Jan 29, 2008 1
A life worth living
Over the past few months, I’ve been spending some time thinking about what my future could hold. That’s not to say I’ve never thought about where my life has been heading, but more that up until now I’ve only thought about what would happen if I sat back and let things happen. Lately what I’ve been doing is thinking about where I want to be and what I need to do to get myself there.
Case in point: my career. As most of you know I’ve been into computers since I was old enough to bang on the keys, and using all the knowledge I’ve acquired over the past (almost-)25 years, I’ve been able to float along just peachy. My problem is that over the past 8 or so years, I’ve been stuck doing technical work due in large part to me blowing off school. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the need for technically-minded people — hell, I wouldn’t be where I am today without said need — but after 8 years of doing more or less the same thing, I look back and wonder why I’ve accomplished basically nothing. Sure, I’ve been given many incredible opportunities, including one to live on a sub-tropical island during a Canadian winter, but simply in terms of career level, I haven’t moved. That’s why I’ve decided that rather than sit back and just wait for something great to happen to me, I’m going to make something happen to me.
As I’ve become more and more distraught with my current situation in life, I’ve been speaking to the big bossman at work. I’ve expressed my concerns about how my heart just isn’t in the tech work like it used to and how I’d like to take on more of a non-technical role. To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting much at first; I’d been promised similar things at previous jobs but obviously nothing ever materialized. Maybe I had just gone about things the wrong way, but David has not only been very receptive to my ideas, but he’s actually put some of them into motion.
Before we get all happy and bouncy, I haven’t been completely absolved of my technical responsibilities – far from it. I was hired as a technical person, and I will continue to perform those duties for quite some time to come. However, in the past couple months, I’ve not only been put into a project management role for a major (6 month+) project at one of our clients but I’ve also informally taken the role of Director of Field Operations at Versalt itself.
Truth be told, I’m a little nervous. I’ve never had a position that has been so non-technical so I’m a little worried that I might be over my head, but as the saying goes: “Nothing worth having ever came easy.” I’ve spent my entire life taking what’s come easy and what I have to show for myself reflects exactly that.
In completely unrelated news, I’ve somehow managed to convince some totally naive girl named Tonya to date me. She has no idea what she’s in for so you might want to warn her if you have the chance.
Speaking of girlfriends, Dave’s woman (Ange) finally moved up here just before New Years. She is from Colombia, South America, and after having a good month or so to get to know her, all I can say is that her and Dave are just as disgustingly cute in person as they were when they were separated by 6,000 miles. In case I didn’t tell you about them previously, before she moved to Canada, the two of them would download the same movie, call each other on the phone, and talk to each other as if they were sitting right next to each other. Like I said: cute enough to make you puke. Oh well, Dave deserves to be happy, and the two of them are perfect for each other.
Finally, I will be updating this blog more frequently. I’ve quite literally felt like a part of me has been missing since I stopped writing, and even just writing this little update has made my night.
Stay tuned for more tales of “Justin’s Sad Life™.”