Five things I learned from the previous year when I thought about it on or near my birthday and/or new year...#2...

...That despite everything you do, say or write, not everyone thinks you are a success... even if the evidence suggests otherwise...

I started writing this particular blog in May 2014.  I parked it over and over until now.

That’s either laziness or some reason I haven’t wanted to release this one into the wild until now.

Maybe because this one is about how I feel.  Oh yes, as if this blog wasn't all about me already, not only do you get to read what I think about recruitment you now get to hear how I feel.

There are two other blog posts [PART ONE] and [AL PACINO] that are linked to this post as well - they look back at the same time where things were starting to not be quite right.  Or at least perceived that way.

It is widely accepted that I am office hard, or at least I used to be. (Notice office hard, these baby soft hands of mine are made for typing not fighting).  I would be the office Alpha male, happy to push for outcomes that were in my favour, push for a deal, push for whatever it was.

I could handle myself in a battle of office politics although every day I get further away from that the happier I am.  Something happened which resulted in me losing some of my corporate shield.

In the 'war for talent', me and my team took some friendly fire and it didn't feel good.

This was no collateral damage, some misreading of coordinates, friendly fire mistake, this was sniper fire from a sniper that was supposed to be on our side of the fence.  In this fake office war I was no longer on the winning side, seen as one of them.

The coalitions were changing and I was too far in the trenches to see it. It didn't help that I was working for two individuals that made my life incredibly tough.  Naming them would be all too easy but despite their bullying, it feels unfair to do it as they can’t respond here.

The pressure to deliver I could live with, but then I had to report on the delivery of candidate pipeline hour by hour, create and deliver bold and innovative yet safe and cautious talent attraction plans in a market I understood and they didn't.

I was told to take immense challenges head on, to throw resource at things whilst being risk adverse and not trouble anyone and keep resource usage to a minimum.  I created plans that were shot down for being too ambitious, plans that were shot down for being too safe,  the plans that were just right if only they could be delivered in 3 minutes, the plans that were right but not long term enough.

The corporate badges of honour, the medals I had earned were slowly removed.  I needed to fight back, if only to maintain my own self-worth.  I had done a great job and yet my managers couldn’t see that.  My team had done a great job but me telling them that was no longer enough.

Fighting back would mean I would be forced to listen to recruitment experts who had never recruited before, with their underlying malicious tone, their menace, their bullying approach. Who will forget “This project is going to be a fucking train crash and you are the fucking driver”.

I fought back and I won.

Sort of.

No one ever really wins at that moment.  It wasn't even a shallow victory, it was bitter victory full of spite and venom, a choked well done said in passing on the way to the coffee machine.  In our little war there was no victory parade for me and my team, no accolades for a project that was brought in on time, on budget hiring 200 excellent people.

Despite it all we were told we were failures.  I have never found the words about how the experience made me feel, like no other in a work context.  So I found this video and Scroobius Pip found the words for me.

As for the two individuals.  You know who you are.

"You are my new inspiration... My muse... And I mean that not as a compliment

I will use you to cruise through any writer's block
Any lazy daze when a glazed gaze invades my mind's cave of creativity
I will think of you…and what you did to me

I will take negativity and make it inspire me
I was not a book from a library
As I stand here alone, I declare I was not a loan
To be picked up and dropped off at a later date

And you barely even made my spine bend
Just skimmed through some of the interesting bits then skipped to the end

The notes you left in my margins turned from scribbles to scars
But here's the best part:
You didn't even realise you were reading the first draft of a best seller
The manuscript of a future Nobel prize winner

This book you discarded as a pamphlet will ignite shit

I will work ten times harder than before
I will create art, I will create beauty
I will create so many things that you can't ignore
But I will not do them in your name

I will not shout you from the roof tops
I will tap your name out in morse code on my outer thigh
As I casually accept plaudits from on high
I will not to try to win you back
I do not want you back

I just want to show you
I just need to show you what you fucking walked away from
I will achieve all my goals ten fold
I will achieve your goals too, casually

I will have happiness and joy in my life
I will fall in love; husband, child and wife
I will shine brighter than I could ever have dreamed to be
And you will see me

And you will see. Me

I will make rivers run red in your anonymity
The screams of nations will echo our affinity
My wrath will be relentless
My path of destruction will be momentously momentous

I will change the face of history and paint it in my likeness
And I will like this

I will destroy everything that you hold dear
By simply destroying everything far and near
My footsteps will be impossible not to hear
I will watch you from afar and taste each tear

I will wipe out entire races
I will erase faces and displace with great haste and no graces
This world will become my plaything
Embracing my ways and then just breaking

I will burn this entire world to the ground
I will leave a mark greater than any have ever left before
I will lay waste by land, air and sea
And you will see me

And you. Will see. Me" 

If you want to read the first in this series click here.

About
I have a background in executive search and selection, headhunting and senior level recruitment combined with people and business management experiences. My focus has always been on the IT services, technology and management consultancy sectors on a permanent and interim basis where I have developed a personal portfolio that covers areas such as EVP, social recruitment and the successful creation of talent pools as well the management and leadership of corporate talent acquisition teams.

Currently working across Europe with high growth, high tech organisations to develop effective blended onshore/offshore recruitment models, covering full commercial engagement, transition and ongoing delivery management.

I am an avid blogger, writer, public speaker and traveller of trains across the UK.