Decidedly Uncertain
I resigned.
Dear Curious Minds,
Coming to you from a newly reshuffled home office (euphemism for a chaotic clutter). I’ve got not one, but two posts for you today, Who has brain space for my long tangled thoughts on a Friday evening, twice?! But it’s exciting posts. I promised you’d be the first to know about new steps for Entangled Curiosities. All of the thoughts just couldn’t fit into one post. Thank you for being here, I appreciate you.
A few weeks ago, I resigned from my 9-5 job. I still have a few weeks to go, and I’m can share that now, so I am.
It’s been exactly four years in a senior role in the sustainability sector. Reputable. Paid. Stable. This stability is somewhat miraculous given what’s happened in our economy, particularly in this environmental and not-for-profit sector, over the last few years.
I came in with no environmental science or technical engineering degree. Looking back, I joked that this might have been necessary for the neck-deep technical dive I found myself in, for my mental health’s sake,
I leave having worked across the certification of billions of dollars worth of products and services, alongside engineers, manufacturers, sustainability specialists, procurement experts, sustainable finance professionals, and C-suites. I can tell you many, especially the women in this space, are genuinely gangsta, while others are shockingly shocking. The role also provided regular, deep exposure to how local and central senior government operates in Aotearoa. Good gracious.
I arrived as someone seasoned in systems thinking and intersectionality. I encountered, with genuine puzzlement at first, how often the corporate sustainability sector treated the environmental and the social as separable categories. My CEO, who was appointed to the role a few months before she hired me, also came from the human side of climate impact and with systems thinking training. She and I initially banged our heads against that wall with the same question repeatedly: why is it so hard for these people to understand you can’t separate environmental impact from the people and social conditions it lands on?
It took me longer than it should have to arrive at the answer. It’s not that they don’t understand. Many in the ivory towers and the job titles that get to cut the budget don’t want to understand, because they don’t have to. Understanding would implicate them. Doing something involves shareholders and taxes.
Honestly, though, I leave with genuine gratitude because I gave my 300% in this role and we got to get some incredible stuff done against so many odds. My team were among the most intelligent, fierce, and capable professionals I’ve had the privilege of sharing my 9-5. My CEO and team gave me genuine room through three family deaths, an ADHD diagnosis, part-time study, and governance roles without me needing to ask for it first. That’s quite rare, and rarer than it should be.
And I leave anyway.
