In August of 2017, I showed up to my first roller derby practice. A novice on skates, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. In my personal life, I had just been promoted to a position as a database coordinator at work, I was going back to school for a degree in Computer Information Systems, and I was severely lacking in self confidence. Almost a decade and three leagues in three states later, I talk frequently about the benefits of team sports, and how they correlate to workplace performance.

One of the first things you do after you join a roller derby league is learn to fall down. The thought process is that as you’re learning, you’re going to be doing a lot of falling, so you need to be able to do it safely. Before you ever join the “contact” phase of the sport, you must show that you are safe on skates, and a huge part of this is being able to fall down safely and get back up unassisted.

There are times on the track and in your career where you will fall down. On the track, you might slip on your skates, while at work, you might miss the mark on something. Regardless of what causes the fall, it is our responsibility to minimize the blast radius, communicate with our team, and get back on top of it quickly.

In derby, this is called “falling small,” which entails making your body as small as you can so that you don’t pose a risk to other players. Ideally, you land on one knee first, drop your second knee, and fall forward, which minimizes the risk of injury. Once on the ground, you tuck your elbows into your knees, keep your head down but stay aware, and clench your fists so that your fingers don’t get run over.

In the corporate world, this can look a little different. A blocker pushes a deadline. Competing priorities cause something to go on the back burner. You have a bad day and just drop the ball. We’ve all been there! It literally happens to the best of us, as much as we wish that it wouldn’t. The thing that not many people realize is: much like in roller derby, you can rehearse these falls.

Start by asking for help and feedback early and often. Make a point to communicate progress throughout your day or week. When blockers come up, communicate them to stakeholders quickly. By doing these things when things are going well, you build up the muscle memory to do them when things are not. If you slip on a project, it’s a lot easier to communicate with your boss if you’re already in regular communication with them, and have established yourself as a person who is open to communicating early and receiving feedback. When you establish these habits, you can preemptively minimize the impact of any potential fall, which in turn makes it much easier to get back up.

There are other times where you’ll get knocked down. In roller derby, this can happen when an opposing team member back blocks you, which would generally incur a penalty. In life, this can happen when a colleague takes a pot shot. To them, it might not even be personal, they might not have done it on purpose, they’re just playing the game, but to you? You’re suddenly back on the ground, hopefully still falling small, and it can be hard not to feel defeated in moments like this.

You’ve done the work, you’ve made the team, you’ve honed your skills through hard work, and yet someone has still taken you down a peg.

For me, these moments in my career have ranged from micro-aggressions (such as the architect who asked me if I, a seasoned software engineer, “even kn[e]w what HTML [was]”) to macro-aggressions (up to and including sexist targeted online harassment).

The important thing to remember is, much like when we fall down, it is our responsibility to get back up when we get knocked down. It doesn’t mean that getting knocked down was fair to us, but it is unfortunately part of the game.

When we get knocked down, our teammates look to see what we do. Whether on the track or in the conference room, we set the standard of behavior we are willing to accept. Sometimes, in particularly egregious instances, this means calling in a mediator, such as a referee, management, or the human resources department. But, most of the time? We have to go on with our days and finish the game. Now, to be VERY clear, this doesn’t mean that we should grin and bear it, although in some circumstances it may be easier and, admittedly, safer to do so. So, what can we do?

This is where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and that’s part of where 50×35 is hoping to come in. By speaking about our experiences and promoting a culture of respect in our industry, we can minimize the impact of these knockdowns when they happen. We can stand up for ourselves in the moment, or our colleagues when we see it happen to them. And, we can offer support to each other before, during, and after such events so we know that we are never alone.

Whether you have fallen or been knocked over, the recovery is the important part.

Generally speaking, there are three types of falls: a stumble where you can bounce back immediately, a hit or fall where you get the wind knocked out of you and need a moment, and an injury that can take time to recover from, and can even make you reevaluate your place in the sport.

We’ve already discussed minor falls, the kind that are easy to rehearse, but the harder the fall, the more difficult it can be to make yourself get up and keep playing in the moment. At the end of a two minute jam, or at the end of a big push for a project, a slip or bump can be disorienting. One of the biggest ways to avoid these kinds of slip ups is to trust your teammates.

In roller derby, there are five skaters on the track for each team: one jammer playing mostly offense, and four blockers assisting the jammer by playing offense and defense. In a common playbook setup, each of the four blockers will have their own lane of the track to cover. Throughout gameplay, players will communicate with their teammates where they are, where the opposing jammer is, and where everyone is heading to.

