Finding career focus...

Not my finest day...  That's okay, I'll discuss it, but I refuse to beat myself up over it.  I couldn't sleep... simply couldn't sleep.  Just laid there for hours full of guilty feelings, worries and fear.  All tolled, I got about 4 or 5 hours of heavily interrupted sleep.  Even when I slept, the thoughts found their way into my dreams.  Finally, my son woke me up around 10:am because he needed a little assistance with the papier de toilette.  I was in a fog all day; couldn't focus or really pay attention to him or anything else very well.

I think the worst part of all was that I'd promised a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and simply couldn't deliver.  I remember, as a kid, how important little things like that were to me.  He's no different, and was very disappointed we couldn't go.  It would have been very easy to lie to him.  Tell him something like, "They're having a thunder storm and needed to close the aquarium".  Sure, it'd work and toss the responsibility off of me.  Still, I refuse to lie to him like that.  Daddy's aren't perfect.  I offered him a compromise.  We'd stay at home today, go to the movies this evening, then hit the aquarium this weekend.  He bit, so we're good.  Still, I'll have to heave that on top of the huge guilt pile.

I'm still trying to focus on my vision; my direction.  Maybe I should just start describing what I want my life to be like.  In no particular order, I want to:

• have fun and enjoy life
• be a great dad and role model for my son
• have strong, healthy relationships with family and friends
• be physically and emotionally healthy
• be financially secure and stable (able to pay my bills, enjoy life & have a nest egg)
• have a satisfying career
• be self-confident again

There's more, I know.  I just can't think of any more right now... not to worry, I have all the time there is.

Boy, that list seems so simple. So why does it all feel so overwhelming to me?  I guess it's like a train.  While it's on the tracks, it moves along at a brisk pace.  But, if it's derailed, it'll take a massive effort to clean up the mess and get the thing rolling again.  I'm derailed, but have no crew of engineers to make things right.

I'm working on the emotional health issue, so I'll stick with that.  Great dad and role model, that's an evolutionary thing, and I think I'm doing pretty well there right now, except for my own personal strength.  Satisfying career, ahhh, there's something I need to sink my teeth into.    How about I give you a little background.  I got my first job when I was 13 in New York.  I loved working, and continued working after school and during my holidays into my late 30s.  I've been a high tech guy for years.  You name it, I've done it.  I've been a programmer, a teacher, a salesman, a consultant, an engineer and a network architect.  I even worked for Microsoft for five years.  Just kept moving up, and my career was in full swing.  I'm not really sure what happened, but somewhere along the line, I lost it.  Became depressed and unsatisfied with the work I was doing.

Remember the Peter Principle, "... every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."  I suspect that's what happened to me, at least initially.  I was a rising star.  I actually had employers cry when I left to go with another company.  I worked my little tush off, and made things happen.  I remember taking a job as a field engineer.  I worked for a government contractor, and we were traveling the country, building a global network for a government agency.  During my very first week, my boss told me that they needed to install a network card and four programs on about 20,000 PCs around the country.  The'd be hiring some low level temporary staff to do the actual work.  Those people would be following step by step instructions to do the installations.  My job was to review the installation instructions and make sure even a complete moron could follow them successfully.    Then, he handed me about 50 pages of poorly written instructions.  I was a professional, and I couldn't follow them.  This, I thought, was going to be a disaster on a grand scale.  To make matters worse, the government was paying us a flat fee per pc, so if there were problems or delays we'd have to eat that cost.

I started rewriting the instructions, and it wasn't very fun.  Suddenly, I realized, why write them in english, when I could write them in code?  Could I automate these instructions in some way that it'd all be done automagially?  I told my boss about my idea, and he told me to see if it could be done.  I spent the entire weekend working, and successfully automated the whole thing... well, they'd still have to open the PC and install the network card.  But my little program would do everything else, flawlessly every time.  Monday morning, I called my boss into the lab and told him that the PC on the table was an exact replica of the 20,000 PCs the government had.  I unscrewed the cover, slipped in the network card, screwed the case shut, inserted a disk into the drive, turned it on and voila!  The program worked perfectly.  Instead of the 45 min to 1 hour per pc everyone had estimated, this took less than 5 minutes.  In fact, done assembly line style, two people could knock out hundreds of PCs in an afternoon.

