The last two go-to-market kickoffs have been really exciting: the first is always the most exciting because everything is new: the people, the process, the place, the schedule. The second one was fun because I felt like there was a massive buzz and people were really engaged and ready to go out there and do some great things. This year, I feel like the tone has changed. For those who are new, they are always excited because this is their year one, which for me, was two years ago. For those who have been here a while, the feeling was quite muted. For sales people who haven’t been hitting their individual or regional numbers, it was clear that they were all business and had no desire to mingle with anyone who they either didn’t know or could personally benefit from. That was sad to me today to observe. I had a lot fewer people greet, hug, or say hi to me than I normally do. Most of the people who have advocated for me who I was a fan of have left. And as I walked through the halls and desks of our company yesterday, I realized… I don’t totally feel like I really belong here anymore. That sense of belonging was once really strong. And now it’s not.

The day after a layoff happens, an office usually has an unusual level of trepidation and silence.. the kind that is slightly oppressive, ominous, where you are uncertain of who wants to say what, who knows what, and who is sharing what and with whom.

Then there is the question of: what now? And what are we doing and why?

One of the most awkward things about RIFs is that you don’t really know who was let go and affected unless you work directly with them, or you get a bounce back from their email. It’s frustrating and upsetting, but there’s really no nice way to handle it otherwise.

And what is worse is when your customers find out about it and start asking you questions.. before you are even supposed to know it happened and before your own company even makes the official announcement!

Today, my company had what we officially call a “reduction in force,” or an RIF, where about 12 percent of our employees were laid off. It was a sad day, and one that was quite surprising for a lot of people, but honestly given how we’ve been looking quarter over quarter, it didn’t really come as a surprise to me. There were some palpitations after the announcements and murmurs that there may be a second round coming. I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said, if it happens, it happens. We can’t control for it, so what is the point of worrying?

After getting laid off from my first job during a period that is likely the worst recession of my lifetime (at least, to date) in 2009, I can’t really sweat the small stuff anymore. It happened to me once and was terrifying and upsetting, and yes, if it happened to me again, I’d also be upset… but it’s never as bad and shocking as the first time. Been there once, and I could go through it again. I hope I don’t have to, but hey, you never know. You just have to keep your head up and focus on the present. The older I am getting, the more I am realizing that it’s such a waste of time and energy to worry about things out of my control. That is easier said than done, but hey, that’s what meditation and yoga are for.

My good friend came to drop off some things for me at my office today. While I thought she would just wait for me downstairs, I realized she actually came up to our floor and was waiting for me in our waiting area near the front desk. She even surprised me with dried flowers (which should last pretty much forever until they’ve collected enough dust and cob webs). She is the most thoughtful friend I have — surprising me at work with flowers in hand!

I gave her a tour of my office, introduced her to a few colleagues, and of course, walked her around our kitchen, complete with endless snacks, healthy and unhealthy, kombucha, cold brew, beer, and even red wine on tap. She took a good number of snacks and packed them away in her bag (I mean, why else did she want to come up, right?).

She said she imagined my office would be something like this given what she’d seen and heard of other tech companies — she just didn’t realize we’d have things like our bottled tea selection, packaged boiled eggs (??), or Muscle Milk (which, we found out today actually has no real milk, just “milk proteins” — whatever that means, and no real sugar (they use fake sugars!). “So this is what it’s like to work in tech, huh? You guys just get tons of free shit and gain weight over this!” she exclaimed.

Yeah, that’s kind of true. A number of colleagues have told me that within six months of joining our company, they find that their waist lines get bigger or their clothes in general just start feeling tighter. Even when you think you are ordering healthy foods for lunch with our lunch stipend, too much of a healthy thing ends up still being… well, too much, and too much food makes you gain weight. We’re definitely very lucky with our food and perks here, and it was interesting and amusing at the same time to see my friend marvel over our office, our food, and all the things I just find “normal” and take for granted every day. It was a novelty for her, and I could tell she really enjoyed being there and did not want to leave.

When you come back from a good, long, far-away trip, what you may be tempted to do is to tell everyone who even half asks you, “How was your trip?” about all the amazing minute details that you found so intrinsically fascinating and mind-blowing while away… that they really couldn’t give two shits about because a) they cannot relate at all unless they have traveled to the place you went, and b) what may be amazing to you during your travels is not amazing to them when they are thinking about whatever boring thing they were doing in the last couple weeks. I’ve never been one to gush excessively about any travel experience to colleagues, but after reading an article a while back on “why no one cares about how your trip was,” all the points were dead on. And so I’ve scaled back any response to, “It was really good! Thanks for asking!” unless pressed upon any further. Some colleagues asked about what the food was like. Others asked if we saw a lot of tourists outside of Bali in Indonesia. Several who haven’t been sleeping under a rock this whole time asked me how Australia was given the wild fires and if Chris’s family was affected at all. Sometimes, it’s just the little things, but it’s still nice to be asked.

