My Give A Damn...

It may or may not be busted. Jury's still out.

What

A

Week

I knew work life would become very chaotic and I knew it would mean more hours and I was basically ok with that. I still had hope. I still saw a future that a new CEO would change a few things. I believed in the hope from my leadership and other people around you.

But...

When I witnessed my foundation show the smallest, well rather large actually, crack this week I felt that small glimmer of hope I had had been snuffed out. I had been riding this wave of hope on someone else's surf board.

What to do now?

On Tuesday I would have told you I was going to move on. Despite how much I love my job, and the people I work with, I didn't have any hope, all I had was despair...and I felt like I was at the bottom of the pit.

Tuesday evening I updated my resume. I did some searches on the Internet for jobs. Found nothing, found some that were meh...but didn't do anything.

Wednesday I ran into a colleague at the water cooler. He asked how my day was and I responded by saying, "It's only 10am...we'll see".

Then he began to tell me a story...seemingly not related to my comment. He tells me that he and his wife get this email that's a photo of the day and it comes with a story behind the photo.  He remembers one where the photo was of a man in the sulfur pits who's job was bringing the sulfur from the volcano crater out to be processed and sold. He was covered in grime. Noxious gases all around him. Over his shoulders was a large log and on the ends were the buckets of sulfur. He was climbing out of the crater with this load.

Then he said that this guys best day looked worse than any day my colleague had had. Which he followed with "It's all about perspective."

Huh...a lesson at the water cooler.

It is about perspective. And it is about attitude. And most the times I'm content with how things are at work and how I deal with them. With the last two weeks and the insanity around the RIFs I think it finally got to me. I finally felt defeated enough to have myself a small pity party. And you know what? I'm ok with that. I know I have choices around whether I stay or leave? And I know that many friends and family don't understand why I stay (sometimes I don't either). But the truth is, I still love my job. I still love the people I work with. Do I wish things were different/better? Yes. Will they get better? Don't know. Am I willing to stay and find out? Yep.

I'm not naive in thinking that this new CEO could come in and not do wonderful things. It could still suck more than not suck. I'm willing to give him a chance, a real chance and try to be open minded about what he's about. I have a deadline in my head that will be the point in which I determine my future there. But in the meantime, I'm going to practice thinking about perspective and how different it is for every one of us.

I'm not mining sulfur. So I guess this is a good day.