Whiplash

Yes, I do realize that I’ve been neglecting this blog. A few weeks ago I heard about a blogging service that emails you every day and you just have to hit “reply” to write an entry, and my level of laziness is such that I’d rather have my blog ask me for entries than actually remember to write them on my own. I am just that lazy. It’s a good exercise, though, and I’ve been treating it as a private diary where I can post anything from Twitter- to novel-length and not worry what my readers will think because I’m the only one. That said, I do have a very nice blog with very nice (if not plentiful) readers who would probably like to hear from me once in a while, and since I actually have something to report I will go ahead and do it now:

I’m changing jobs!!

I suppose I can provide some details now that I’ve officially accepted the offer and the wheels are in motion: Starting sometime soon (early June?), I will leave my current role as a marketer and become a recruiter for college/university applicants to Software Company That Pays the Bills, Inc. It’s a discipline change, but many of the skills (teamwork, juggling multiple projects, staying excited despite sleep deprivation) remain the same, and really it’s still kind of marketing, just to a different (and much more skeptical) audience. This is a shift I’ve been thinking about and actively pursuing for several months, and I’m a little apprehensive about the workload and especially the travel (I may have to take a choir hiatus ), but I’d much rather work my butt off for a job I love than pretend to care about a job I merely tolerate. I’m very lucky to have this opportunity—heck, I was lucky to have the first opportunity—and I will keep that in mind when I’m bumped off a flight coming home after weeks of travel and tempted to turn in my frequent flyer miles for a one-way ticket to a deserted island. (Okay, two one-way tickets. Future Husband can come, too.)

I’m thrilled, of course, but now the tricky part begins where I have to figure out how and when to tell the people I currently work with. My manager, his manager, and my manager’s peer who’s been following my job search (and trying to convince me not to leave, bless him) all know, but I’m working on how to tell everyone in person who needs to hear it from me before 1. the news leaks out on its own and 2. my manager sends the official transition email to the organization. One complicating factor that I can’t do anything about is that the Co-Worker Who Hates Everything (and who is not not a reason I’m leaving) just left town for almost two weeks, and poop will hit the fan when she gets broadsided by this news upon her return. I’m actually physically tense about how she’ll react, since she’s been trying to get off this team for years but isn’t getting interviews because people sense a toxic personality/lack of social skills. It’s a shame because she’s actually quite smart and has good ideas that she can execute well on her own; the problem is that she has no sense of how to work well with others and alienates anyone who tries, including our shared manager. And if you’re not with her (like I’ve tried to be, sometimes to my own detriment), you’re dead to her and she won’t hesitate to badmouth you to others. The stress of working with her has brought me to tears multiple times (once in front of my manager’s peer…sigh), so I’m both thrilled to leave and terrified of her reaction. I can’t do anything about that until week after next, though.

Finally, an explanation for the title: One nice feature of my new blogging platform (which has not totally replaced this one, I promise) is that the daily emails include a past post for me to mull over as I work on the current one. Right now I’m getting posts from a month ago, and the one I received last night was all about how miserable I’ve been in my current job and how the best-case scenario was that a recruiting job would just land in my lap so I could live happily ever after. I wouldn’t say this job was quite that easy to get—I did have to interview and there was much gnashing of teeth as I prepared and then waited for a decision—but life has changed a lot in the past month. The job appeared, the team invited me to interview, and they unofficially offered me the job within days of my last interview. This happened fast, even if it seemed excruciatingly slow at the time. (There were some emotions yesterday morning as I nearly convinced myself that the weeklong delay between unofficial and official offer was a sign that they had changed their mind. The official offer materialized within hours.) Lesson learned: Patience! Few things are really as slow as they seem.

Right. Blog.

I forgot I had one of these. Quickie update, then:

I’m getting married! The planning continues, as it will until the very last minute, and I may very much regret this in the coming weeks but at the moment I am totally looking forward to making the invitations (mostly) by hand. I get to play with fonts, wording, and pictures, and last weekend I spent an inordinate amount of time in a paper store picking out the perfect combination of colors. I even got a fancy hole punch and a tape gun. I was a crafty child (I liked making things, too), so my inner 12-year-old is downright giddy that I get to play with paper and shapes and glue and even a paper cutter (which I was never allowed to touch as a kid). My outer 29-year-old is pretty thrilled, too…or she will be until the first paper cut. Pre-emptive ow.

I’m a member of the arts community! Well, so things were getting better after the disastrous choir rehearsal a couple of weeks ago, but then I skipped rehearsal two weeks ago because I felt vaguely crappy, and then I got way sicker the following weekend and barely made it through half of the next rehearsal (as an observer, even, since there was no voice for singing) before I had to go home and crash. The choir’s probably getting better, but I’m still at square one in terms of sightreading. Sigh. (Cough.)

I bring home the bacon! (Well, I bring home some bacon, but much of it gets paid out to various college loan agencies. Meh—worth it.) Work continues to be work, but I seem to be gaining some traction with other groups thanks to a well-placed friend who is awesome about passing along job postings. Even if the possibilities currently on the table don’t work out, it’s nice to be considered (seriously) and I’ll have made connections who might think of me next time. We’ll see how this one works out.

Happy belated to me

I wasn't planning to do a workiversary (work + anniversary. I made up the word, but the concept is big here) post this year since I've been feeling less than cheery about my livelihood lately, but today's annual performance review changed my mind a bit. It turns out that the people I work with--the ones whose projects I help make happen, whose problems become my problems, whose prose and spelling I constantly correct to make things customer-ready--actually do value me! In an official (involving money) way, even! The money part's not the point (I'll take it, but unless I win the lottery I'm not paying off my student loans anytime soon); it's that my record now shows that folks at this company think I'm doing a good job and expect me to continue doing well. To someone who thrives a bit more than is probably healthy on the appreciation/approval of others, this is a big deal and has been the cause of much smiling this afternoon.

I don't love what I do every day any more than I did before, and I still want to take my career in a different (but perhaps related) area someday...but man, it's nice to know that the time I spend here isn't a waste of time. Phew.

I'm celebrating tonight with a trip to the gym (where I'll listen to my new favorite podcast), followed by Korean barbecue and catching up on new episodes of my favorite web series, then going to sleep early. Me = lucky, lucky girl.