15-Minute Catch-up Call

15-minute catch-up call – sender: my manager. When this invite appeared on my phone over breakfast, an uneasy feeling washed over me. My wife hit the nail on the head: “You might as well clear your desk!”

Although it was in the air, it still came unexpectedly. The click with my manager was non-existent. Reorganisation followed reorganisation. I too had been looking around for a while.

in the afternoon, the verdict was delivered. A very tense man with a trembling voice on the other end of the line. The conversation lasted 2 minutes at most. He wrapped it up in record time, probably because of the tension. Or because he couldn’t care less.

I was prepared for the conversation, but afterwards I felt like a Happy Meal box, carelessly tossed out of a car window after consumption. Ending years of service with excellent appraisals and an impressive track record with a cursory phone call made me feel somewhat “undervalued”.

It was a good foundation for spirited negotiations. It brought me a new opportunity to turn things around completely, to escape from the ‘golden cage’.