Saw the news about Cardoso being suspended the other day. Didn’t get all the details, but the word ‘suspended’ just kinda stuck with me. It immediately threw me back to a weird situation I went through a few years ago at a place I used to work. Not exactly the same thing, but it had that same feeling of being suddenly put on the sidelines.
That Time I Was Benched
It wasn’t called a suspension, nothing official like that. We were in the middle of this big project push, working late nights, the whole deal. Then one Tuesday morning, my manager calls me into his office. Super casual, but the vibe felt off.
He basically told me they were “re-evaluating project needs” and that my specific role on that particular project was being paused. Effective immediately. Paused! What did that even mean? I asked, obviously. He mumbled something about shifting priorities and needing to assess resources. It was all very corporate-speak, you know? Didn’t give me a straight answer.
Here’s kinda how it went down:
- Got told to hand over my project files to Dave.
- My system access for certain project tools was temporarily revoked. They said ‘temporarily’.
- Was told to focus on some ‘individual research tasks’ for a while. Basically, busy work.
- No clear timeline on when I’d be back on the main project.
Man, it felt rough. One day you’re neck-deep in work, feeling essential, and the next you’re told to sit in the corner and twiddle your thumbs, metaphorically speaking. The worst part was the uncertainty. Was I being performance-managed out? Was the project getting canned? Was it something I did?
I spent the next week feeling pretty useless. Did the ‘research’ they gave me, which was basically reading old industry reports. Talked to a few colleagues quietly, trying to figure out what was going on. Nobody seemed to know for sure, or maybe they just didn’t want to say.
Turns out, about two weeks later, they announced a major pivot on the project. My ‘paused’ role was actually being eliminated from that team structure. They eventually reassigned me to something else, a different department entirely. It wasn’t a suspension in the disciplinary sense, but that period of being sidelined, the lack of clear communication, the feeling of being in limbo – it was stressful.
So, when I hear about someone like Cardoso being suspended, yeah, I get a bit of a flashback to that feeling. That uncertainty and being out of the loop. It’s not a fun place to be. Hope things get clarified for him soon, one way or another. Being left hanging is the worst.
