My boss asked me if I had time for chat…

So we disappeared into a side room and he said that I didn’t look or sound very happy at the moment.

As far as work goes, I don’t think I am. I was passed over for a promotion (or I was actively demoted, depending on your point of view – I was already doing the job in question – and had received a bonus for it), so I was feeling more than a little upset still about it. Those feelings tend to come out when I am asked to fill in for the person who got the job, which upsets me because I like this fellow and think of him as a friend.

I had been given another role after losing out, which seemed to be largely a made up role to keep me quiet.

Last week, my boss had asked me to think about what I would like to do. I have been thinking about it, but I still don’t have an answer.

He suggested I might like to take on running the morning stand-up and helping with planning. I didn’t find myself getting excited about it, despite it being something that I do enjoy. I think it might be because of the lack of autonomy that this now implied as I would be the sidekick to the actual team lead, rather than the lead itself.

Part of the problem was that I used to feel inside the decision making circle, then there was a shakeup and I found myself outside that circle.

When all this happened, I was in a period of my life where I was emotionally up-ended and on the lead-up to my surgery. I didn’t have the head-space for anything else. If I had been able to think about my career … well, I think I would now be working for a different company. I said that to my boss – he said that he would have done the same.

My boss noted that I did tend to disappearing into my head to think. That tends to happen when I am outside of my comfort zone and not in one of the things that really engages me. When its something that grabs me, answers are more immediate and flow easily.

He also noted that I am very much less filtered – I think my mask is all burnt out and I just haven’t the energy to stop myself saying how I actually feel about something. Besides, life seems to be more interesting what I say what I think and how I feel. But I don’t want to be needlessly mean and I don’t want to be a misery to be around.

We both observed that I was grumpy far more often. He thinks of me as being a person with positive energy, so this is a change that is noticeable. I like to think of myself as being a person with positive energy.

The question is “What do I want?”

I have to admit to myself though that I am suffering from a case of “the bruised ego takes the longest to heal”.