Harriet, center, with fellow journalists and a kiwi bird in New Zealand.
Continued from Part 1 of When Resigning is harder than getting the boot.
Baskas says it took her a year to leave. “It was hard,” she remembers.
Looking back, she says she can see that she was afraid to walk away.
What nagged her was: “If I don’t have that structure, the title and the authority, then what do I have?”
My identity was “Hi, my name is Harriet, I’m the manager of [the radio station] and the person would say, ‘Oh, I listen to that radio station.’ [Your job is] how you introduce yourself.
“Like, what am I? I’m a wife, I’m this, I’m that, and I’m the manager of this station.
“If I let that go, was there going to be enough to fill that big space in my income and my identity?”
She had some projects lined up and knew that financially she would be OK.
For health benefits, her husband was her cushion. “But that in itself was an identity issue. I had never relied on someone for something like that.”
It took about a year until finally, she was ready to walk away. On the plus side, “Taking that time was a good thing in that I made a plan for the next manager so he could step in easily.”
And soon as she left, the question of who she was resolved itself.
“It quickly became pretty clear than managing my own new life and career was as big a responsibility and job as what I’d left.”
Baskas had a couple of transition projects that would be challenging and take up time.
What has stayed with her is the fact that, “I left and — do you know? — I forgot my phone number within 24 hours. I had to go and look it up.
“That made me realize the door was closed. I was more ready to leave than I knew.”
Please continue to Part 3 of When resigning is harder than getting the boot.
