Every so often (almost always on a Tuesday) we get a DIDS going. What's that? An excuse to chitter chatter about the little victories that make the waking world a little better and ourselves a little prouder. Not all of us can win the mightiest Democratic primary in, like, forever. Some of us have to take our victory laps after, well, running a few laps. Or packing away some pictures. But there are heroic moments, and sad, noble struggles. Life is not always joy and sound bites. Sometimes, life can well and truly suck.
But on enough occasions it is bright, and it is hopeful and when you have friends to share the little victories with, it is a life full of love.
And that, I suppose is, what the DIDS is all about.
So let's get on with it. :)
The past few months have been interesting for me, a forced migration away from posting and diarying so much thanks to a combination of last year's new job (writing, which really takes it out of a person's blogging! who knew!), a rather substantial side project in Second Life called the World Trade Center Memorial, some tentative explorations into the wonderful world of helping a local political campaign and, last but not least, just a general getting my grounding back.
Lately I have been on a get-back-to-basics kick in every aspect of my life from my approach to work, to running, to family and friends, to little things like sleep habits and what I feed my face. Also, last but not least, writing.
And this is the big topic du jour.
It's not for sure yet, but yours truly received some rather unambiguous signals from on high that perhaps an alternative course of career might be a good idea. From on high I do not invoke metaphysics, I refer to far more tangible and material authority in my existence, a well-meaning boss who informed me that my idiosyncrasies had irritated some unspecified person or persons farther up the food chain, and she was not going to be sticking her neck out on my behalf. The heads-up: You're on your own and you better be 100% every moment of the day for a while, if not for good.
My reaction to this was quiet polite acceptance of the information, but once I returned to my desk, I promptly began to shake my head in fury. This was so wrong. I had been told repeatedly, received back channel feedback from all over the company that I was writing some great stuff. Comments like "one of the best publications we've put out" were not uncommon... not everyday but what sort of praise is?
I am not a person who likes feeling distrusted, I certainly do not like being told that someone I work for is not going to work for me when I need it most. My reaction was to assess what I had in the way of resources, in the way of opportuinities elsewhere and, this being a fairly big deal, what would I really want to be doing if not what I was doing now.
To point of fact, I like much more than I do not my current job. It can be very rewarding to research challenging and timely topics that the finest minds in the industry are puzzling over, synthesize the available information, make some phone calls, some email exchanges, get some thoughts together and turn them into a clear narrative (yes, when I write for my job I actually do a lot of things that I do not do while blogging!) that speaks to an important topic in a way that stimulates thoughts.
The finest praise I have yet received in my job: "It made us reconsider our entire approach to the problem."
Now that was worth a DIDS.
So... as of last Friday I am told I am on my own.
Monday, I go into work with an 8:30 meeting with a friend of mine who is a recruiter, I go to him more as a career mentor these days... but this time I was thinking ahead to what I might want to be doing instead.
His comment was - if they did not have a use for you, they would not have explained even that much. You would have been gone long since.
He asked how long the ups and downs had been in place.
I answered- pretty much always. My boss is rather expressive, a very endearing trait to me... except when she is irritated. That's not so much fun. Thing is, the Friday meeting she was different. Detached. That signaled a real change of conditions to me.
He then asked when things really started to change.
I thought more on that. I said - Probably a few weeks back, when I started pushing back (read: balking) at some of what I felt and (in hindsight rather wrongly) thought of as little things.
Why do such a thing? I am going to invoke something apropos - stress. Simple work stress. We have had several big projects one after the other. One was cut out from under us by one of the sales team, which displeased my department greatly, but there was that onus that we (read: CSK here) had not delivered the goods. It was a very nasty black eye. It was infuriating because the only objection (it turned out a wrong one) was one phrase in one line that had been specifically noted by the sales VP and accepted once explanation was given for its language. Alas, one of his key players did not get that memo, and raised a huge to-do. Crisis mode ensued, the publication was pulled. Months of work put on ice.
My boss had gone to bat for this and pushed for amending the document and re-issuing it but it created some ill will. Ill will that has, I fear, found itself knocking on my door because other people panicked and did not see that the dreadful phrase in question set up a sales pitch opportunity that, here is the punchline, the upset sales manager should have recognized on account it helped his main product line the most.
