I'm All Over The Map

Seems like forever since I posted here. That’s been due to the stuff that’s been going on in real life. Here’s the short form, in reverse chronological order, case you’re curious:

After 14 years my job went away. I’m still employed by the same institution. Seems that out of an outfit with 5000 or so employees, I was the only one with my particular job title. Now, you might think that was kind of cool and unique, but in a place beholden to state funding and prone to budget cuts it can be more akin to feeling like a character from a Gary Larson cartoon.

Luckily for me some of the management felt I deserved “endangered species” style protection and moved ensure that. Abruptly.

Picture walking in on a Monday morning and your boss calling you up first thing to ask you to his office. Alarm bells anyone? Followed by a sudden internal review of work done, projects in progress, customer and coworker interactions, none of which reveals anything that should warrant this. Proceed to office. Enter. The boss turns and says “Sit down, we need to talk”. WTF?! This is never good way to have a meeting start. He continues, “The Dean has decided to…[end your job of 14+ years, take you out of this department and move you in under her office]*”

I digest this, then nod and say “OK, I have a few questions; but aside from that, when will this take effect?” Watching someone else’s jaw drop is always heart warming.

To make the rest of this story short, over the course of the next month and half I transitioned out of my old office, with it’s roaring floor fan, three servers and two workstations, into a new building, into a cube with two workstations and one server. The audio portion of my work life has imporved dramatically, at the expense of my privacy. What is it about cubes that make people feel it’s OK to try and sneak up on you?

The truly amazing part? While it’s a lateral (no increase in pay or change in title) I’ve had more fun on the job in the last five months than I’ve had in the last five years. I’m still pulling rabbits out of technical hats, I’m on a committee, etc., etc., etc., and the new boss gave me a Christmas present (in February) of… one pound of 100% Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.

Oh yeah, I’m lovin’ it.

* The real lead in to this conversation was much longer, fraught with political correctness and some trepidation, as there was every expectation that I’d react negatively to the announcement. There was rumor of a pool on whether or not I’d quit or meltdown first. Everyone lost on that one. : )