The Start and The End

It appears this will only be my second blog post here for 2014.  I don't think that's a bad thing, considering the topics I post out here are mostly bitching and ranting about things in my life.  And I've not flooded my main blog with too many details of my struggles with distractions.

Let's just say that I am really wanting and will make an effort for 2015 to be a year where any posts here will be praise for what happened.

It's been an interesting year, based solely off my first post, where I applied for a job but didn't get it and have been stuck at my current job since.  There was always a hope to leave.  I had a couple of phone interviews and one in person.  I realized I am not prepared for an enterprise IT job, at least on a Goldman Sachs level.  Nothing like knowing you blew a 2 hour interview 35 mins into it.  Learning experience, that's what it's called.

Stuck is an interesting verb to use to explain a situation that's almost entirely in my control.  Yes, I applied for jobs this year, but I could have pushed harder.  It's most certainly not because I don't want a new job, which I most sorely need for 2015 to be a better success story than 2014 was.  I had several job opportunities presented to me, but either I applied and wasn't qualified or I spent too much time pontificating over the position and my confidence level that I never applied.  Yes, you read that right.

One of the first courses of action while looking for a professional counselor that understands where I am at is to push for a new job.  In fact, I'm making it a goal for January to find something.  I feel I have overstayed my welcome here and need this change more than anything to help me get out of my comfortably unhappy state and take that first risk into changing.

Let's see what my next post out here will say.  Hope it's a step in the right direction towards gaining a positive foothold back into my life.

Loyalty Goes Both Ways

I learned today that a job I applied and interviewed for, went to the other candidate I was up against.

I have no clue who this other candidate is, but obviously he was the better choice for this position.  It was just myself and this other person that made it past the second interviews.  As a constellation prize, I was told that another position will open up in June and that they would like to talk to me at that point.

Also, I get to remain employed at the job I've been at for almost 11 years now.  Which makes me reflect on my time there:

• I have never once traveled with this company even though we have multiple offices
• It's been just shy of 6 years since my last raise
• My last raise was me quitting in October 2007 and coming back in February 2008
• I am no longer challenged by any of my given responsibilities
• My last 3 bonuses have all been half of what they were the previous time
• I do have a lot of flex time, which is nice when I am asked to do things for other people in my life
• I get 5 weeks of vacation and I use up every single hour that I earn. Each and every year

I was hoping that being dedicated (I've not taken a single unscheduled day off for sickness in over two years), coming in when there is an issue (I live 3 miles away, which is 1 mile closer than one co-worker and 20 miles closer than the other co-worker), always having my phone with me to answer it, staying late when needed would somehow be shown in ways other than the occasional "Attaboy".

Instead, I do my best to appreciate a regular paycheck, which I discovered today, is less take home pay than I made 6 years ago when I returned to the company. And employment that I seem to not be in any imminent danger of jeopardizing.

So in six years, I have not moved forward.  I have not stayed stationary.  I have regressed in many ways.  The loyalty I have given these last six years has all been for naught.  Well, it does garner an impressive response to friends, family and job interviews.  Which I label as a positive.  So long as I use that positive to find much more gainful employment at a company that understands loyalty goes both ways.

Yes, folks.  I am making efforts to leave the job I loathe.  Today was just a minor setback in my quest to take my loyalty elsewhere.

Rediscovering Passion

This blog is many things to me, but for most of the posts I've created out here, they have been complaints about my life.

My last post talked about making changes.  Most of these changes are related to things I am passion about, which is changing what I do for a living.  After 28 years as a Network Admin, I am needing/wanting a change.

I am very passionate about wanting this change.  But more than anything, I am passionate about the many projects I have going on.  I want to complete them. But I let too many other things in life get in the way of working on them to completion.  This eats at me a lot.. multiple times a day as I encounter the things that distract me.

I keep thinking I will reach that point of "I CAN"T FUCKING TAKE IT ANYMORE!!" but then another day comes along where I deal with these things that block me from moving forward.

I've come to the recent conclusion that I can't let these distractions worry me or prevent me from completing my personal and business projects.  While I've been ok to let them make me feel a lack of passion at my day job, I've let that lack bleed over to my own personal life outside of the day job.  That is where my main frustration level grows larger by the day and the hour.

I must simply find the best and most effective way to work through my personal life and day job responsibilities, while rediscovering the passion I used to have for making videos, writing stories and blogging my life's adventures.  It's the only thing that I can see that will relieve me of my complaints, stress and irritations.

Vacation Return

Returning back to work after a nine-day vacation is not the easiest thing to do.  It's always better when things are busy and not too crazy.  Today was one of those days.  I appreciate them when I can get them.

The idea of taking a long enough vacation is to go somewhere you haven't before and to also have time to unwind.  I was able to accomplish that last week.  Another thing I very much appreciate very much.

I was unplugged from the internet a good deal of the time and while I missed tweeting my every move (ok, I'm not that bad), it was nice to get away from the "checking tweets" mode and enjoy where I was (Alaska).

Now it's back to daily life and waiting for the next set of days I can take some time off.

Each Negative That Happens

I've told myself several times in the last year that I've been wanting a change in my life.  Going on 27 years in the IT industry, I have found that each time I am tasked with something that has to do with fixing a computer, I cringe or complain or put off the task as long as I can before people start demanding it to be done.  Each thing that I see as a negative, it gets me that much closer to pushing myself to changing my situation.

I've reached the point in the last 4 weeks that I really am pushing to leave my job in late September/early October. And not for another IT job. If, for some reason I need to spend one more stint of employment as an IT professional, it will be to pay the bills and just to make a change.  But my push is for me to finally get back to where I was in my writing career... happy, excited, challenged and wanting to spend time doing what I like and love to do.

Downward Spiral

After a rather lengthy conversation with my wife this past weekend, I have a revelation about myself that I didn't see before.  And it's that I have always had an issue with being told what to do.  I've known this about myself for sometime now, but the fact that it's been years in the making is what was new to me.

And how much it has affected my life in both good and bad ways.  The good is that I'm my own person and tend to still do things, regardless of what others tell me not to do.

The bad is that it's taken it's toll on me accomplishing anything on a regular basis.  Sure, I complete projects, but over the last 13 months, I've really let a lot of things slide - day job, exercising, video making, writing, blog posts, helping others... they have all taken a back seat to the mundane process of daily life.

The spiral effect this has caused has been a constant and ongoing frustration for me.  It has to stop at some point before it gets worse than it is now.  In my own self-diagnosis, it's not a depression.  And I do know what's causing it, which is half the battle right there.

Changing how I live my life and how I let others affect me in life is the key to getting out of this downward spiral.  And until I decide to act on this change, it's going to be the stale business as usual.

Freedom Envy

Recently, a blogger that I read and follow posted how she changed her life to be able to be free to travel.  I read this post - not with excitement - but with envy.

You see, I was once working towards this goal.  It was back in 1994 and I had many things in place to make it happen.  Leave the corporate world behind and work on building my own business of IT consulting and freelance writing.  I got close... really close, but something happened that took my focus away from it.

So each time I read of someone else making this happen, I look back and wonder why I didn't continue to pursue this.  And I think about how I can make it happen again today.

This is my goal in life. Someday, I will reach it.  But not without looking back a few times a year and wondering why I didn't make it happen sooner.