I haven't had long today to work out how I feel about it all. My manager had sat with me in the meeting room and had asked me again what my thoughts were. I was logical, composed and prosaic, weighing it up as carefully as I could as I spoke.
"It will be hard to explain it when people ask," I said, "You know, how to tell them without feeling like I've failed."
"We'll have to get the wording right," he said, sympathetically. For a moment I thought he meant he was going to email everyone to tell them. That would be awful; he didn't mean that of course. Somehow I will have to find those words myself, in the kitchen, on Skype, in the corridor - "I've been demoted. I found that team leading wasn't really the right fit for me. I found it difficult. I'm back to being just a technical author now. I wasn't very good at it." I'll figure it out.
The streetlamps were popping on as the wind ruffled the tops of the trees. Office windows glowed orange and yellow across the lake, reflections rippling over the surface, bouncing, fragmenting, disappearing into the inky water. Everything about life is light and shade it seems - even the beauty.
I am sad that I couldn't make it work. But as I said to my manager today, I'm also relieved to be relieved of the pressure. I liked the challenge, but there are a lot of things I just won't miss. And to have the opportunity to write and shape and be creative again, might just be the thing I need - even if, as it certainly will be, Louise's replacement will be my line manager and not (as I thought) my employee.
Rain spotted across the windscreen. I flicked on the wipers and they streaked messily across the glass. It won't be very easy this, I said to myself, but I can totally do this, and I can do it with integrity and with grace. Because those things always win, even when you feel like you've lost.
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