It’s been nearly 11 years that I’ve been working full time, and in that 11 years, these are the conclusions I’ve come to:

1. HR is pretty useless when it actually comes to making employees feel heard, appreciated, or like their opinions and feelings matter. They do not exist to protect you; they exist to protect the company, its reputation, and its senior leadership.
2. White men still have all the power.
3. Discrimination and bias are nearly impossible to prove.
4. Even when you work at a company that is, by industry standards, “progressive,” you still realize that there’s an impossibly long way to go and that there’s really no use in comparing yourself to the lowest of the low in life. You won’t feel better.
5. When recruiters, internal or external, say they are looking for a diverse set of candidates who are truly “culture adds,” they’re definitely lying unless they are actually financially incentivized to do exactly that. And we know none of them are.
6. As I meet younger and younger people who are just getting out of school and into the workforce, I cannot help but notice how entitled they are to demand salaries that are $100-200K+ just a year or two out of college. Entitlement seems to be a common of those younger than me. But… did people who were in their 30s think that of me when I was at that age…?
7. Doing your job and doing it well isn’t enough. You have to play the political game to get ahead. That means sucking up in some cases, and in others, socializing with colleagues and higher-ups you wouldn’t otherwise care to be around.
8. Just because you are kind and friendly and helpful does not mean everyone at work will like you. In fact, there will always be someone out there who secretly, or not so secretly, doesn’t like you, and will make sure you find out some way, somehow.
9. When your manager tells you that she wants to hear your opinions, she really doesn’t mean that. What she really means is… she wants you to package in a certain way that sounds good to her ears. In other words, don’t be a complainer. Figure out how to do to that, and you will get along just swell.
10. What you might consider “common sense” in the workplace really is not so “common.” Sad, isn’t it?

It’s been a long and tiring last few weeks at work. A handful of colleagues have left, some voluntarily, others less so. Some new processes have been put in place. A new layer of management has been put into place. It’s been a period where everyone seems to have something to complain and be mad about.

“Feels like almost everyone is grumpy,” a colleague said to me today.

“What do you mean?” I responded.

“Just seems like pretty much everyone in this office is frustrated by something from what I can tell,” he said back to me.

Yeah, that’s probably true. Most of us in this office do our jobs and do it well. When you’re in a remote office, you have to work twice as hard and advocate for yourself three times as much before anyone really cares about anything you do. And that’s been wearing thin on a lot of us lately. Sometimes, you don’t want to constantly yell and advocate for yourself; sometimes, you just want to be noticed for good work you are doing and have someone else call it out for you to the “powers that be” and get you recognition.

In the corporate world, though, even in late-stage tech startups like my own, that can be like pulling teeth. This is the life of being at a pre-IPO technology company.

Tonight, our office hosted a happy hour to bid farewell to a colleague of ours, who is leaving to start a new job at another tech company. To be honest, the majority of us are not going to miss him; he was an HR nightmare with the inappropriate jokes and comments he’d openly make, and what was worse was that he had zero shame and felt like he was being victimized for getting called out for what he perceived to be “normal” conversation and behavior. I heard he was good at his job, so from a competence standpoint, I never doubted him, but from a peer-to-peer standpoint, I really did not care for him at all.

But, hey, any reason for the company to host a happy hour and get us free food and drinks is fine by most of us. Our office manager was told that we actually didn’t spend that much of our “social events” budget last year, so this happy hour is on the company. What better way to get people together than with free food and booze?

“How was your weekend?”

This is the usual question you get every Monday when you go into the office. Everyone has a long laundry list of things they need to achieve and get done for the week. And this question, as generic and as cliche and routinely repeated as it is, is so annoying, even when I myself often ask it.

The way I usually want to answer this question is…. “too short.” Two days off in a week is too short when you have errands to run, an apartment to clean, laundry to do, countertops to dust and disinfect. The amount of time actually spent “relaxing” on my own is so little. Sometimes, you have weeks when even socializing feels like work. And this was one of those weeks.

I want what Adam Grant advocates for: a four-day work week. That would be quite glorious, and I think we’d all feel more fulfilled and as though we were more productive.