Promotion round 2 with Dan was way more messy psychologically than round 1. I had oriented a lot of my life to prepare for round 1. I postponed the move date until after my interview. I got a massage the night before and stayed late at work to prepare in peace. I felt completely prepared emotionally, mentally and physically heading into the interview. The second interview was not that way at all. Because I wasn’t expecting it, we had already scheduled to have our move be the weekend before my second interview with Dan. So the days leading up to the interview were extremely intense and disorienting. Lily had done an incredible job moving so many things even before the move, but I was still sleeping on the couch the nights leading into the interview, with many things still in boxes, and still not settled into my new environment.
I also was extremely stressed and nervous. I could barely concentrate that day. My interview was late in the day, at 3:40. I tried to work and prepare during the day, but I was very distracted and nervous. I went on multiple walks and prayed that I would show well and with integrity. I hate interviews because I get very stressed out trying to walk that line between trying to make myself look as good as possible, while still holding to my integrity which matters so much to me. It is such a stressful process, especially when I feel like stakes are so high. I wanted to look as good as possible. But I wanted to promote with pure integrity.
Then, there was a crisis. Just out of curiosity, I looked into the company dashboard to see if the new employee engagement results were in. They had not been announced or formally rolled out, but I figured I’d just look into the dashboard to see if the results were in there. The dashboards were not fully built out so I couldn’t see how my score compared to North America Sales region as a whole (they hadn’t calculated everything yet), but I could see that my score was much lower than my previous engagement score. In fact is was low enough to drop me a couple of points in my interview, which could disqualify me I thought. I started completely panicking, I actually started having a panic attack. I decided that the best thing to do was to just be 1000% honest and report on the latest results. Then after inserting the newest results in my deck, I felt like I was doing something very stupid. My common sense and reason just seemed to tell me that what I was doing was stupid and unnecessary. The results had not been formally announced. The results weren’t even fully calculated and tabulated for comparisons. Why would I go out of my way to present the most recent score when it could jeopardize a promotion? Still, I wanted to be transparent. I felt in my heart, I should stick with the higher September results I had used in previous interviews, but my panic, mind, integrity and anxiety couldn’t process how that was OK if I wanted to maintain perfect integrity. I went on a walk, feeling deeply panicked. And then, God sent a pure evidence of His/Her existence. In the parking lot, I bumped into probably the one co-worker that I would have felt comfortable sharing my burden with, Steve Harmon. He is a dear friend and a perfect blend of honesty and not taking things too seriously. He seemed to have no problem with the idea of me using the September results. He also pointed out, and I was already aware, that the new engagement survey was sent out the week that a lot of organizational changes were announced, so it might have just been a rough time in general for engagement results in Dan’s org. I continued on my walk after bumping into Steve, feeling somewhat relieved, but still panicked and stressed.I prayed a lot.
Back in the office, I used a conference room to practice my interview. I called Lily (or she called me), and it was such a God send. I was melting down from worry, and I needed to hear her voice. She comforted me and affirmed me. I decided that I would use the September results, but clearly label them as such, and even announce them as such, and then I would prepare a talk track for if he felt the need to bring up December. That way I would use the older results, but I would not in any way apply that they were from the most recent survey and I would be very straightforward with my presentation. This would give him opportunity if he felt the need or awareness to ask about the most recent results. But again, they weren’t fully announced yet so they may not have even been in his awareness.
I discussed my strategy with Lily and she affirmed me. I felt very good. It struck the right balance between honesty and strategically moving towards success. So the decision was the right one, but the stress-levels were so high that something snapped in my brain. It was a panic attack.
Lily ran through my interview with me almost two full times. It was so calming and helpful to have her be there on the phone with me while I was melting down from my anxiety.
Then I walked into my interview with Dan, and completely nailed it. I had practiced so much that despite my anxiety, all my talk-tracks were perfect. When I presented the September engagement results (and stated they were from September) he didn’t bat an eye, and we just kept rolling. The interview was only 20 minutes. He was very complimentary, and laid back and at the end congratulated me for how I have developed. He told me on the spot that I passed the interview.
