I Told Me So

So, I was back in the work force. Well, sort of. After a few days at my former-returned-current employer’s new digs, part of the agreement was I’d be able to work from home… on my own schedule. I actually do brag a lot, don’t I? Essentially it was a transition from writing for a book to writing ad hoc software material without a drastic change in venue. Although when I write for the book I prefer to go to a library or some other non-home location, while in contrast my home desktop computer is much better suited for development purposes.

If you’re an avid follower of this blog (and have an elephant’s memory) you’ll recall the details of how my former department sort of “evaporated” after I left in my entry Misfortune. This should trigger at least some confusion around how I’ve been asked to return to that same company as a contractor.

Short version, they had reduced their remaining staff to only essential day-to-day operations, of which most were displaced. This didn’t afford any flexibility when any necessary, out-of-the-norm tasks came about. Hence, my contract.

More importantly, I included in that same blog entry how I was “happy” that I had made the choice to leave and pursue the book instead of having that choice made for me. And now here I was making the choice to return, albeit on a temporary basis.

I never expected 10 weeks would be the duration of this agreement. There are always issues, setbacks and new requirements. I figured more likely it would be 16-20 weeks; using standard industry projections (always double the estimate.) That was all fine, I had expected it and quite frankly it was a good deal for me. The entire circumstance made me wonder if more of these opportunities might later appear. Enter the hand of fate.

In the first days of August, the same company that had assumed the operational and technological duties from my employer announced that they were acquiring what remained of the firm. My employer would be consumed entirely and become a part of the purchasing entity. While I do have relationships with former co-workers on both sides of this now merged equation, I felt that announcement signaled the end of this type of opportunity. Should something like this come up again, surely the joined resource pool would be able to find the necessary bodies to handle it.

This turn of events didn’t have the same impact as the original out-sourcing of my former department. That first domino was a surprise, but only because it happened much sooner than I predicted. A handful of us felt there was no way the company could continue in its previous structure, but felt it would take a few years before anything happened. That was the surprise. This last event however was far from a surprise and the only question remaining was “when?” The expediency didn’t shock me in this case.

On the more personal side, it did have the slightest of similar pangs to it when I thought about my involvement as the other shoe dropped. Nothing like the original announcement though. It was easier not to “blame myself” given I felt this outcome was inevitable. Perhaps that was still a little surprising, considering there I was back in their employment when the message seemed to be, “There’s no going back down this road.” For some reason, I didn't feel this was about me. (Wait, isn't everything?) It did however trigger some thoughts about interpretation.

Just as we decide what’s important to us in work and life, we assign the meaning to just about everything that happens to us in a given day. If a picture frame suddenly falls over on a table that no one is sitting at, it’s either a spooky ghost, a warm reminder from a lost loved one or just something you blame on someone else not standing the frame properly. Which one jumps to your mind first is more an indication of where your head is at than it may be of the “truth” of the situation. And that is the funniest part. We can have the same experience or be asked the same question, and as an individual person give different answers at different times. Perhaps something changed in us and now we see it differently. We went from one thing being the “truth” to something different being the “truth.” What’s funny is that we always “had the truth,” it just had a different form!

We feel that the truth always resides with us, but that obviously isn’t true if you step back to look. Even when we say, “Well, I was wrong about that before, but now I’m right,” how often do we truly consider that this context of “right and wrong” is also entirely in our head? Trying to step out of the realm of absolutes is the first step in realizing that this world is made up of billions of people making choices and assigning meaning. None of us do it the same… we don’t even do it the same from one day to the next. It should be our guiding principle when dealing with people we deem to be “wrong.” They have their own history and experience that led them to their choices and meaning. Even if we don’t agree with them, try to remember that you don’t even agree with some of your own choices of the past.

Then maybe it will be easier to cut them some slack the same way it is so easy to do towards our former selves.

“Houston, We’ve Lost Contact.”

Happy New Year! And while I’m at it, Happy Easter, Happy Memorial, Independence and Labor Day, Happy Halloween and Thanksgiving, and Merry Christmas, Hanukah, etc. That covers most of the holidays that came and went since my last blog entry. I wish I could tell you that I’ve been feverishly writing this entire time… so absolutely absorbed in the task that I couldn’t be bothered with updating a blog. However the truth is just slightly less exciting.

I couldn’t possibly give a proper update on nine months of activity in a single blog entry, so my plan is to make several entries this month to both chronicle my experience as well as get back into writing mode. I closed my last entry with a quote about feeling hurried if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do. Ironically that very much played into my 2011 experience. I may even delve into the unexpectedly deep end of “what you’re supposed to do.”

Just after my last entry, my wife Meghan and I embarked on a vacation to Australia. It was a fabulous two-week experience that we both had considered for many years. Finally our finances and available vacation time aligned in such a way that we could make it happen. I won’t detail much about the trip, but I will say a top memory was being in the ocean, not once but twice, in the very near presence of a whitetip reef shark. I couldn’t find any good pictures showing teeth, but I swear I saw them when the first one swam within about five feet of my shoulder while snorkeling. It’s also unfortunate that I didn’t know that they are rarely aggressive or that there are no recorded human deaths at the jaws of this particular type. It was basically a totally visceral, “Oh My God! That’s a Shark!” followed by rapid swimming in the opposite direction. Well, for the first five seconds at least. After I saw another snorkeler turn and give chase, I figured, “Hey, maybe it’s not hostile… or I can watch this guy get eaten!”

Upon returning from that trip, I only had a few weeks before I was scheduled to, well... take another holiday. This time it was the annual golf trip, which is usually around five days. This is starting to sound a little like bragging, but there’s a point to all this. During that two week non-vacation period while I was barely trying to get back to being an author, I was contacted by my former employer. They were looking for someone to do some contract work and my name came up. I can honestly say that my instinctive “no” response was only slightly less powerful than my reaction to meeting my first shark. They asked if I knew anyone and to get back to them. Of course, I could think about it too.

Now, having someone ask if you would like to earn some money, right in-between two tightly planned vacations, does make one start to think about what one “should” be doing. I shared the news with my wife before I really thought much about it and was still pretty convinced that there was no way I should go down that route. Meghan has been beyond amazing when it comes to supporting my efforts at writing and she’s never discouraged that pursuit. As it turned out, she was able to ask the most pragmatic of questions that hadn’t even entered the initial conversation with my work contact, “How much were they offering?” I indicated I didn’t know. “Don’t you even want to ask?”

And that’s how I accepted a 10-week contract offer that turned out to be closer to five months. It was literally an offer I couldn’t refuse. And while I don’t regret it in the slightest, it is nearly impossible for me to answer the question, “What should I have been doing?” On one level, if I believe this book is the most important thing I can be doing, how can that not be the answer? On another level, survival does require funding and securing more funds is sometimes necessary. Especially if you fly to the other side of the planet for sight-seeing. I guess I’m still too… unenlightened, to feel that I should skip those vacations to eliminate the need for additional income and thus stay on task.

Perhaps the best answer to what we should all be doing is, “We should always be living; Sometimes for ourselves, as often as we can for others.” Each of us decides how we meet those objectives and whether or not we succeed. Lest we forget that regardless of how we arrive at our determination of “What we should be doing,” we’re the ones that establish the answer. And we’re always free to reevaluate and rework those determinations.

See you here soon!