Old Ties

Some ten years ago, I was laid from a company that I enjoyed working at mainly for the quality of talent they attracted combined with terrific work-life balance. I looked forward to meeting the people I worked with everyday - that made up for a lot that was not right about the job. That year, they let go about a dozen of us - we all took it pretty hard. One of the women in that group who is my friend to this day, has made great strides in her career since that event and has been on a mission to poach the best talent away from the company that treated her poorly. Thanks to her and similar efforts of a few others like her, the best people have left the company, hurting their business. Recently, some folks who had we had known from back then, organized a happy hour for the alumni and current employees. Both of my friend and I decided to attend. 

The bad feelings from that layoff years ago has gone away for us at least - management appeared to be a mix of confused and contrite but tried to be as friendly as they could under the circumstances. It was a cathartic experience for me to go back there, talk to these people that had once caused me so much pain and humiliation at a very difficult time in my personal life - it was the terrible confluence of things that made it so hard. It was impossible for me to rise above the emotions triggered by that event and act with professional poise - so I just stayed away.

All these years later, it was no different than meeting some random group of people any other place or time. The people who once ran the place, all seemed like former shadows of themselves - trying to hold on to what remained of a once fantastic place to work. To their credit, they tried to bring people together to remind them of better, happier times. Being able to forget and forgive was a wonderful feeling for me and I am glad I decided to go there and know for a fact that I had indeed moved on from that event. Time truly does heal.