pivot point
Jul. 31st, 2010 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thoreauToday I'll go up into the city with Dave - and clean out my office at the radio stations. I have all my Sue Coleman paintings there - and well, schlepping them home on Caltrain wasn't going to work.
It was a very interesting week at the stations - as it truly sunk in for people that I was leaving. Some folks are excited for me, some folks are treating it like I'm betraying the family atmosphere the radio station tries to create, and others who might also feel its time to leave are giving me that trapped animal look when i see them and in some cases coming right out and saying "how did you find something new to do?"
There was a time in my life where i switched jobs with great regularity - as I hunted and pecked for what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was a nursing assistant, I was an activities planner at a home for people with cerebral palsey, I made fudge at a mall store, I've been a paralegal/legal secretary, I've been a copy editor, and then in the last 12 years - I've done web design and computers. The truth of the matter in tech jobs is they have an identifiable shelf life for the most part; and then you look for the advancement opportunity to stretch your technical and graphic design skills to the next level. The sad part of the job at the radio station was that there are no advancement opportunities available - nor even some training to keep skills fresh and looking forward. (the most dangerous thing in tech is not continually be looking at what's next, what language, format, protocol is NEXT or you become quickly dispensable) So when it became clear, no matter how much I like the job at the radio stations, that there was no evolution possible; it was time to move on.
The new opportunity at Stanford is a very interesting gig. It lets me return to higher education for a living - an environment I miss a lot from my days at Boise State. However - my skills in programming and graphics have come a long way since my time there - so I'm also armed with a whole new arsenal of tricks and ways to accomplish things.
I will be a little sad taking down the art in my office - the pictures of me and Dave on my bulletin board - the aglues. It is the end of something for me - a "pivot point." I know that folks will react emotionally to my bare bones office next week - but after Friday - it won't be my office any more.
It was a very interesting week at the stations - as it truly sunk in for people that I was leaving. Some folks are excited for me, some folks are treating it like I'm betraying the family atmosphere the radio station tries to create, and others who might also feel its time to leave are giving me that trapped animal look when i see them and in some cases coming right out and saying "how did you find something new to do?"
There was a time in my life where i switched jobs with great regularity - as I hunted and pecked for what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was a nursing assistant, I was an activities planner at a home for people with cerebral palsey, I made fudge at a mall store, I've been a paralegal/legal secretary, I've been a copy editor, and then in the last 12 years - I've done web design and computers. The truth of the matter in tech jobs is they have an identifiable shelf life for the most part; and then you look for the advancement opportunity to stretch your technical and graphic design skills to the next level. The sad part of the job at the radio station was that there are no advancement opportunities available - nor even some training to keep skills fresh and looking forward. (the most dangerous thing in tech is not continually be looking at what's next, what language, format, protocol is NEXT or you become quickly dispensable) So when it became clear, no matter how much I like the job at the radio stations, that there was no evolution possible; it was time to move on.
The new opportunity at Stanford is a very interesting gig. It lets me return to higher education for a living - an environment I miss a lot from my days at Boise State. However - my skills in programming and graphics have come a long way since my time there - so I'm also armed with a whole new arsenal of tricks and ways to accomplish things.
I will be a little sad taking down the art in my office - the pictures of me and Dave on my bulletin board - the aglues. It is the end of something for me - a "pivot point." I know that folks will react emotionally to my bare bones office next week - but after Friday - it won't be my office any more.
