Now I would most like to be able to go back to Nike. For some private reasons, and also because I thought the grass was much greener somewhere else, I found some courage and left the company after almost a decade of work there. I quickly realized what a mistake I had made, and shortly after that I was fired from my new company. Needless to say I was very upset and kept wishing I hadn't made that stupid decision. Are there any more of us who have regretted leaving?
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Working for a great company like Nike but with zero motivation or appreciation is torture. It’s only when you leave you actually realize that the route of career happiness is about motivation rather than the product. Stay at Nike for a great brand but be miserable in your job and waste away.
Or leave for a regular industry but get all the inspiration from your daily job ....not what’s on your feet. Nike is just a shoe company ...some people work in important places like hospitals or the forces.....Nike is none of them. Prioritize your brain and career ......not your feet!
Sorry but this is nonsense. Also rather insensitive to post on a board about layoffs. Seriously!?!? And no the world is not worse outside of Nike. Nike is a massive corporation. Period. I’ve gone to a competitor and frankly... the world is way better. More money, respect, true leadership. It’s not perfect but it is actually better. We make decisions based on actually trying to grow the business, not internal political nonsense. I think it probably depends what you do, but as a designer- hell no Nike is not the be all end all. Not by a long shot.
Oh and the products are really sub par. And if you do really good products you won’t get rewarded unless you also learn how to play a mean game and get the right people in your corner. And if you do that you don’t have to make good products anyway... so yeah. Not much point to improving what they’re selling.
I made the same mistake 3 years ago , and I still regret it today.
Nike might be hard sometimes , when it comes to promotions, work life balance or even salary bands, but its much better than the alternatives. I miss working for Nike and wish i never left.
Hang in there , the world is cold and dark on the other side.
It is sad to hear that you regretted your decision. I always believed that Nike lands you a very good job, because you are coming from Nike, however the rest of your career is entirely up to how hard you want to work and how much effort you put into "getting out of Nike mentality". I have left the swoosh end of 2012, nearly after 11 years of service. I would definitely admit that I had moments where I missed sales meetings, process driven work stream, partly the culture and of course the strength of the brand...but I never experienced such strong regret. after leaving Nike I realized I had not worked as hard as I thought, I realized what end to end responsibility means and facing all the challenges not only I learned a lot but my career flourished. another thing I noticed was that Nike does not pay that well. I managed to increase my income significantly changing only 2 employers post Nike. I would say focus on what is in front of you and give all to make it work...there is definitely life after Nike.
It sounds like you had a tough time transitioning from Nike's culture to the culture at a different company. Ten years is a long time to be somewhere, and habits are hard to break. I look back at the interviews I went on soon after leaving Nike and absolutely cringe at how basically everything that came out of my mouth was so specific to Nike. I'm sure I turned off a lot of potential employers that way. Really, no one cares about any of that. They want someone who has taken the time to learn about the culture at their company, and won't lead everything with "Well, when I was at Nike...". Maybe that was you, maybe not. Either way, it's really up to you how much you want to hang on to the way things were.