Two Week Ones and a Last Week

How to work two jobs with everyone knowing

Thursday, September 2nd, 2021

I enter an empty office with my interim manager for my quarterly review. She hands me some paperwork and asks if I want to start with anything. I pause briefly before stating, “I am actually leaving KDM. I have found a new job and my last day is next Friday.” She sits in shock for a moment before playfully calling me a jerk. It has been a rough year for our small department as I was the second engineer to leave and our manager left during the summer leaving an overworked team which my departure was not helping with either. I let her know one other thing - I would be starting my new job on Tuesday and working both jobs next week.

When I entered the meeting I actually didn’t know if I would definitely be starting at Replicated on Tuesday. For more info check out my first post:

Day 0: How I got here

I was still deciding between offers at the time but I wanted to prepare them for if I ended up having to. The reason I didn’t have more time if I went with Replicated was that they had their last SDR Cohort of 2021 starting on Tuesday, Sept 7th (Monday was Labor Day) and the Sales Lead who I had been interviewing with wanted us to start together. He even said it was ok if I was working the old job during my first week as it had been done by people before and that the first week wasn’t that intense (foreshadowing).

So we spent my quarterly review meeting preparing instead for my last week because even if I went with another company I would still be leaving in a week. The next day I made the decision to start with Replicated and started to prepare for a week of 2 jobs.

A Tangent on 2 Week Notice

2-week notice? 1-week notice? Any notice? The 2-week notice has become a standard in our society. It is expected of workers to give a minimum of 2 weeks notice to their jobs or more possibly. But it is not the same way around. If you are laid off or let go you are given zero time. You are expected to leave after that meeting. I can’t tell you the amount of time I have heard of friends giving their 2-week notice and being told to leave that day. They then usually have 3 weeks until their new job and were planning on working and getting paid for 2 of those and need to adjust.

So what is my recommendation? Plan for and provide a 1 Week notice. This is plenty of time to wrap up your projects and hand them over and if they decide they don’t want you there past a day or two then it isn’t as much of an impact as if you planned for 2 weeks. For some even no notice and just leaving that day could work. I did one week because I liked my team and had made friends and didn’t want to just leave behind chaos for them to sort.

Week 89 @ KDM aka My Last Week

My last week started on a Tuesday after Labor day so I had 4 days to finish everything. KDM Engineering had transitioned to a 2-day hybrid schedule in the summer of 2021. During my last week, I went in every day so I could get face time with the various department heads and engineers that I was working with so we could be on the same page for both the current status of the project and the transition moving forward.

Now, this isn’t a knock on remote work but more of on the setup the company had. I never had a laptop so didn’t have any way to video call and our VPN was dreadfully slow so working off of it + try to screen share made everything very tedious. So I just went in every day so I would be there for at least one day of everyone’s 2 days in the office.

My goal for the week was to advance my project enough so that I could submit whatever I could and take that off my coworkers’ plate and for the rest to get them to a point of easy handoff. Alongside that, I was making sure all my documents and folders were properly organized and whatever resources I had collected or worked on were easy to find and use. This would have been a packed week on its own but I also had…

Week 1 @ Replicated

Replicated is a fully remote company so that did make life easier in doing both jobs at the same time. The first week consisted of a number of zoom meetings and flurries of emails and slack messages to get us onboarded and into the 4 week Sales Bootcamp they have set up for new Sales Development Representatives. While the Sales Lead and now my new manager did say it wasn’t too intensive (relative to the other Bootcamp weeks that may be true), it was still a lot while working another job. I was continuously going into an empty office to take calls or work on assignments while trying to organize my schedule between the two.

But that first week helped reinforce that I made the best decision for my career and professional life. The entire team was incredibly helpful and understanding of when I needed more time or had to miss a meeting. I never felt like I was suffering in silence. Plus starting with the cohort was a great decision as I was able to bond with others going through the same material and help each other succeed.

Working both jobs made every day into 12 hour days but it was worth it to make sure I could set my coworkers up for a good transition and start with my new company’s cohort.

Last hour at KDM

My last hour at KDM was spent the way many people do. I wrote heartfelt messages to friends I had made, sent last emails letting everyone know of my move and to connect with me on Linkedin, and making sure every project had been transitioned and no one was confused.

Then as I left the building I sent one last email. This was to the C-Suite. I wanted to let them know that I would have left whether it was for tech or another civil job. That there were issues at the company and that is why there had been so much churning this year. It was a respectful email that I wrote with the best of intentions because I think the company is great and just needs to do better for its employees. This is something I think many people should do since if you don’t voice your concerns then workplaces will never truly understand why you are leaving.

Week 2 @ Replicated aka Week 1 x2

The reason I say I had two Week 1s is that it truly felt like it. Since my first week was spent doing two jobs it was a drastically different experience than my second week where I was solely focused on Replicated and my new workflow. I could properly plan for meetings and had time to do assignments during the day and not at night which was definitely needed because week 2 ramped up quickly in the intensity department. But that was a part of the fun. I was finally at a job now where I was looking forward to what was next. I wanted to get to the next Bootcamp session and watch the next video and work on the next email. I was absorbing everything like a sponge and didn’t dread going to work.

This has such a big impact on the rest of your life as you are able to be healthier when you don’t have that drag on your mental health. I started waking up earlier and working out, reading Quran, and having some free time before starting work. I started to go to the local cafes and work from there and get out of the apartment for a bit. All of this added up to a healthier week and a better work mindset which made me more productive and actually need to spend less time at work since I completed everything in my 40.

And that is what work should be. Work. I have a life that isn’t defined by my work. I run a nonprofit, I hang out with friends, I have my wife and family I want to spend time with, and there’s so much I want to read, watch, and do beyond work. I want to get everything done for work in the 40 hours I have and not have it drag down the other 128 hours in the week. Hopefully, it stays like that.