Every now and then I get to a point where I get bored at work, or just in need of a change. It has happened to me periodically throughout my career. I think more or less when things are high pressured or uncertain in my personal life, it starts to spill into my professional life. Today, I find myself desperately in need of a change, yet the economy is not all that forgiving and now may not be the best time to make a change in my almost 17 year stable career at the company I am at. So I sit, I wait, I think. I mean 17 years at one company for a girl who is almost 37 (well a month shy). Do the math. I'm ancient here. And I kind of need to see what else there is in the world beyond the fenced in world I have seen thus far.
Then there are days like today. Days where my daughter wakes up sick and needs to go to a doctor. Days where I take both kids into the doctor because my son banged his arm in Tae Kwan Do on Friday again. And I get to the doctor and he says to do xrays. So I wait an hour at the xray clinic and tap away on my blackberry rescheduling meetings. Then I find out he broke his arm. So I drive place to place to find a sling for him. I tap away on my blackberry rearranging my meetings again. Then I get the kids to school at 12:30 and realize (again) that I haven't had breakfast. I'm starving. I realize there is no point in the 1.5hr trek to the office (each way) and so I come home, eat lunch and then proceed to cancel the meetings that I just finished rescheduling two hours ago. At 5pm, I realize I forgot to tell my boss I wasn't coming in. But it's not a big deal. Because nobody mistrusts me, nobody questions me, and my seniority has become my shelter. It is an astronomical blessing for me, but the shelter is also a problem.
Am I too comfortable? I think so. I think I'm also "coasting", and I think I might even be getting lazy. I also know which corners can be cut, and when I can cut them. Maybe I've become too efficient doing what I do. I can do some of it with my eyes closed, and so yes, I am getting bored again. Two years in my current role, that's about the right time to need a change.
Here is the big question- am I SO comfortable that I would never survive anywhere else? Have I sat in my comfort zone too long? Yes, this company respects me, but would another? It's like the animal who lived in a zoo. Would they ever survive outside the zoo? Or have they become too accustomed to getting their meals at a particular time served right to them? Am I that zoo animal?
It's weird, it's not the market to be thinking like this, yet here I am. And that, too, on a day where I should be infinitely grateful for the luxury of flexibility and stability.
My logical side says to park this for a few months. But only for a few...
1 comment:
I totally understand where you are coming from. I too have a great job. I work at home, am respected, in a stable industry but am bored out of my skull and worrying that it's beginning to show(on the phone at least). I'd like to start a business in something totally unrelated but my husband says, "This is not the time." So I'm parking it too. Watching all the ambitious newbies but just watching...Hope you figure it out...
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