From Victim to Visionary

What are you taking with you when you leave your place of employment for the last time? Never mind that gel wrist pad that you have adopted for your next job or that cool light-up pen that you're sure your soon-to-be-ex boss has forgotten about. No, this is not a lecture about stealing quirky stationery.

These are your emotional belongings. The story that you'll find yourself telling to every friend and family member, every interviewer every new colleague, every former colleague...about why and how you left your last job. The story can vary slightly depending on what you want your audience to think of you and how you want them to react.

Are you painting yourself into the picture as the weary, tortured victim who was just misunderstood by the boss but was only trying to do the best? Or perhaps you are the hero who emerged from a terrible company with only mild psychological shock as to their appalling culture and processes? Our culture encourages us to look for someone or something to blame when an agreement or bond breaks down, and it's probably very satisfying in the short term to pick apart the faults of your former employer to try and repair your own self-confidence, reinforce your own principles and cling to some sense of what is right.

In reality, any one of those people mentioned above will be able to sense if you have done the wrong thing or been wronged, or a combination of both. What they will respect is if you can maintain integrity for what you do, what you are passionate about regardless of your employment status or the job dramas you encounter. No victims or heroes, just stick to what you do best.

Imagine that you have just joined an accounting firm as an Assistant Accountant. With all your training and basic experience, you're really looking forward to becoming part of the scenery and building your career. However, your supervisor is under a lot of pressure and doesn't give you the support or mentorship you need. You are very concerned about falling behind in your work so you mention your concerns to other colleagues. They decide that the new team arrival is a bit of a whinger and start to spread gossip about you. HR gets involved and decides it's not working out - time for you to leave.

This is a very hurtful and saddening experience for anyone, and no matter how many times you run it over in your mind, it's hard to see how it could have been handled differently in the moment. The point here however is to hold back from seeing yourself as hard done by, an easy target, laughing stock, or anything else which is actually just going to damage your self-esteem.

Not only will your decision on how wronged you were affect how you see yourself, it will also influence whether the next employer hires you or not - whether you are bitter about your treatment or self-confident for the next adventure. Instead of dwelling on the injustice, how about: You're a great Assistant Accountant and you knew what you needed to do well, but you didn't get it. The rest of the drama within the company itself is not your concern - then or now.

Don't lose sight of what's important to you as a professional, not what happens to you when you stop working with an employer. Those are fleeting moments, temporary hurdles, and others will respect your maturity if you recognise that episode for what it was. Think of the bigger picture - what you deserve and what is ahead of you. Your identity and pride in what you do is long term. Let passion do the talking, not politics.