5,658 Hours

At the time I accepted an offer from New York based company The Farmer’s Dog, I had been out of a full time HR role for about 5,658 hours…or almost 8 months.

In a previous blog post, Psychological Damage, I outlined the mental hell interview processes put candidates through. I mention the damage it had on me and why the dozens of interviews I went on before TFD were so demeaning.

This post isn’t about The Farmer’s Dog, although the company and role I have accepted is something I’m clearly willing to throw my whole self into and relocate to NYC for (yes, I’m absolutely over the moon that my dog Ezra and I are moving to NYC by the way!). What I hope to illuminate are the very real but very private moments that happened during my 5,658 hours.

These 7.5 months were some of the darkest months of my life. Many well-meaning HR pros told me it would be worth it, I would learn “a lot” about myself, it was worth this.

And while I am ending this season of my life and stepping into a new one, I want them to know they’re wrong.

During these 5,658 hours I lost chunks of my hair at such an alarming rate I had to find room in my extremely tight budget for new supplements. My hormones changed so drastically from the stress my doctors had to modify all of my regular medications, and at one point my skin became so dull from my body’s response to this “worth it” season that I truly didn’t recognize myself in the mirror.

Not working in HR was not losing my identity; I knew better than to wrap myself in my profession. I still knew exactly who I was, and I loved her very much.

What was happening to my body and my heart during these 5,658 hours was what happens to a human that has found and fought for their passion, and then gave it up.

Some of the stress was financial, let me be clear. Were it not for my family I would not have been able to continue in the house I live in, in my current vehicle, or other bills I could afford at the salary I gave up when I walked out of my last role.

The majority of my breakdown, however, was my soul knowing I put my biggest passion on hold out of principle…and my soul had to cope with that.

Walking out was very easy. Black lives have, and always will, be more important than my job.

Wilting each week as I stopped practicing HR, however, was never easy.

A new crisis would arise in 2020 and that fire I found ten years ago would swell huge, the fire that built unbreakable trust between me and employees, the fire that inspired me to write some of the most innovate processes and policies, the fire that fought for people over profit, the fire that got me out of bed…and I had no home for it.

Getting out of bed became even more difficult as I suffocated that fire each day. I started losing that battle with depression more often, and coupled with the job seeker psychological damage I mentioned earlier I began to wonder if my career would ever return.

I was working shifts at the bar and applying for HR roles at 1 or 2am like I had 10 years earlier. My notepad filled with furious scribbles of ideas and policies I had nowhere to implement, and I was truly wilting.

It is not lost on me how fortunate I am to have found the love of a lifetime in my field of work.

There are billions of people that search for a love that keeps their skin bright and soul fiery.

There are billions that search for this love in other people, in materials, in substances, not realizing your soul can (and should) hold many loves.

And I found this love 10 years ago wearing a $12 Target dress knowing Human Resources was exactly what my soul needed to ignite real fire.

It is obvious to me as a heterosexual woman raised in America that we have convinced women romantic love and parental love are the only loves our souls can and should hold. We teach them diamonds and cribs complete their happiness and wonder why women feel hollow and burned out, without purpose at 45.

I knew very early my soul could and needed to hold many loves. Perhaps that’s the Latina part of me, but it has never been a fear of mine to be too full of too many loves. My real fear had only been to confuse romantic love with purpose love and one day end up purposeless in life.

Perhaps that is why it has been easy for me to walk away from romantic loves that do not feel as skin brightening or soul fiery as my career-love does - it proves to me it’s not a love my soul should continue to hold…but that is for another blog site entirely.

And so for 5,658 hours I held in my love of a lifetime. Friends told me this was my time to go out on my own, be a consultant, “make your brand.”

“HR experts” encouraged me to take jobs well below my career level. My bank account begged me to take anything.

But my career-love knew the wilting would continue if I resigned myself to anything less than a place that allowed an HR Fire Breather to build a blaze big enough to warm a company of employees.

This was excruciating, and not something I think people “have to go through” to “find themselves.”

