The Five Stages of Grief: Mourning the loss of my work wife

Last year, my most tenured colleague found an awesome new gig and left our team after 2+ years of working together. It was hard. Since day one she had been my go-to for all things work related (and a lot of life-related stuff as well). As I’m sure you all have experienced, there is something sacred about work friendships. You spend 8+ hours every day together, you go through the trenches of busy periods hand-in-hand, and that can lead to very strong bonds.

So, when Rachel told me she would be leaving, I found myself going through a grieving process as I accepted her departure.

Denial – She won’t actually leave me.

First, I told myself she wouldn’t take the job or that something would get her to stay. I knew it was far-fetched but the idea of even processing her departure wasn’t an option for me.

Jealousy – I can’t believe she gets to escape this crazy world!

No matter how much you love your job, there is always a desire to escape, a belief that another job would be less stressful, more fulfilling, less time-consuming (even though we all know the grass isn’t always greener on the other side). It goes without saying, I was a little jealous. She was going to get to start some new fun adventure (with a clean organized inbox no less) and I would be stuck here grinding on the same projects staring down my 2,175 unread (mostly spam) emails.

Plotting – How can I fill the void she will leave?

Rachel’s sweet face greeted me all day as our desks were directly across from each other. I immediately had to recruit a new desk buddy and ensure I had other Slack channel companions for when I needed to complain or ask a question or go for a coffee run.

Panic – How will I do all of this work without her?

Once I realized she was really leaving and that she couldn’t take me with her, I was forced to focus on the main issue at hand: my company still has to function. Rachel was one of three project managers on our team; she shared the load on our marketing strategies, supervised two colleagues, and was always ready to jump in and help on projects when I got swamped. She was leaving behind a huge void that needed to be filled and, for the foreseeable future, that workload would fall on two of us. It was busy with three of us, with only two, it seemed nearly impossible to tackle all we wanted to accomplish.

Acceptance – The world did not end.

To be honest, I was stuck on stage 4 for a while. Work is crazy and there’s always so much to do. Not only were we without Rachel, but we also had to devote our time and energy to hiring another project manager (or two ). It wasn’t until we were able to add new people to our team that I really accepted that I could survive without Rachel. Colleagues leave and you must adapt. You get new team members that bring new perspectives and new opportunities and, lucky for me, Rachel didn’t go too far away and we can still spend time together outside of the office.

Work relationships can be strange. You can work with some of the best people and build great friendships but ultimately one day someone is going to have to move on to the next thing. Developing ways to stay in touch with these friends even when your daily routine changes makes the acceptance stage a little easier.

Next week, I’ll be sharing some of my tips for staying in touch with those important work pals!