My boss was floored, and immediately called the Vice President down to see it.  I demonstrated it, and they were amazed.  Honestly, I thought they were impressed with my little program.  But, as it turns out, they were seeing dollar signs.  Remember, the government agreed to a flat price per PC.  So if we could do it quicker, we'd have a higher profit.  This was beyond their wildest dreams, and translated into millions in profit.  I was motivated by lazyness... it's easier to write a program than to write a manual.  That simple little thing propelled me into super-stardom in my first week.  I got four promotions in the four years I was there, and ended up with twice my initial salary and heading up three departments.  It seemed, the more they heaped on my shoulders, the more got done.  Not only that, but the staff had a lot more fun doing it.  Oh, the glory days.

After that job, I joined Microsoft.  I thought it would be a great career move.  While there, I focused less on the bits and bytes, and more on IT strategy and planning.  Rather than designing networks, installing servers or fixing problems, why not help companies figure out how to use technology to do business better.  I worked with some major corporations doing IT strategy work.  Pretty simple concept, actually, we figure out what the company does, what it needs to accomplish to be successful, then work backward from there.  We broke down their business into high-level categories, then worked out what tasks they needed to do efficiently in each category.  Now, how is their current technology helping them accomplish those things?  Where could we use technology better?  It was interesting work.  But, to be honest, I never really liked it that much... too much political wrangling and not enough actual doing good stuff.  I spent five years doing it, and couldn't bear to drag myself into the office in the morning. I took a transfer to warmer climates; California.  It was all downhill from there.

I'd like to get back to a place where I actually enjoy my work.  Spring out of bed in the morning like I used to.  Maybe it was naive youth, who knows.  But somewhere along the like I feel like I traded my soul for more money.  I liked the money, but couldn't do without my soul.  I left Microsoft and struck out on my own.  I made a lot of money, but it was even more political garbage and less doing the exciting stuff... and watching the fruits of my labor pay off.  I remember one consulting job I held, very lucrative, but the staff and management were more focused on which specific technology to use, rather than what they needed it to do.  They had several hundred employees, all using Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.  They were trained and productive.  They had some serious organizational issues, which we were working out, but the desktop operating system and applications really weren't their problem. 

Rather than focus on fixing their issues, they decided it was time to discuss the possibility of Linux on the desktop.  Okay, I admit, most of my background has been in the Microsoft world, but I don't work for them anymore.  I don't have any Microsoft stock any longer.  I have used Linux, and think that it's pretty cool.  In fact, I'm hosting this blog on a Linux machine.  Still, changing a company from Microsoft to Linux is a major undertaking.  There is a major investment in deploying the technology, converting any applications and files necessary, training support, IT and staff.  It's not a little thing, it's a big deal.  Besides, it really wasn't their issue... Honestly, making a change like that would exacerbate their problems.  Because of this debate, they paid me for four months of ... well, mindless meetings debating the pros and cons of Windows versus Linux.  Ultimately, I suggested that the management change their laptops to Linux, and work with it for a few months.  Instead of discussing it at a high level, let's run an alpha test on them.  They hemmed and hawed, and finally agreed to try it.  Within a week, they changed their tune, and decided to postpone the decision until they felt Linux was ready for them.  Bear in mind, none of these folks were very technical.  That frustrated me, I felt like I wasted months of my life on something that ultimately detracted from their real issues.  Oh well.

Maybe that's what I've been doing in my life as well.  I'm focusing on the wrong stuff.  I need to figure out what I enjoy doing, professionally, instead of sticking with my history.  Sure, I could go back into engineering and architecture, but I'm not as sharp technically as I was.  If I wanted to do this, I'll need to study quite a bit and get back into technical shape.  I could shoot for IT management, that is something to look into.  There's training, that's always fun and pretty low stress, though not as lucrative.  Maybe I could become a headhunter... not sure about that one, seems a little slimey for me.  Or maybe I should think completely off the page... what about becoming a masseuse, or going back to school for psychology?  Hmmmm, if I want, the world can be my Oyster again.

WhyCali