Guess who's back ?
It's me, bitches!
Here's the abridged story of where I've been since 2009 and why I'm back.
I've been living the corporate dream of rung climbing and brick wall crashing but hey there was - for the most part - a steady paycheck on it. I've been working in the localization/translation industry. I moved from NYC to the Bay Area to escape the winters. The good news is that the salaries are better out here for localization, the bad news is that if you haven't worked for any of the big tech companies you can all but forget about being considered for most positions.
As for why I'm back, I've been working as a loc project manager for a couple of years now and was able to find a dream position for the last 10 months subbing for someone out for maternity leave. So yay, right?! Now there's a permanent position that's opened, that's less responsibility than the job I'm currently doing (and doing well in according to my manager). I applied for it only to be told by that manager that I'm not good enough of a project manager for that less responsibility role but please stay here to help train the person coming back for maternity leave AND the new loc project manager we hire, k thx bye.
Seriously though, the feedback was that I wasn't assertive enough and that I second guessed myself a lot. That's partially true I held back a bit on being pushy. Instead of coming out guns blazing when it was time to push, I'd first do things like negotiate and if I still didn't get what I needed THEN i'd be pushy. I guess my boss wanted me to pushy from the beginning. The frustrating part about this is I had been told in another role that I was TOO pushy and that I shouldn't be assertive at all in the loc PjM role. I know on some level that line is going to be different places based on the company you are in, I guess I just would have appreciated to have been told this sooner than 10 months into a contract after being told how awesome I'm doing.
What makes it worse is that something else has happened to me in the last two jobs : hey you're awesome, we love you and please train the new person for the job we don't want to give you. Majorly disappointing :-(
But onwards and upwards or at least sideways, right? I figure as long as I'm going to have to deal with those type of subjective barriers, I might as well be doing it while writing !
Plus here it is, January, symbolically perfect time to start something new.
Here's the abridged story of where I've been since 2009 and why I'm back.
I've been living the corporate dream of rung climbing and brick wall crashing but hey there was - for the most part - a steady paycheck on it. I've been working in the localization/translation industry. I moved from NYC to the Bay Area to escape the winters. The good news is that the salaries are better out here for localization, the bad news is that if you haven't worked for any of the big tech companies you can all but forget about being considered for most positions.
As for why I'm back, I've been working as a loc project manager for a couple of years now and was able to find a dream position for the last 10 months subbing for someone out for maternity leave. So yay, right?! Now there's a permanent position that's opened, that's less responsibility than the job I'm currently doing (and doing well in according to my manager). I applied for it only to be told by that manager that I'm not good enough of a project manager for that less responsibility role but please stay here to help train the person coming back for maternity leave AND the new loc project manager we hire, k thx bye.
Seriously though, the feedback was that I wasn't assertive enough and that I second guessed myself a lot. That's partially true I held back a bit on being pushy. Instead of coming out guns blazing when it was time to push, I'd first do things like negotiate and if I still didn't get what I needed THEN i'd be pushy. I guess my boss wanted me to pushy from the beginning. The frustrating part about this is I had been told in another role that I was TOO pushy and that I shouldn't be assertive at all in the loc PjM role. I know on some level that line is going to be different places based on the company you are in, I guess I just would have appreciated to have been told this sooner than 10 months into a contract after being told how awesome I'm doing.
What makes it worse is that something else has happened to me in the last two jobs : hey you're awesome, we love you and please train the new person for the job we don't want to give you. Majorly disappointing :-(
But onwards and upwards or at least sideways, right? I figure as long as I'm going to have to deal with those type of subjective barriers, I might as well be doing it while writing !
Plus here it is, January, symbolically perfect time to start something new.
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