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Technology Transfer
They are pleasant people, the women who are going to be replacing me and my colleagues after the company lays us off at the end of September. They're excited about their new jobs, and they're quite friendly, and rather smart. It's not as if they're replacing me due to any superior knowledge, or talent, but due to circumstance -- the company would have loved to keep me around, if I were only willing to relocate from the metro New York area to Lawrenceburg, Indiana.
The responsibility for training them is, in fact, a large part of the reason that I've been sitting around getting paid for daydreaming and websurfing, these last few months. That's what "transitional staff" are for. I know that if I think rationally about it, it's not really true that I could teach anyone to do my job in three hours, or three days, or something, though doing the training feels that way. Five pages of notes, a pile of old notebooks, an expense-accounted lunch or two, and two dozen boxes of equipment I'll need to pack up yet again for my much-more-than-a-mover's-salary, and they're on their own.
The seeds of this layoff began in the summer of 2000, when the first of the mergers and sales that got me between then and now were announced. It's always been just a few months until the layoff and its associated generous severance package, for over two years. I've been vaguely worried and distressed, but not motivated to do anything about it, over a period of time in which many friends have been laid off, and have taken new positions, even started new careers. My sister and brother have both produced offspring over this time. Inertia has become a way of life, and I'm not doing a very good job digging myself out of it.
Perhaps the real problem is that I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. There's an opportunity hanging over my head, like an ripe red apple low on the branch, or a bat, or a stalactite, or a drip of dirty water through a hole in the roof, or perhaps the brass ring on the carousel. I could keep doing roughly what I'm doing, beverage development for a large corporation. This would be the easiest, at least in the sense that that's what the headhunters are calling about, it's the kind of job I could get most easily, and that's what I could make the most money doing. If I think back to when I was actually doing the work, I remember enjoying it. But perhaps I should do something a little bit different, shift food categories, shift to consumer research or to marketing. I'd really prefer to work for a smaller company. I could start over with something entirely different. If I could handle the self-esteem implications of a serious pay cut, I'm blessed in that I could most likely manage the actual finances of it. It would even be affordable to take some time off and do something that really inspired me, if I could find the thing that inspired me enough to justify it. I never chose my career, really. It just happened to me.
A few months ago, I took a few career inventory tests, one online, one officially administered by a professional, to see what it is I might actually enjoy doing. It seems that I'm artistic, investigative, and social. I want to create things. I want to help people. One test said that I'd be very happy as a tour guide. I'm sure I would be. I've got a classic Sagitarrian love of travel, a desire to show people things that transform their lives or at least pique their interest, and a deepseated drive toward novelty. Both said that I'd enjoy technical writing, and I suppose I would, on a day-to-day level: I'm pretty technical, a good writer, and I certainly find satisfaction in making people understand things better. It's hard to consider taking a pay cut for what is ultimately uncreative work, though. One said I'd enjoy teaching English Literature, but I've seen the academic career path in action, and it isn't for me, expecially not starting over with a new field in my mid-thirties. Doing this would also cause the social problem of turning into my husband's mother, or competing with her, both terrifying thoughts, much as I love her. Apparently, I'd also enjoy being a librarian, which doesn't surprise me. But there's something supremely tedious-sounding about that. Sometimes, I imagine I'd like to be a caterer, but I'm sure I don't have the motivation to build a business from scratch right now.
None of these tests say I should be doing what I'm doing. Then again, the version of what I do that the tests seem to know about has more to do with quality control, and less to do with sensing and dreaming, than what I actually do. I should dig more into the test results, soon. But I somehow get the feeling that the thing that might be right for me to do, should I chose to do something more right than what I do now, isn't in the government's list of occupations.
To dream the plausible dream. This is my wish.
The responsibility for training them is, in fact, a large part of the reason that I've been sitting around getting paid for daydreaming and websurfing, these last few months. That's what "transitional staff" are for. I know that if I think rationally about it, it's not really true that I could teach anyone to do my job in three hours, or three days, or something, though doing the training feels that way. Five pages of notes, a pile of old notebooks, an expense-accounted lunch or two, and two dozen boxes of equipment I'll need to pack up yet again for my much-more-than-a-mover's-salary, and they're on their own.
The seeds of this layoff began in the summer of 2000, when the first of the mergers and sales that got me between then and now were announced. It's always been just a few months until the layoff and its associated generous severance package, for over two years. I've been vaguely worried and distressed, but not motivated to do anything about it, over a period of time in which many friends have been laid off, and have taken new positions, even started new careers. My sister and brother have both produced offspring over this time. Inertia has become a way of life, and I'm not doing a very good job digging myself out of it.
Perhaps the real problem is that I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. There's an opportunity hanging over my head, like an ripe red apple low on the branch, or a bat, or a stalactite, or a drip of dirty water through a hole in the roof, or perhaps the brass ring on the carousel. I could keep doing roughly what I'm doing, beverage development for a large corporation. This would be the easiest, at least in the sense that that's what the headhunters are calling about, it's the kind of job I could get most easily, and that's what I could make the most money doing. If I think back to when I was actually doing the work, I remember enjoying it. But perhaps I should do something a little bit different, shift food categories, shift to consumer research or to marketing. I'd really prefer to work for a smaller company. I could start over with something entirely different. If I could handle the self-esteem implications of a serious pay cut, I'm blessed in that I could most likely manage the actual finances of it. It would even be affordable to take some time off and do something that really inspired me, if I could find the thing that inspired me enough to justify it. I never chose my career, really. It just happened to me.
A few months ago, I took a few career inventory tests, one online, one officially administered by a professional, to see what it is I might actually enjoy doing. It seems that I'm artistic, investigative, and social. I want to create things. I want to help people. One test said that I'd be very happy as a tour guide. I'm sure I would be. I've got a classic Sagitarrian love of travel, a desire to show people things that transform their lives or at least pique their interest, and a deepseated drive toward novelty. