From a Govinian to a… Pineapple? (Part I)

A month ago today, I put in my two-week notice that I leaving my job as a Product Manager at Govini.

I had been there for just under two years & had held a few different positions — UX/UI Designer, Senior UX/UI Designer, and (for the previous 8 months) Product Manager —and had grown an absolute ton professionally. I had the opportunity to work with & learn from a lot of hella-smart folks, and I already miss just being able to throw time on their calendars every so often to open the day with coffee or just shoot-the-shit-while-also-kinda-sorta-talking-about-work.

At my exit interview with the HR manager, we went into one of the small conference rooms in the new office to talk, just her & I. She had always been one of my favorite people at the company and had the ideal personality for a career in talent acquisition; she could connect with anyone, and we got along really well. I’m still hoping things clear up enough with the pandemic that I can go catch up with her over a beer at the Dancing Gnome brewery before she moves into her new house in Sharpsburg. But this conversation was more about business, and it was the last time I could voice my honest thoughts about the company — and I did want to. Even though I was leaving, I still wanted the best for everyone there.

So right off the bat, we got to the question that I knew was coming:

“What ultimately was the deciding factor for you in your decision to leave Govini?”

And… I really didn’t have a good answer.

I told everyone it was really hard for me to leave. I felt like I owed Govini a lot (and a month later, I still do feel that way) for my development over the past two years and the relationships that I formed with people while I was there. And on paper, Govini was the perfect opportunity for me:

• A startup, but not five guys in a garage
• Filled with passionate folks solving hard problems
• Working with modern web frameworks on a SaaS product in an agile environment (this was a big driver for me the last time I switched companies)
• A lot of potential to have ownership over what I was working on and the direction of the product as a whole

It really was everything I wanted… except it wasn’t.

By the end, I was spent. It was bittersweet to leave, but honestly, after submitting my resignation letter and having the conversation with my new manager — it was his second week on the job & the timing of my decision was not particularly ideal — I felt SO much relief. It was like a huge weight had just been lifted off me, and the two weeks in the interim weren’t particularly stress-free, but just knowing that I was near the end made it so much easier.

There was also the company that I was joining: Pineapple Payments. It was a good opportunity for me professionally, and it had a lot of things about Govini that I really liked, being a growing Pittsburgh startup with a similar vibe.

Back to the question at hand. This also wasn’t the first time I was asked this question either — I had been asked by a bunch of people over the past couple of weeks — and I always said I’d come up with a good answer that would be helpful by the time my actual exit interview came around.

But I still hadn’t come up with something cohesive, and so I paused, fumbled over my words a bit, and straight up told her that I didn’t have a good answer to the question. It was just a bunch of factors, none of which I could articulate very well, but there wasn’t just one thing that pushed me over the edge.

When you boil it down, though, there was one thing that pushed me over the edge:

The opportunity to literally just focus on something new.

To be continued…