Summer Stories: Ned Stark and the Games We Lose

I had an epiphany that I tripped into my own Game of Thrones plot. Part 1 in a series + an announcement about my newsletter refresh timeline

Hi, it’s me. Your response to last week’s newsletter about drinking floor tea was so fun!¹ Thanks for your encouraging words about our canceled trip and for making me laugh. The floor tea is now dried and ready for drinking.

As I alluded to in last week’s newsletter, I’m coming up on one year at Substack, and to celebrate, I’m giving myself a newsletter refresh. The name Jen Zug Writes was a placeholder while I figured out what I wanted this space to be, and in the next few weeks I’ll be working on updating All The Things to reflect my revisioning.

Here’s what you can expect:

• Starting today, I’m launching a five part Summer Stories series that will take us through July. More on the series in the essay below.

• On August 2nd I’ll reveal the new name and new focus (🥳). I’m still me and things aren’t changing dramatically, but the stories will be a little less all over the place and more honed in on a theme.

• September 21st is my birthday and official one year anniversary of my newsletter launch. We will celebrate the wonder of my consistency here despite *gestures broadly at my life.*

I’m very excited and trying to not over-hype it, so I’ll shut up now. Thanks for being here — I appreciate you.

Until next time,

Jen

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Ned Stark and the Games We Lose

In November 2018, I lost my job. Actually, I was fired.

It was one of those situations where it really sucked as it was happening, but it was probably the best thing for me since my loyalty kept me working there long after I should have quit. I had been under a tremendous amount of stress for months and had started having stress dreams. I'd never experienced that before! Sometimes I would wake up twice in the same night from different stress dreams, suffering from a splitting headache from clenching my teeth while I slept.

But I stayed because I kept thinking I could make things better for the team.

A few months after losing my job, Bryan and I starting re-watching the Game of Thrones series from the beginning with our teenager, who was watching it for the first time in preparation for the final season. As we watched, I said to Bryan that I felt like Ned Stark. If you're not familiar with the story, Ned Stark is a character who spoke truth to power, but he didn't know how to play politics, or "the game," as the show title suggests. While other characters manipulated people and the truth to their own gain for their own power, Ned was a straight-forward truth-teller. He wasn't in it for the game.

And he got his head cut off for it.

I identified deeply with being incapable of playing "the game." I had always spoken honestly and truthfully, and sometimes I spoke that truth to power. Many times I disagreed, and I didn’t shy away from voicing my disagreement, though I did it respectfully. Honestly, I didn't know how to be any different, and it seemed like my transparency was appreciated. I have emails and handwritten notecards from senior leadership at that organization, thanking me for my leadership through departmental conflict. One email read:

“Your willingness to be vulnerable was a huge part in our meeting yesterday. It was so heartfelt when shared that it broke open understanding of what was really needing to be addressed.”

But in the end, my honesty and vulnerability got my head cut off, so to speak.

It all began when a new director was hired for our department. She came in with her own agenda and something to prove. She asked me to lie. She asked me to make strategic changes to a project behind the project owner’s back. She yelled at me in a 1:1 meeting. She raised her voice at a colleague in a group meeting.

I quietly stood my ground and refused to lie. I asked for help, but it was too late. She fired me.²

I was stunned. I felt betrayed. My team was blindsided. One particular person in senior leadership who once valued my voice and put me in rooms where my voice could be expressed, began to avoid me and was noticeably absent from the entire conflict I was experiencing that ultimately led to the end. I felt like everything about me that was once viewed as an asset to the organization was now seen as an obstacle to someone else's agenda. 

This led to a long period of doubt in myself and in my skills. Where had I gone wrong? Maybe I wasn't a good project manger, after all. Maybe I wasn't as diplomatic as I thought I was. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed into certain convictions. Maybe I should have acquiesced more. 

My dad's advice was to serve at the pleasure of the leadership. He didn't use those words exactly, but I know he enjoyed a career of more than 40 years at the same company because he was a good leader and a good follower.

Was I a terrible follower?

For a period of time, I shouldered the full weight of fault and responsibility. It must have been me. I let my team down. I failed. It's easy to feel this way when you already lack confidence, when you feel like you snuck into the candy store and nobody noticed. I already felt like I didn't belong there and it was only a matter of time before I got discovered.

And then I got discovered. They realized I didn't belong there, and they threw me out. 

This was the false narrative I believed about myself for weeks. 

Fortunately time, perspective, and good friends helped me realized that — while I could have definitely done some things differently — I was not a candy store stow-away. And just like the people closest to Ned Stark knew he wasn't really a traitor, my team knew my character, and they all showed up for me in a stunning way. In the end, that's what mattered most to me.

Post-it notes of love from my team on my last day of work.

Beers after work on my last day (I’m sixth back on the left). This team was special, and it feels like I’ll never again experience the dynamic we had.

Part of my healing from that situation has been in remembering stories that have stuck with me over the years — stories that influence who I am and who I am becoming. Over the next few weeks I plan to share some of those stories with you here, so stay tuned.

You’re Turn

1. If you have a Substack, what kind of tweeks have you made along the way, and what kind of results have you seen?

2. How do you typically respond to life’s interruptions? I admit, I can really shut down for a period of time as I grieve.

3. I’d love to hear from you about a time when you felt like you didn't belong, like you'd snuck into something way out of your league and were afraid of being discovered. 

1. Last week’s post:

2. The woman who fired me was fired a short time later, and I’m not gonna lie…