Be Your Own Advocate

 For so long we are our children's advocate, and if you are fortunate to have a supportive spouse, you might have someone in your corner (I didn't).  So how do we be that "physican who heals themself" person when you have to be your own advocate?

Last month I celebrated my 2nd year at my new job.  Oddly my first year was still somewhat fraught with post divorce/child rearing/house selling issues.  Then throw in a pandemic where I was "forced"* to work from home, let's just say I had a bit of a rocky start.

Then...my life outside of work stabilized and I was in a better place.  I started asking questions, getting answers, volunteering, basically stepping out of my comfort zone.  Sometimes, you can't figure things out on your own and that's OK.

We have bi monthly checkins with our manager and the past year working from home, I've felt good.  Oh, I've had stressful meetings, usually dealing with pushed deadlines, but on the whole, I believe I've made great strides professionally.  It was at the last check-in, that coincided with a self/peer/management assessment that I decided now was the time to be my own advocate.  While I believe that my employer does value my work, I didn't think it was translating...financially.  OH, I got the same merit increases and bonuses as my co-workers, but I was still stuck at the lowest position with the organization and I wasn't quite sure why.  So on my self assessment I said that "I sometimes feel valued".  This caught my manager's attention and during our check in, where I was given a glowing review both from her and my peers, I was asked about it.  

I decided to be as honest as I could be.  I knew I had a rough first year, but given working from home I was exceeding expectations, I wasn't sure why I wasn't progressing within the organization.  I phrased it in such a way as I would like to now how I wasn't progressing so that I could fix it to get to the next level.

3 days later, I was at the next level in my profession.  It is a bit of a catch-22, though not knowing if it was done because I brought attention to it or if it was done because it was deserved.  I'm going to go with the second because I'm working on being more positive.  But I will encourage you to be your own advocate.  If not you, then who?

So, Yay me.