That should have been one of the happiest moments of my entire year, and the weeks to follow should have been pure elation. A final culmination after so much sweat, so many late nights, so much marrow-sucking joy working two jobs with so little affirmation, results and appreciation from management for so long, and now I climbed the mountain, I made it to the next level, and at a time when we could really use the money because of the new home. This is what I had dreamed of, to be pure management. This is what I had worked towards. This is what I thought might be impossible for me to attain. This should have been like the scene from “Pursuit of Happiness” where Chris Garderner (Will Smith) starts crying when he gets the job because he senses his dreams are coming true.
But it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t like that at all. For a solid week and through the holidays I was plagued by my panic attack. I obsessed over the idea that I should have showed the new engagement results. I obsessed over my talk track about my explanation for why my engagement results were so high because even though I gave my best honest on-the-spot answer, in retrospect I realized my explanation may not have been accurate (although Dan didn’t even require an explanation because he just grades off of the scores, not the context), I also obsessed over the idea that my team might have graded me artificially high because they were wanting to help me in the interview (which is not honest), so I confirmed that I sent my team a message in July telling them not to grade me nicely because I cared about the learning and growth more than than the high scores. I stressed and obsessed about that portion of my interview. Something in my mind snapped.
When people asked me about my promotion, I found myself mentioning my continued stress around the engagement results section of my interview. Literally something snapped in my brain. I still think I made the right judgement call, but my anxiety and panic has been off the rails.
Unfortunately, that obsessive panic has only subsided because it has been replaced by something else I have been panicking obsessively about (I’m now writing this on the first of January).
When I got into work on Monday of this week, I realized that finance had not yet re-invoiced Solar Turbines. You see, prior to my interview, I wanted the billing from that deal to show in all my metrics for my interview, so even though it was a super complex invoicing split across multiple POs and I didn’t know how everything matched, I just matched my software portion with one of the POs and pushed it through figuring if there were issues, I would sort them out later because I just wanted to make sure the billing showed for my interview, and I was focused on interview preparation and didn’t want to take the time pre-interview to focus on all the gorey details of the invoicing, but that I would clean up any mess I made when the interview was over and I had more bandwidth to focus and things outside of my actual interview.
It actually was a major process to fix the invoicing. We ended up needing to re-invoice everything, and it took about 2.5 hours of my time to fix, and about an hour and a half of that time involved multiple people from finance helping me get it set up. Our systems are so rigid, and Solar Turbine’s needs were very nuanced. It was a stressful nightmare. I actually thought I might not be able to invoice it at all this quarter at one point, but I felt God saved the day. I wandered to our bullpen (staffed sales support hours) on the very last day of the year it was open, and there was no line and I was able to get all the help I needed But the process was crazy . Most of that time would have been necessary anyway even if I didn’t invoice it originally. It was just crazy hard to set up, and crazy complicated to figure out and Solar Turbines didn’t have all their ducks lined up, so I was also missing some POs and information to make it a perfectly smooth process on our side.
Anyway, I got everything teed up for invoicing the Friday before Christmas. But when I got into the office Monday December 30, I noticed it hadn’t invoiced yet, so I spent another 45 minutes or tracking down the issue and getting over the final hurdles to get it to invoice. I had another scare that the invoice wouldn’t go out because the previous invoice we sent plugged up their PO, so a credit needed to be issued and approved by one of their managers who was out of office, but finally it turned out that we could mark it as invoiced on our side so I could get credit even though we hadn’t input it into their system yet.
That was all great, but then my mind truly turned on me with this narrative:
Because you ended up re-invoicing, you never should have have been able to use the Solar Turbines Billing in your metrics and invoicing when you interviewed. Because of that, you are a fraud, you don’t deserve to promote. You did it dishonestly. You need to notify someone of this error. Even though you ended up billing it by the end of the quarter, other people have also billed things since your interview, so it is impossible to know where you truly would have stacked up on your billing and quadrant and team performance at that moment in time that you interviewed if you were to take solar turbines away. You are a fraud, a fake, you don’t deserve this promotion. You are evil, dishonest a fake. You don’t deserve the promotion. All is lost.