Ah, the creative ways one makes friends and allies -- and their opposites -- in corporate America.
So, now we move to a new project, a summary of our entire business, a refashioning of a rather catalog-style once-a-year yearbook-style publication that ... just did not do the thing. My job was to jazz it up.
Doing that, learning just how to do that, was very challenging for me, took much longer than people expected and grumbling ensued. Colleagues of mine who had done this project in the past quietly shared their experiences -- it was a hard, thankless job working on the annual review, as it was called. And I was charged with taking it to the next level.
I found myself thinking as I worked on it. Hmm maybe I am not as smart as I like to think I am. Maybe I really can't write at this level. Maybe I am just tired of writing about this business. Or, given how I get energized, maybe I was starving for a little encouragement, a little daylight. But, no. I just hated feeling this doubt that at the end of the day I did not really know what I was talking about, not to the depth required of this project...and that was a very displeasing sensation.
So, I decided to go back to basics.
I started reading lots more news articles, digging into the archived publications, re-reading my own stuff, turning the many handouts I had been emailed and had printed out and just learning, learning, learning, relearning, relearning, relearning.
And then I went through and rewrote the entire thing.
And it's been on my boss's desk for two weeks. She says she has not gone through it yet but the message from Friday was it had better be damn good, or reap the whirlwind, because earlier editions had not impressed.
She did not say it quite like that... but there was an ominous shadow in her gaze as she delivered her earlier assessment and refreshed my awareness of her expectations...and those of the unspecified "friends" I had acquired.
So, what did I do over the weekend other than stew? Funny you should ask. I rowed in a boat race competition. For the company that loves me so. I was in it last year, and drafted at the last minute. I agreed to do so the same day I was informed my future was dicey. I went, I kept my concerns to myself, rowed. Then I went home -- ran over two miles to get back to my car, and promptly (forgot to mention the being sick) resume having a nasty sinus congestion and fever which I am just getting over today.
I then, with mkk, prepared a battle plan for what to do in the event my beloved work situation was suddenly curtailed.
Basically, we have done well enough to ride out (with some significant changes in lifestyle for yours truly) a good while without my working... far longer than I have ever been out.. but this economic cycle there is a definite trepidation.
Then I thought of the one thing I love to do. I do love to write and when well-versed and passionate of the topic, I dare say I got game. and I thought - hell, maybe I just don't like working under the will of another person (or collective). Maybe I need to find something else I can be fired up about.. maybe more so.
So, what would I write about? Blog all day? Hmm... not sure.
But there is something I have been preparing to write for a very long time. I have shared pieces of it here and there, and a library worth of diaries based on concepts, even modeling techniques, that have come out of that exercise - designing an incredibly detailed and systematic future setting for a story that, as one of my favorite Kossacks put it, is pretty much like all my diaries - something about hope and love.
Because really. If you don't have either, you aren't really alive. If you lack both, you aren't really living.
So... I began to make preparations to liberate myself (if needs be) from the corporate world at the drop of a hat, to have the funds ready to begin a life of writing and (this is gonna be tons of fun) taking care of a certain willful younger son who is perhaps more like me than I want to admit.
But like all great plans this one might be on hold.
Because this is the punchline.
After having the hard talk with mkk, after coming to a mental acceptance that my corporate life was likely winding down, after preparing a budget and taking the first steps to tapping into some of our retirement for the funds to make this happen... I get to work and all is well, and I get my marching orders for projects into the next quarter. And today I get handed a very major research assignment, not a make-work or a maybe-you-can-do-this-we'll-see test but something that is very, very important to our firm and the industry as a whole.
If there was an ulterior motive, the only one I can read into it was my boss saying between the lines - This is why people are a bit quick to judge and react. And they are the ones who will look kindly on helpful results.
So....
Of course I am going to help. These are people who count on me, and they have in their fashion asked.
But I have made the first steps toward exiting the corporate world. And I like the feeling that this decision has been made.
So that's my little DIDS.
But in the meantime, looks like I have some more work to do for The Man. :)