To start this story, let's just say I'm a complete overachiever. When someone tells me to jump, I ask how high, and then I work hard to go above that. Every. Single. Time.
About three years ago, we had a special product we created called HIPAAgps that helps small companies manage their HIPAA compliance. If you don't know what that is, it's a health care thing in the US. On top of being one of the main creators, they asked me to sell the product. It didn't bring in a lot of revenue, but I don't have to do a lot of work to maintain it.
Things changed at my company a few years back. I was put in sales full time rather than conducting risk assessments, which I love to do. I like working with customers and helping them out, guiding them. Now I spend my time trying to sell services such as penetration testing and vulnerability scanning to companies.
It's a constant struggle because I'm not a sales person. My management tells me that I'm good at it, but I never make quota. Of course, other sales people don't either, so maybe I'm not doing too bad. I just can't figure out how to bring in more sales.
I hit a point a while back that I went and got medication for my anxiety on this, because it was too much. I would end up crying at the drop of a hat. I wouldn't sleep well at night, making it much worse. Life was truly unbearable. It's been a struggle to find the right medication, but I've been doing pretty well lately.
Yesterday, I received an email from the CEO of our company saying that he is pulling me off of HIPAAgps to bring in more sales. HIPAAgps is my baby. I love getting to write the content for the blog each week. I love answering HIPAA compliance questions ( I never thought I would say that.)
So today my heart is hurting and I'm finding it hard to even do the minimum necessary. All I want to do is go to bed and cry.
Have any of you experienced anything like this? Something that you love dearly being taken away from you?