So You're Part of a Merger...

I write this from my hotel room overlooking a river in Milwaukee that I cannot name. I have wine in a paper cup next to me and I’m listening to the worst 2000’s playlist that exists on Spotify. I’ve got a yellow macron staring at me that might be banana which is why I can’t bring myself to eat it. (Maybe it’s pineapple?) I had to open my wine by pushing the cork into the bottle - a method Google tells me is better for big groups because you can’t save the rest for later. Little does Google know that I’ve never finished a bottle of anything before and knew damn well that I’d never save the rest for later anyway. No, that bottle will languish on my counter until it’s time for my flight. And then I’ll guiltily get rid of it.

Frankly, I’d say I feel a bit like that wine bottle if it wouldn’t cause my husband to worry about me.

This was the week of merger. Of fixing links, editing pages, and writing tweets. (Because of course I picked up social media management during the integration.)

This was the week that jokes about marbles finally got old. The week I tried to compare renaming Twitter handles to renaming your dog. The week I survived on office coffee and cookies stolen from the IT war room.

It’s also the week I finally felt kinship with my coworkers. The week I laughed so hard I cried my tubing mascara off. The week I remembered the joy of a team.

Mergers are this leggy, flimsy thing that wiggles into every aspect of your working world without really taking hold. They’re a temporal culture that bubbles and then fades. And it’s a kind of exhausted magic that bonds you but only briefly.

I was so worried about the night of the website launch (ominously called day zero) that I didn’t think about what came next. Here I am in that next. The next is when the regular meetings rush back in and the to-do list that was cleared gets rewritten with all the red items that were pushed.

Oddly, the whole thing has me nostalgic but not like the rest of my organization. While I may not be the latest hire or the earliest hire, I’ve had enough time here that it’s familiar. It’s comfortable. But the integration means new faces and new challenges, and that’s where I’ve excelled. The newness reengaged me in a way that was surprising but shouldn’t have been. I’ve thrived in busy, uncertain organizations that felt alive. The more like a theater tech week with the recursive bonding and fervent urgency the better. My nostalgia is tied more closely into the sense of togetherness and less with the brand. More like, this culturally feels familiar, and less like, I will miss the purple.

I promised I’d write about how to survive a merger and even paper cup wine will not prevent me from this goal. Unless the banana macron gets me first.

Riding the wave of a merger, especially in the pre integration and launch efforts, means that you cannot fight the busyness. You allow the ebb and flow. Emphasis on the ebb. You find space to breathe in the between, and you take that space without guilt. You acknowledge the rarity of a big, clumsy thing that is a merger and you flow. You lean into it. You find the things that matter, you take those, and you run away with them.

You stand with pride during the launch no matter what broke. Your work may not define you but it’s okay to celebrate when you throw your heart into something. And you acknowledge the work of everyone around you. You remain gracious even under duress. You accept this time and this place, and you lean forward.

This may be one of the few times that I know I’ll miss a moment even before it ends.