Monday, January 28, 2019

All I Want For Christmas Is... A New Job!

I remember well when an Amazon recruiter reached out to me saying the business was looking for my expertise. I thought he was trying to get me to work in a call center, all while pretending that the name of the company would make any crap job sound lucrative. Why would a tech company want a journalist, I thought. I did, however, obviously take the chance to interview. A little further down the line, I actually started wanting the job. Did they say they were going to use technology to bring information to people? Like, with that thing Alexa I had never heard of. Fast forward six interviews and I became Alexa's patron, mother, buddy or teacher, you could say. Getting the job at Amazon was one of the happiest days of my life. The years of weird jobs, gaining experience in order to one day get the shot at the big guns, were over. The glass of prosecco tasted really well that day before Christmas two years ago.

But yeah, it did not last. Every day at that job was fun, everyone I met in the whole company was an incredible person and I loved working with them. Like many other jobs, at some point, the job didn't fit the expectation that was set in the beginning anymore. It's easy to talk about it now because my job no longer exists and the silver linings are easy to see. While we all loved the work and the device, the future that we had anticipated was clearly not going to happen. I knew I'd be fine. At the time though, it felt like a funeral. The decisions some of us made to leave was a good one for every single person that made it and the business, too. Yet, for a while, I mourned the loss of what I thought I would help make a historical device. 

I was never unhappy at Amazon. Quite the contrary, I loved my job. My last day was plagued by an upside down frown, yet most people told me the same: "you never know, Sina, something bigger is waiting wink wink". The job I had accepted wasn't going to exist forever. So I thought I was doing the right thing by taking a chance in life, again. It's my absolute conviction that very few people would have left a full-time position at Amazon to find something "better". Sounds stupid even to me. I joked with my flatmates that I'll just go to Google. The idea wasn't absurd. Without telling my colleagues about this joke, they sent me a parting gift a few weeks after I left. They had wrapped a book and some German candies for me. The book was called "How To Become A YouTube Superstar". My colleagues wanted to encourage me to become a social media influencer. Considering what I did instead makes me feel fuzzy inside.

In Germany, we celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December. As the UK doesn't, my Google recruiter called me on Christmas to tell me I had gotten the job I wanted really bad at Google. Talk about a great present! It wasn't going too badly for me in the interviews. I had interviewed with three other companies, waiting for the decisions. Just like back in the day, when I was waiting to hear back from universities, the day the first "yes" arrived, it was more the shock and excitement of knowing something will happen, this time the end of unemployment. Then I realized I had just received an offer for a badass job I wanted really bad. It was also a huge upgrade from my Amazon job. I accepted before hearing back from all others.

Of course, getting a job at a tech giant feels great. The kind of feeling you think will change your life. Like last time, I was ready for the change. My first action in London was to buy a bottle of champagne. While cheering with my friends to a successful new year, I pondered what I was proud of: getting a job at Google? Getting a job? No longer being unemployed? The honest to God answer is another. Of course, I'm excited for this job, a new chapter, the work I'll be doing. But mainly, I am proud of myself for daring to dream bigger when I was already exceeding the expectations I had set for myself. I left Amazon into uncertainty, merely hoping I will find something better. Yet, trust me, walking away from a great job with a yummy share package attached was not an easy decision. Most days, I doubted I'd be that lucky twice. But deep down, I felt this day, December 24, 2018 would come. For the first time in my life, I understood the Hollywood stars talking about persistence in their Oscar speeches. I get that now... 

No comments:

Post a Comment