The Fall After the Leap

By mid-2024, I was completely burnt out, career wise. The meaning of work had slipped through my fingers, and all I wanted was a break - a moment to catch my breath and reset. But just as I was preparing to pause, a company reached out.

They ran me through a few rounds of interviews and decided I was a great match for the role. It wasn’t exactly what I had been doing, but close enough - a stretch, yet still somewhat familiar. I convinced myself this was the fresh start I needed. New role, new energy, new me.

Spoiler alert: I was wrong. What followed were four grueling, eye-opening months that taught me more than any successful stint ever had.

Here are the hard lessons I took with me:

• Just because a door opens doesn’t mean it’s the right time to walk through it. Sometimes the lure of something new clouds your better judgment. “Shiny and different” isn’t always “right and good.”

• Your manager is your advocate. If they leave soon after you join, take it seriously. It can be a sign of deeper issues within the culture or team.

• If a workplace runs on escalation rather than collaboration, expect chaos. When transparency and trust are missing, everything becomes a fire to be fought, rather than a solution to be built.

• Customers are patient, to a point. No matter how well you handle a tough conversation, if your organization consistently fails to deliver value, that patience will run dry.

• In product-driven organizations, support isn’t just a back office function — it’s the frontline of your customer’s experience. The best product can be undone by bad support.

Looking back, I don’t regret taking the leap — I regret not digging deeper before making a true informed choice. Career growth isn’t always linear, and missteps are part of the path. But if you’re running on fumes, be careful what you jump into. You might not be landing in the soft reset you hoped for — you might be diving headfirst into another fire.