Trying to keep an even keel

This article encapsulates a lot of the fears that plague me these days. S and I are lucky enough (knock on wood) to still have jobs. But all around us friends are losing theirs and it’s hard not to feel nervous about the future. We’re on the verge of taking the next step, house and a fam, at time when things could change at any moment. We’re talking a lot of extra costs. S and I are budget masters but nearly doubling our mortgage and the costs of kids means increasing our risk when we should be doing the exact opposite.

New Jobby

I'm stuck at the office on a Saturday morning with more time than work on my hands so I thought I'd write a bit about how I got to this point.

Three months ago I landed a new job.

Same company. Little more money. Different field of work.

What makes it truly a lucky break is that the job I'm doing now is in the same field I've gone back to school for. This means I get to learn all the practical applications at the same time as I simultaneously study the theory. Talk about luck.

Now, instead of pushing paper from one side of my desk to the other, I'm a one man communications department and it feels like I have my fingers in everything going on around here. That sounded kinda dirty. Ahh, what the hell, it's Saturday. Let it slide.

I was a little wary at first about making the change. While my old job wasn't the greatest it did have a lot of advantages and I'd carved out a little niche of my own that worked pretty well for me. But in truth I was stagnating, spinning my wheels uselessly, without any real occupational challenges. I know that my old manager recognized this and she tried to make my job more interesting, but you can only dress a turnip up so much. At the end of the day it's still fairly bland and tasteless.

New jobby? Much more time intensive. Evenings. Weekends. Every day I'm operating way out of my traditional comfort zone. I've been ripped from my soothing little hidey hole and flung out into the naked sunlight. And I like it. (I'm utterly shocked by how much I like it, but I'm trying to maintain a poker face)

I've got at least two and a half more years at this position, provided the universe doesn't take a pot shot or two, and then I'll have the option of either stretching my wings or staying on for a bit and seeing what I can create. I look forward to having all those options. I like options.