So here is what is crazy. I never internalized the possibility that I would need to re-invoice. I knew there might be some mess to clean up after invoicing, but I guess I didn’t fully process or know that re-invoicing was a possibility. What I can say is that when I interviewed, there was not a shadow of a thought in my mind or heart that I was doing anything dishonest by using Solar Turbines in my billing numbers. I knew I pushed it through, and that it was sloppy, but as far as I was aware and concerned, it was invoiced and I was fine to use it. Also, I know that I was already slated to be a sales manager, that I performed high on my numbers, and I actually think in this case, most likely none of my metrics would have changed if we took solar turbines out. I think I got a 3 on my personal billing and quadrant which is the only category that could have had real impact, and I think I would have got a 3 without that deal anyway. Additionally, I could make the case, that reps have things cancel or re-invoice from time to time, and so the dashboard is not expected to be a perfect reflection of deals that pay and don’t cancel or re-invoiced, but is simply a reflection of invoiced deals, and truly, we had invoiced my deal. Even though we had to re-invoice it later, it actually was invoiced on the day that I interviewed. But to me the most important thing is that on the days of my interviews. there was no shadow, no awareness that I was doing anything sneaky, wrong, risky, or anything that could backfire. I was just trying to jam through as much business as I could before I needed to interview for my results.
It is hard to describe the level of panic I feel. I was on the phone with Lucas yesterday, and I almost brought this matter up to clear my conscience and stop feeling like an imposter that is cheating my way into a promotion. But my common sense stopped me. Our conversation centered around the great work that was done this quarter. My heart and common sense told me I was obsessing and panicking and I shouldn’t derail our wholesome conversation that was grounded in reality because of a panic attack I was facing in my brain that was centered in fear and not reality. I also thought that discussing this would him would only 1) pawn off my ethical situations and burdens on to him when I should come to my own ethical conclusions 2) Cause him to affirm me that things were fine, but cause him to think I was a bit infirm mentally, or doubt my capabilities to some degree. 3) Waste his time on my neuroses when I didn’t think I was thinking clearly or stably. It seemed the discussion was more suited for a therapist than my boss. This panic is still consuming my brain today so I bumped forward my next meeting with my therapist.
It seems to make no sense to raise the matter to any of my superiors. It is so loud in my brain that it feels real and important and like something I need to shout to my superiors.
But the calmer, quieter relaxed and wiser part of me says, “Abe, you made it through the process. You did it through integrity. It wasn’t perfect. There is grey. Advocate for yourself, not against. There is mess, but you did it, and you did it well enough. Nice work. Enjoy the fruits. Give grace to yourself, and move forward doing good.”
It also just feels idiotic to try to upend my own promotion. I had a thousand things working against me it felt. It seems to work so hard against myself. Especially on an unintended technicality.
Honestly, this is still swirling in my brain. I don’t feel certainty. I don’t feel resolution. It feels stupid to raise any issue at work. Yet, I’m crying inside over the panic that I was dishonest. I feel so unhealthy each time I think about it that I know I’m not thinking straight. Maybe I was not dishonest at all. Maybe I was. Maybe I acted completely reasonably. Maybe I didn’t. I don’t actually trust my thoughts so I don’t really know which way is up, or what to think or believe. My best hope is what happens with every panic attack. It fades with time. Meanwhile, I am now a Sales Manager. At that fact doesn’t seem like it is changing.
I have a hypothesis that God gave me this panic attack as a gift, to help me be humble during my success. Something very similar happened regarding my getting into Wharton. I really actually think this is the meaning behind all of this. But again, uncertainty is ever present.
At the end of the day, we went to Mary’s Christmas concert. We almost didn’t go to Mary’s Christmas concert because we were so busy with the move and my promotion interview prep, but she was very, very sad at the thought of not going. So I went with Georgia, and she was delighted!
