was not normal, but since it was my first “real job” after college, I had no idea how bad my working situation was until I left.

I have noticed some huge differences between my old corporate job and the small company I now work for. In fact, the differences are quite jarring. I didn’t realize the hidden, heightened sense of fear I had about job security until a month into my new job. Like any new employee, I’m on probation, so I felt the need to over-perform and be better than I am. I took the time to examine this fear after stressing for no good reason over assignments despite receiving overwhelming positive feedback from management. I realized that I put way too much pressure on myself to deliver quality work because of my previous job. At my corporate gig, towards the end of my run there, I felt like my position was not viewed as importantly as it was two years ago. In fact, the demand for my services seemed to cool off quite a bit, and I felt management thought that my position was an option over it being a necessity. That was definitely a caution light for me, one that I paid attention to. As a result, I had a tendency to go way above and beyond the call of duty to prove that they (the suits) needed me more than they realized. It was fear of losing my job that drove me so hard, and I realized I transitioned that fear to my new job. While it’s important that I perform well - and not just because I’m on probation - I didn’t need to stress and take it to the level that I did. My first, true assignment was all the rage by those that mattered, the client and my managers, yet I was still stressing way too much about doing a good job to keep my job.

I also grew use to not asking for the tools I needed to do my job at the corporate position. When I say tools, I mean things like PC Anywhere, PhotoShop, DreamWeaver, and even the newest Microsoft Office suite. After all, I did once work in the ops (operations) unit with a PC that had to crash and be rebuilt 4 times before management gave me a “new, used” Dell that nobody was using. It’s not like I was scared to ask for the tools I needed, but I always got excuses on why I and my team couldn’t get what we needed to do our jobs effectively. If you were not a member of a specific development team, you did not get the tools you needed to do your job. That was the law of the land, and even when I worked in ops, I was at the very bottom of the totem poll, despite working with the most important function of our business. Dealing with that behavior for so long, I was presently surprised to have my new manager tell me on the very first day of work, “Let me know if you need any additional software installs to help you do your job, and I’ll do all that I can to get it for you.” Keeping that in mind, I asked…and I received! It was a bit shocking since I was use to hearing “no” all the time for simple things. I mean, I am talking about a Fortune 500 company that told me they couldn’t buy me any office supplies unless it was an emergency. And no, I’m really not exaggerating.

My former gig had more drama than an episode of Entourage. I walked into the office and wondered, every day, what new drama was waiting to unfold. If I wasn’t watching people being escorted out of the building (after getting canned) almost every other week, I was observing turf wars between managers. It got to a point where I needed a bullet proof vest to deal with the shots being fired; I was not the target, simply the collateral damage. When you’re given a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War as a gift by your own manager to cope with the battles, that’s a pretty good indicator that things are bad. I would tense up and put on my game face, ready to engage in a mental fight when certain individuals approached my cube. Despite leaving my old job, I never removed my armor or lowered my guard. I brought that fighting attitude with me because, unfortunately, I grew use to it. I realized that my armor is unnecessary (knock on wood) at my new job because the people I work with aren’t trying to draw first blood. They’re trying to build bridges, not tear them down, or in my former company’s case, implode them.

There are times, still, when I expect some of the things I described to occur at my new job. Despite knowing that I’m in a completely different environment, I still have this fear that these kinds of things are going to happen to me. I have this fear because my reactions to situations were shaped by the chaotic working environment I was subjected to. That’s a fact. It has taken some time to deprogram my mind in changing how I react to things, a process I’m still going through. I knew that I would experience some changes working at a small company. I just didn’t know how drastic those changes would be considering I went from a toxic corporate culture to the complete extreme. It’s enough to jar anyone, even me.