This is not unlike parts of the software development lifecycle. We communicate what we’ve done, where we’re headed, and where we need help. Everyone has their own lane that they are in charge of, and we trust each other to complete the work necessary to advance the team. If we try to hop into each other’s lanes uninvited, we can end up with merge conflicts, hurt feelings, and deadlines slipping by.

Some of the biggest things that I struggle with in my career are delegation and knowing when to ask for help. As a woman in tech, I find these items to be a fairly common source of angst for my female colleagues as well. In a male dominated field, it’s easy to come across as bossy or unknowledgeable, and there’s always the worry that we are being seen as representatives of women as a whole when we do something individually. Fortunately for us, this is also an area that is easy to rehearse, and it’s easier to break down stereotypical thinking than we can lead ourselves to believe.

Every person on a team has unique skills, and you learn about these skills by branching out and working with your different teammates. In roller derby, this is called scrimmage. In software, there’s scrum. Asking questions of your teammates, doing knowledge transfer, and pair programming are some of the ways that I have found to bolster this trust and build relationships. While this does require a certain level of vulnerability, you build that muscle with every question you ask. Once you have learned the skills of your teammates, you can begin to delegate appropriately. Knowing your teammates’ skills and career goals makes it easier to pass along work that is aligned with their current work. Building these relationships not only gives us the skills to prevent us from falling, but it also allows us to recover faster when we do fall, because we can trust our teammates to help cover us when we get back up.

Finally, we come to our third kind of falls: injuries. For me, this is less of a metaphor and more of a harsh reality - I dislocated my knee at practice one night very early in my roller derby career. Six surgeries and countless hours of rehab later, I am finally back on skates, although in a much different capacity these days. Your career injury may not be so literal - burnout, starting a family, layoffs…there can be many events that would cause us to pause, take a step back, and maybe even reconsider our place in the industry.

Injuries are nearly impossible to prepare for because they are different every time, and, with few exceptions, are often unplanned. We can physically and mentally strengthen and cross-train to prevent them, but when they happen, we have to adjust.

Whether your career injury is literal or figurative, there will be a road to recovery, which requires a huge amount of flexibility and resilience. We’ve already built the relationships necessary at work and on the track that we can rely on in recovery, but we need to go easy on ourselves, because no one else but you will understand quite what you’re going through.

One of the biggest things that I had to do for myself was rest, which is something I often struggle with. After making myself rest, I was able to evaluate what I was capable in the moment, and start to set realistic goals towards healing. SMART goals came in handy, and every day I found myself doing a little bit more than the day before.

The other big thing that I had to allow myself to do was feel my feelings. It sucked! I was depressed! I was in pain! I was struggling at work because of all of it! I felt like an abject failure, and while that wasn’t true, it was important for me to let myself process these emotions as they came. By letting the waves of emotion pass over me, I was able to really celebrate the little wins, which snowballed into bigger and bigger wins as time went on.

In terms of knee injury recovery, standing without crutches turned into walking. Walking turned into jumping. Jumping turned into jogging. Jogging turned into dancing at my wedding!

When I got laid off, moping turned into resting. Resting turned into recovering from burnout. Recovering turned into resume workshopping. Resume workshopping turned into connecting with similarly afflicted colleagues, which has paid off in dividends for all of us.

The important thing is to take recovery day by day, use your resources, and never forget where you came from or where you’re going.

When I got injured, I sincerely considered quitting, but I love the game too much, and there is simply too much to be done.

For every jammer leading a team in a jam, there’s four blockers. For every four blockers on the track, there’s half a dozen on the bench. For every bench, there’s twenty officials regulating gameplay. For every twenty officials, there are countless volunteers, fundraisers, planning committees, trainers, and fans supporting the league.

Even if you decide you can’t play, there is a place for you on the roster, and the skillset you have developed is needed.

The best HR advice comes from people who’ve been in the trenches.

That’s what this newsletter delivers.

I Hate it Here is your insider’s guide to surviving and thriving in HR, from someone who’s been there. It’s not about theory or buzzwords — it’s about practical, real-world advice for navigating everything from tricky managers to messy policies.

Every newsletter is written by Hebba Youssef — a Chief People Officer who’s seen it all and is here to share what actually works (and what doesn’t). We’re talking real talk, real strategies, and real support — all with a side of humor to keep you sane.

Because HR shouldn’t feel like a thankless job. And you shouldn’t feel alone in it.

Sign Up Free