Working 1,000 miles from Home

About a month ago, I was asked if I’d be interested in supporting our Georgia plant for a temporary assignment. My initial answer was “I’m not moving to Columbus” (no offense to my GA friends and family…it’s just not where I want to live), but I wanted to hear out the proposed idea. So I asked what does this role/project look like? What are the expectations of me and the team I’d be leading? In asking these and lots of other questions, I also learned why me. (Hint: we need to utilize continuous improvement tools to implement and train folks on a sustainable process… that sure sounds awfully like my two biggest work passions in one project.)

Conceptually I was in, but I still didn’t want to move. I wasn’t going to leave my family and friends for months, especially with softball and farmers’ market seasons starting in the coming days, nor was I about to ask Tom and the pets to move for Georgia for ~6 months. So instead of saying no and forgoing this opportunity and instead of saying yes and forgoing what matter most to me just for a cool work opportunity, I said I was in so long as we could agree to some ‘terms’ that mattered to me. I am not going to move. I can’t go every week. We can (and have) find someone else who can move down to be onsite all the time, while I can support remotely on weeks I’m not onsite. When I am onsite, it can’t always be Monday-Friday… softball games are Monday & Wednesday, the farmers’ market is Friday, I’d be willing to travel down Tuesday-Thursday on weeks I’m needed to be onsite so I could at least get one game in those weeks and continue my volunteer work at the market. Plus, I’ve got a veggie garden that I just planted, a house, 3 pets, etc. that need my attention back home. I want to be a team player, I want to be part of the solution, but I can’t do either of those at the expense of my mental health. And my final ask was that I still have a few hours a week to support my ‘regular’ job, more specifically my team. While I’d have a new team I’m working with in this temporary assignment, I still have an team of direct reports, their reports, a rotational and an intern who are going to absorb most of my regular work - and they need a champion for what they are working on. I have been the employee whose leader has “abandoned ship” for a temporary assignment and let the team fend for themselves, I wasn’t going to do that to my team.

If you’ve worked with me in the past 3 years or so, you know I’m open about my experience of living through burnout in 2021. I am not willing to go through that again, and since then I’ve learned what works for me and what I need to recharge my own battery so I can be there to support my team and be an effective leader. The very first point of my leadership philosophy begins “be an advocate” - that normally means for my team, but it’s really to be an advocate for myself too. So that’s what I did. I advocated for myself and my team.

It can seem daunting to ask executives for things that seem ‘small’ or ‘peripheral’ to others. Especially when it’s in response to them providing you an opportunity that is only going to help further advance your career. Why am I telling you all of this? For two reasons. First, because it’s important that you remember to stand up for what you need. You are your biggest and best advocate. No one is going to have your back the way you will have it and know what you need. And second, don’t forget it’s ok to say no or to negotiate out a way to make an opportunity work. Your mental health is the most important thing to stand up for. You’ll never know what you can get if you never ask for it.