‘Saw my old colleagues get promoted’: Ex manager on the struggle nobody talks about after quitting

Leaving a corporate job is often seen as the end of a stressful chapter. But for Bengaluru-based Shivani Jindal, the real challenge began after she walked away from her senior management role of 11 years.

In a candid Instagram post, she revealed how watching former colleagues get promoted and struggling with the loss of a role she once loved left her confronting an unexpected sense of uncertainty.

“Senior Manager 11 years. I quit,” Shivani wrote, adding that she still finds herself opening LinkedIn without knowing what she is looking for.

Reflecting on her decision, she admitted that quitting was not the hardest part. “I thought the hardest part was leaving. I was wrong,” she wrote.

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Seeing former colleagues move ahead

One of the moments that affected her most came when she saw updates from former colleagues who had been promoted.

Shivani said she recently saw “old colleagues get promoted” — people she had worked with closely and even trained. After seeing those posts, she said she closed the app and sat in silence for a while.

For her, the emotion was not about wishing she had stayed.

“The hard part is not that I left. The hard part is that I loved it,” she shared.

She recalled how she often went beyond what was required, teaching herself new tools and skills because she wanted her work to be better and more meaningful.

When work stopped feeling the same

The former senior manager also reflected on what once made her career fulfilling.

She wrote about enjoying the challenge of explaining complex ideas to senior leaders and how those moments once “filled me up completely.”

Over time, however, her relationship with work began to change.

While she could not pinpoint exactly when it happened, she remembered the point at which “calendar notifications started giving me chills” and work slowly started feeling less like a source of purpose and more like something she was trapped in.

Internet reacts

Her post has struck a chord with many professionals online, offering a glimpse into the emotional side of career exits and the difficult adjustment that can follow even a voluntary decision to leave.

One user wrote about quitting after more than two decades in the corporate world and spending a year recovering from burnout.

“I quit corporate after 22 years. I spent a full year recovery from burn out. Not sure if I will ever be able to go back, clueless about alternatives and same people suggest things I am not interested in,” the user commented.

Another commenter said the experiences shared in the post reflected deeper issues within corporate culture.

“All the above experiences indicate how broken our Indian corporate system is, reasons are like insensitivity towards human beings, their well being and day to day life struggles,” the user said, adding that the only aim of biggest corporation is to make more money “irrespective of how the human beings are being treated and are feeling”.

Others spoke about the emotional uncertainty that can follow a career break, even when the decision to leave is voluntary.

“Sailing in the same boat, took career break after 20yrs, it’s been a year now on a healing journey, but there are some days when I feel regret quitting my job, low confidence, confusion, still don’t know where the life path will take me,” another commenter shared.