It was something I shouldered through, grit my teeth through, sat in bed at night with my hands over my temples and coached myself through with tools only years of therapy can give.

These 5,658 hours were not needed for me to know I am a Human Resources professional; they were not needed for me to know I found my calling in life.

I did not need 7.5 months to teach me what it means to take a stand, or how to face adversity.

I did not need to lose my hair, my savings account, and some of my dignity to land a dream job.

We must stop convincing humanity they have to experience tragedy to earn good things in life.

These 5,658 hours did give me something priceless, however.

I needed these hours to gain the HR Community.

Before June 2020 my circle of HR heroes was standard. I went to them for basic policy questions, made small talk, and edited a few resumes.

And then I resigned, a tweet of mine went viral, and within 5,658 hours I discovered what had been missing from my career all along - authentic HR Community.

No more bullshit or small talk. We cried over murdered Black Americans, fought for unemployed HR heroes, jumped on Zoom calls at all hours of the night to cry with each other, started groups and clubs and fitness crews and hashtags and clawed through the ocean of pain that 2020 brought to simply sit next to one another in the most authentic way possible.

We practiced they/them pronouns, sent Hugs In a Box, buried employees and parents together, elected a new president, watched history as Kamala Harris walked into the White House, and said “I don’t know” more times than we can count.

We stopped trying to fix things and just felt them together.

We told each other we were capable of hard and holy things, and this HR thing is a holy work…so we were capable.

We challenged SHRM, loudly, collectively, bravely. We pulled up emerging HR talent with all our strength and vowed they would never go through the HR poverty we did.

We truly communed.

As I close this chapter on the darkest time in my career, as I lift the lid off the beautiful fire I have had to smother for all these months, I am saturated in gratitude for the HR Community that has been forged in the darkness; the community that brought me through these months.

It would be inauthentic for me to pass up the opportunity to personally thank those that have held my arms up during this time, but before I step into the deeply personal thanks I want to leave you with this - fight like hell to link arms with an HR Community that does not look, love, or believe like you. Don’t wait for the darkest time of your career to gain what I have gained. My only regret in my career is not doing this earlier.

To my heart people…

-My sisters: for saving me, loving me in all forms, cleaning when I couldn’t, paying when I couldn’t, believing when I couldn’t, for seeing the darkest of dark that no one else has ever seen and still thinking I can run the world; I owe you my life and will spend every breath of it reminding you what an honor it is to love you like this. You are my first call and first celebration, forever. What a life we have lived and have yet to live. You are my heart outside of my body, Candice and Kelsey.

-My girlfriends: Kennedy, Genesa, Toni, Kristin, Carly, Alexa - for letting me be a shit friend and never holding that against me, for being the biggest hype crew, for listening to me cry in tones I didn’t know I could cry, for reminding me how talented I am outside of HR, for being the force that this woman needed to keep her world turning…I would move Heaven and Earth for you. Forever cheering the loudest, fighting for your visions the hardest, and reminding the world what forces you are. I adore you.

-My New York dreamers: Laura and Victoria - for never letting me compromise my talent for desperation, for pulling my greatness out of me despite my exhaustion, for forcing me to look in the mirror and make decisions, and telling me over and over again that I can land any job I truly wanted; for holding my fears of NYC so lovingly and telling me so confidently that this country girl can thrive in their city…I wouldn’t have had the courage to pick such an exciting adventure without your fierce love and encouragement.

-My constants: Amy, Tracie, TJ, Francisco, Georgette, Micole, Mary, Tim, Kim, Rachel, Steve, Sasha, Garry, Shane, Michael, Jeff, Momo, Nat, Kevin, Julie, Joy, Tiffany, Wendy, Christina, Jon, Danielle - for sending me every job posting you could think of, sharing my content not just because I was unemployed but because it resonated with you, for honoring my brilliance even as I wasn’t practicing HR, for introducing me to a larger circle every day, for listening to me in my highs and lows, and never giving up hope that I would land somewhere…we did it.

With everything in me, thank you. It’s time to fire breathe again.