In the past few months, my team of data specialists has suddenly shrunk from the 5 to 7 FTE range it's been for years down to now, effectively, 1.6 FTE of which I'm 1 FTE. Two people left, one was a recent hire that wasn't a match and the other was donezo with the high work pace. One colleague is now completely out because of long covid. The other two and myself all are now senior enough that we want to move to project management roles. They largely succeeded in doing so. I did not because of various reasons (covid, bad luck, mostly). We're hiring, but every hire we want to do is scrutinized by the Big Conglomerate that has bought us two years ago. They're looking to start wringing money out of us and it'll be ugggly.

So I have not been okay the past days, knowing that I will probably bear the brunt of whatever work we've committed to, knowing that it will be extra hard to let go of the slightly-more-difficult-than-junior work that I'm sick and tired of doing, knowing that there's a recession on the way, knowing that whatever ambitions I had for this year in all likelihood will bite the dust. I'm debating again whether I should jump ship, but I still haven't found a place that has the potential that I feel still, barely, exists where I'm at here. Maybe I need to look harder.