My shot at the Man

After one of those "worst days ever", which usually kind of just make me laugh, I woke up the next morning and put my resume' on a job posting site. You can't believe how freeing it felt.

The funny thing is that I'm really not interested in getting a new job. I've gotten several responses, but, just for the record, I don't want to work with old people, I don't want to sell insurance, and I don't want to sell insurance to old people--I think that eliminates about 1/3 of the opportunities out there.

No, I'm not really looking for a new job, but I think it was a big mental and emotional leap to consider myself as something different than I am. I already knew, I guess, that it is a horrible idea to identify yourself by your job. Too many external factors can affect your employment--things over which you have no control. Why allow someone else to define you, or change the existing definition of who you are? Trust me, I've been there--I can certainly see how someone wakes up later in life and realizes that they've been floating in a dream world, responding to corporate demands and external factors and living someone else's idea of a good life. I had a wake-up call before, so maybe this little exercise was "phase II"--an assertion of independent thought.

The bad day itself was just a series of negative events, one of which was caused by one of my clients. I've been working on a project with another company, and the other company is very incompetent, and do everything over the web from Vermont. Since I'm here in the customer's same city, I am expected to show up and help on-site at the hint of any problems, even if they are totally the responsibility of the leaf-peepers--since that really isn't appropriate, I have been careful not to rush in and support their half of the project too readily, especially since I don't understand their components and, secondly and most importantly, don't like the way they did some things... The customer decided that it would be highly motivating to completely rip me on an Email saying how I was doing a poor job and copy everyone in her lab and everyone at the other company, which was very embarassing (and not true).

This is an identifiable "last straw" event, but the pressure and discontent has been a vague cloud hovering over me for a while. It was time to face the issue and consider the possibilities.

"Resume' Day" was the next day, and it was kind of fun (at 4:45 AM) to imagine the look on everyone's face at the project when I showed up and shot them, individually, the finger, turned around and walked out. Then, I fantasized about rolling up a TPS report and telling Lundberg where it could be filed...(if you haven't seen Office Space, it is genius). I'm really not violent, but perhaps a little vengeful...

By 8:30 AM of the same day, I was back on the project and the issue was solved--hmmm, turns out it wasn't my fault, after all. Did the customer take the high road? Yes--she apologized, "I'm sorry I was such a B-I-T-C-H to you..." In front of her whole group. So that was something. And the dark matter of the previous day was counteracted with an equivalent amount of white matter over the next few days, so I guess we're good.

Crappy offers and vague "opportunities" keep rolling in from my posted resume', but I set up an Email account just for this occasion so I could escape the whole thing some day without permanent damage--you know, it was my equivalent of Britney Spears shaving her head and getting a tattoo--except my tattoo washes off with soap and water.

In the meantime, maybe it is healthy to reaffirm to yourself--You know what? If I'm given the opportunity to stand back and make a new decision about my life, my work, I would choose to do the same thing. If you can say that with certainty, there is a certain amount of confidence and satisfaction that comes with it, and it is rejuvenating. If the idea of making a change is exciting, maybe that process can initiate action.

Either way, I was proud of myself for taking a hard look.