There was a battle going on in my head, two voices stating their opinions, trying to rectify their stances. One voice said it’s ok to cry—getting told you’re a bad writer and having your manager tell you he’s sorry that that’s not “black and white” to you is a punch to the gut, taking your breath away. The other voice said to pull yourself together and not to waste tears on such unsupportive leadership. “Don’t take it personally,” it said to me, as my manager said the same thing. I felt small for crying, but it wasn’t the first time I felt belittled at that place.
Then I hit the eye of the storm, a sense of calm in this unfortunate circumstance: while I’m no Hemingway, I know I’m not a bad writer. I don’t need to go back to an environment that fosters such poor management. I can quit! I’m too young and full of energy to waste precious days, months, years on a company that stunts my growth. I can quit!
That realization took a haze out of my eyes that I didn’t even know was there. My positive mindset had brushed the 50%+ turnover rate in seven months to the side for too long. I truly believed that one of their core company values to “be human” would surface. But once I realized the truth, I felt weightless—for the first time in months, I slept soundly through the night. I wrote for myself again.
The name of my blog is Hannah’s Head and Heart, and the meaning is many-fold. From my personal opinions to intimate struggles, I try to put out the truth that’s going on in my little head. In this circumstance, the strong pull to listen to my heart was one I couldn’t ignore. I know they say you need to gain x amount years at a company to gain enough work experience for it to truly mean anything to a future employer, but toughing out a negative environment that affected other positives in my life felt like I was failing myself.
So I’m going back to the roots of why I fell in love with writing in the first place, said best by Joan Didion: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
Hannah's Head and Heart 