Daeus Jorento

“You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.” – Maya Angelou

A few common situations I’ve seen a lot lately in the tech industry (separate from layoffs):

1. Someone was given an offer in late 2021 to a new role at a tech company with a large portion of the total comp as stock. Now they are well under their offer and there are head count freezes externally (see my article on inflation and tech stocks) so they feel trapped.
2. Someone is doing well in their role until a manager unexpectedly leaves, and a new manager comes in. They’ve lost all the reputation and trust they’ve built up and their new lead has completely different expectations.
3. Someone was ready for a promotion, but then a policy changed and suddenly they feel like they are starting over from scratch.

Perhaps there’s anger, resentment, or demotivation. So, what is there to do? Well that depends entirely on the situation, but here are some general guidelines I suggest:

1. Minimize burning bridges while you process how you are feeling. Please don’t rage quit, blame people who have no control over the situation (i.e. new leads), complain endlessly, or become really passive aggressive / stop doing your best work. While it might feel a little better in the short-run, it can also result in shooting yourself in the foot and coming across as immature/destructive. Honestly, I would find someone to vent with whether a friend, former coworker, or even better, a therapist. Ideally someone who won’t turn around and talk to other coworkers and hurt morale or your reputation. You just want to vent/process here. To grieve. You are not yet at the ‘ask for what you want’ stage.
2. Think deeply about what you really want in the new situation. Whenever you are mad, it is usually because a need is not being met or a boundary has been crossed. It’s a time to think about what you really need and what you want. To clarify, needs and wants are different. Wants are negotiable, needs are not. For example, you NEED to eat food (without it you will die), but maybe you WANT to go to Chipotle to satisfy that need – you could also go somewhere else to eat. Wants are a strategy to get your needs met. In this case, perhaps you NEED to have income to live/pay rent, etc where you live. You WANT to get a promotion, have a higher salary, etc. Before you ask for what you want, you need it to be specific and make sure the person you are asking can actually help you. Often managers cannot return comp to market rate because it is set by a company-wide policy and the earliest they could do anything is a promo or annual cycle. Sometimes role changes are not possible in the short run because there aren’t any open positions in the company. Really think about what you want. Maybe you want a promotion or role change, but you’ll have to give up domain expertise and your work-life balance. Maybe you want a pay increase but you don’t want to move for it. Knowing what you really want helps clarify those tradeoffs in decision-making. You typically don’t NEED a pay increase, you WANT a pay increase (unless you literally cannot afford to live where you are without one, in which case you would need to move or get a pay increase by finding a new opportunity).
3. Ask for what you want directly. This is where people sometimes start without considering the two steps above and it causes a lot of issues with communication/trust in working relationships. Once again, make sure the person you are asking can actually help you. Maybe your manager cannot make you a manager, but they can try to get you an intern next summer to get some on paper experience. Or maybe you cannot get a promotion, but you can take on a new, exciting project that’ll look good on your resume. Maybe you look externally and don’t get a job offer, but plant some seeds by starting a few conversations / being first in line when head count opens up. You don’t have to commit to a decision to move forward in multiple paths, and typically the first step (after clarifying what you want) is talking to someone who is a position to actually help.
4. Be patient and resilient. Waiting sucks. It really does. Patience is “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.” It’s a capacity to tolerate pain. It is difficult to start over and feel like you have to re-do old work. That framework doesn’t help with patience. It is important to accept the reality of the situation you are in now, and not try to live in the past. Small steps in the right direction are better than procrastinating while waiting for perfection / things to return to the state they were beforehand. In the past you did the best with what you knew at the time – no one knows the future, even if in retrospect things seem obvious. You have to adapt your current plan to the current situation – career growth is not always linear. It may mean processing more anger/grief, but it is your mind catching up with the present reality. It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience (Julius Caesar).
5. Find meaning elsewhere. Maybe you feel a bit trapped, and your career stalled due to factors outside of your control. If you cannot find a job that meets your needs right now, and feel trapped at work, look elsewhere for purpose in your life. Re-focus on your relationships or hobbies. Find meaning in your life outside of work. Your coworkers are often in the same boat and could use someone with a positive attitude who focuses on the things they can control and getting things done. For example, maybe morale is low, but sharing a picture of your dog or vacation is fun regardless! It’s one story to have an upsetting work situation, but it’s just one story, not your whole life. Another story is you are doing your best in a chaotic and uncertain world. 
6. Don’t give up. Merit and effort are necessary but not sufficient input to success, there is also luck and timing – things that are often out of your control. One thing you can control is leveling your expectations and doing what you need to do to keep moving, to keep growing and having an impact through uncertain waters and unclear territory. One quote I try to remember is “Life is unfair, but sometimes it’s unfair in your favour.” Stocks are volatile by nature (as compared to salary), sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, it’s just the case with tech world comp. We make the best decisions with what we know at the time.

Hope that was helpful to someone. I know there are tough situations out there right now. Hang in there!