The Past

Last Thursday, 10/18, was an anniversary. It was the two year anniversary of starting at a company I've never mentioned by name on this blog (and never will). I've always maintained that separation. So, if you read my blog in 10/2010, you may recall I had resigned from my job that I had held for a dozen years and, on 10/18/10, I started at a new place.

The "new place" was not what I wanted. And after only a few short weeks, I was unhappy. I flirted with the idea of returning to my previous employer - both I and my former co-workers wanted me to return - but I felt it was important to stick it out and to work that much harder to be successful.

Early on, the stress of the new place started eating away at me. I wasn't hungry. I remember it was a 'big deal' one day for me to go out for lunch - previously that week, I had not eaten lunch. I remember buying breakfast pizza one morning and not being able to finish eating even a single slice.

What was the problem? There were a lot of things in play.

1. The work. When you're told to "put one space after a period unless it looks funny, then put two", there's not a lot of pleasure. In addition, the tool I had to use, InDesign, was like trying to fit a square in a circle. For the type of software documentation I was writing, and for the type of documentation that this company wanted in the future, ID was not the right choice.
   
   And it wouldn't have been as bad if they were using the tool properly. The TOC was manually typed. There were no styles in the docs. It was basically a Word doc using only Normal style with manual formatting to get it to look the right way.
2. The people. While I do think about some of my former co-workers with fondness, the majority of the people I worked with... weren't nice people. There was this air of stuck-upness and, I admit, I didn't really fit in. I remember that for a bowling party, I had asked when people left. I said, "Tell me when you go."
   
   And no one did. I eventually got up from my desk and when I went to find those that I thought were my friends, they had already left. It kind of broke my heart.
   
   When I arrived at the bowling alley, my former boss and co-worker with whom I worked with every day, never came over to chit-chat. I had been with the company only a few months and no one made any effort, on that day, to welcome me into their world.
3. The commute. While I remember some days as it being nice to think about my life during the 30 minute one way drive, it also became a time when I would question who I was and where I was going. On the way to and from work, I started listening to Life 101.9 and while that helped, there was still an emptiness. Things got better when I started driving I-380 to Riverside instead of a straight shot down Highway 1, but still, it was a lonely commute.

And so, in April 2011, when it all blew up, I was sad that it didn't work out but, in some way, relieved. I tried to return to my former employer.  By that time, my replacement had been hired. That began a frantic job search that ended up with me being hired where I work now and where I have been for 1 year, 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days. I am in a much better place.