My final day with my previous employer wasn’t what it was supposed to be.  I wasn’t leaving because I’d secured a great opportunity with higher pay at another company.  I was leaving because the company’s profit projections weren’t where they needed to be and I, along with a number of other people in various locations, was made redundant.  Leaving on someone else’s terms is a horrible experience, made worse when you’re treated like a second class citizen.

I didn’t get to have an exit interview.  It’s not that I asked to be exempt from the process – I simply wasn’t afforded the opportunity because exit interviews are about understanding what the company could have done differently to keep an employee.  When you’re made redundant you’re not leaving the company, the company is leaving you.  HR assumes you don’t have valid insights; any feedback you have is assumed to be irrelevant and come from a place of spite.  On one hand I didn’t mind not having an exit interview as I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to provide feedback without bursting into tears.  On the other hand, people who leave a company out of spite but on their own terms are given an exit interview.  Not affording someone the opportunity to provide feedback simply because they aren’t leaving on their own terms is a shitty way to treat a person.

I’ve been gone from that company for several months now and settling into my new role with my new employer.  Now that I’m in a better place mentally and emotionally I thought I owed myself the exit interview my previous employer didn’t give me.  My intent with this post was to publish my exit interview.  However rather than finding therapy through writing, I felt myself becoming angry when I reflected on the company and why I’d started looking for a new job.  I don’t want to be that bitter, angry person, and I certainly don’t want the past to affect the progress I’ve made over the months to move beyond how I was treated.  So rather than bring myself down by reliving the painful moments and unfair treatment, I’m closing the door on not being afforded the opportunity to have my voice heard.

It’s funny how what you think you need is not the thing that you actually need.

Photo: Passing an autumn day at Monte Cecilia Park.