New Job

I am about to kick off the final weekend before I start a new job on Monday. It's been an interesting month.

I am heading back to a software company where I worked a few years ago. I left for a culmination of reasons including stalled upward mobility and a distrust for a couple specific individuals in senior management. Those people have now moved on, and I'm returning in a different role. I have high expectations for my new position and am pretty excited. It was great logging on a few minutes ago to my new (old) Outlook account and confirming my MSDN subscription. It will be fun getting back into the software tools arena, especially on the sales side.

However, this is going to be a real job again. I was spoiled in many ways at my last job. I was kind of a go-to project guy, where I was pulled into projects that were either flailing or that nobody else had the expertise to drive. As a quick study, I was able to pull together a couple small miracles there. Yet I never really had to work that hard. When I was a Project Manager, I had to log my hours - but since I wasn't a consultant actually doing the work, my job was largely driving status meetings and sending emails. I rarely had 8 full hours of work to do on any given day, and so spent a lot of time early on learning about the products, the competition, and the industry. But in the end, I spent many long lunch hours playing internet tanks. Not a proud time period, although I still always got my work done.

I also had time for socialization -- some weekday partying kept me out literally all night. Rolling back to your home at 8 am stinking of cigarette smoke and fully dehydrated was no way to start the work day. It was fun, but again, not productive.

Reading time was welcomed as well. As any readers know, I spent a lot of time reading the Upanishads and other "new-age" texts. I've come a long way in that journey and am thankful for the time afforded me to discover it. I have hit something of a plateau there, but that's OK. I'm doing structured yoga and meditation classes and am better connected to the liberal/hippie/enlightened crowd in this podunk farm town.

My unemployment period was interesting. In two days, I had cleaned my entire townhouse -- including dismantling and vacuuming out the bathroom fan assemblies. A couple days of extreme boredom ensued, but I never went back to playing video games. I caught up on little TV/movies and had a lot of time for mid-day runs, reading, and discovering new music. By the end, the lack of daily structure was wearing on me - I lost a feel for the difference between weekdays and weekends, except for the time spent with my kiddos. When I retire, I know I'll need to find regular activities. I read an article recently on retirement communities in Florida, and I have to admit I look forward to those days (assuming I can afford it!).

With my new-found outlook on life, I am very much looking forward to a position that many would view as stressful. I am optimistic that my lessons will not be for naught! It will be good to travel more again - my Hilton status is still Blue and it's September! I usually hit Silver by February. Weekends will be a welcome change of pace again instead of just being a couple days where all my friends are off work too.

In the end, my frequency of posts here may decrease again. Or may change to the more work-based character they had years ago. But I still have a lot to say, so I'll still be here! I was working this morning around a concept that came to me the other day regarding the various faces people wear at different times in different situations. As I started to journal about it, it seemed a much more complicated issue than I initially gave it credit. As Mark Twain famously responded to a request for a 2 page article in 2 days: "No can do 2 pages two days. Can do 30 pages 2 days. Need 30 days to do 2 pages." A brain dump easy (hence this post), but a carefully crafted article takes time.

Until then, Be Here Now.