NP: AC Milan v. Juventus

First, the obvious question. Why am I suddenly opening up and posting about work, when I've tried hard to limit that sort of thing in the past? Does this mean I'm going to suddenly start saying all sorts of intimate details about my life?

No. At least I don't think so. Although if traffic suddenly spiked last week...

There are a couple of reasons for it, some utterly trivial and mundane, and some part of the whole big, sordid picture. First, I finally acquired a pretty decent diary program, as I had tailed off on writing about the more personal stuff once I started blogging. Except that it lived on the machine that's currently off getting repaired, and the amount of effort to install it on the laptop and import those files, or to keep a separate file in a separate application somewhere, and have to reconcile it back when that machine gets repaired or replaced, seemed not worth it.

And since I had a lot to work through on this, I needed somewhere to think "out loud." The tone I had been taking when talking to friends and co-workers about how stressed out I was had become just a lot of bitching and complaining, and it wasn't helping.

But what about the chance that a colleague might read this, especially now that I'm linked to so many co-workers on Facebook? Well, that was kind of intentional, and a reflection of the fact that this wasn't any kind of secret. I wasn't convinced that my perspective was being taken seriously anyway, so why would it be any different if it was out there in the ether of the blogosphere? I was ready to quit, so why would I care if they fired me for talking out of turn?

All of this is an elaborate setup to continue the story, since it's not fair to tease with all the conflict and deny the resolution. The short version is that things might work out better than I could have hoped. If there was an upshot to being so dire about everything and actually clearing out my desk before I left on my ten-day weekend, it's that my concerns were definitely taken seriously when I came back. I spoke my piece about what I thought was wrong, both with my role and with the bigger picture, and was given a path that addressed it all in one fell swoop.

Basically, if I feel I'm not able to use my skills and experience, and if I feel like the overall direction of my group is not right, the easy solution is to give me a role that uses my skills and experience to fill that gap. And maybe this was the cynicism talking, I wasn't so sure that I'd be given that chance. Once I saw it drawn out on a whiteboard in front of me, it clicked into place, and if you know me, you know the amount of trust I put into the "audible click."

Some of this may have just been a control thing. For the first time in a very long time at my current employer, I feel like I'm able to dictate what I'm doing and where I'm going. For somewhere between 12 and 18 months now, it's felt like someone was building a house around the place I was standing, and I was to live in that house, but was never asked what I thought that house should look like. That can be pretty frustrating for someone who has been given a lot of leeway through their career, and is relentlessly independent as a general rule.

So, weights have been lifted from my shoulders, fog has cleared from around my head, and I'm probably feeling more optimistic about the immediate future than at any point since maybe last February. Which means I'm going to be extra careful crossing the street and checking that I'm not walking under a safe being suspended by a fraying rope.