That afternoon, as I left, I placed my resignation letter giving two weeks notice and walked out with a spring in my step. I walked out of that meeting, went straight to my computer and sent my husband an email that just said “Is it OK if today is the day?” He knew what I meant and responded in the affirmative. I can’t remember exactly what was said, but we were talking about developing some publications based on new national legislation and the gist was “we can just get the content from NSW and Victoria and rebrand it”. The decision was made for me when, after a meeting with a few of the office Big Wigs, I felt as if my skills, knowledge and experience were being completely dismissed. I discussed it with a few close colleagues – some of whom were career public servants and who couldn’t believe someone would even contemplate turning their back on public service tenure. But the idea of stepping off the cliff into freelancing scared me shitless. Every time I thought about going back to the stressful days of line management, those tears would come. Unfortunately, it couldn’t last and I needed to decide – and fast – whether I would go back to my substantive role, or leave. My boss was great and once it was apparent my mental health was suffering and I was heading for a nervous breakdown, she moved me sideways into a project role where I did not have to deal with staff, and things started to get better. My first indication that all was not right in my world was when I burst into tears in the boss’s office over something pretty insignificant, and didn’t stop crying for a couple of days. ![]() Unless you counted Ministerials and minutes, I had hardly written anything for years.īut I still clung on, in the vain belief that it was going to get better. In fact, as I looked down that metaphorical ladder, I realised it was the people on the rungs below that were doing what I loved – the hands-on communication work – while I dealt with budgets and HR and Ministers’ offices. ![]() ![]() Got better, but the job satisfaction plummeted. Working for someone else was my comfort zone, and it was nice to know I would receive a paycheck every week.Īs I climbed the career ladder, the money Three years ago today, I walked away from a reasonably-well paid mid-senior management role into the unknown.įor years, I had spoken about going freelance, but had never worked up the courage.
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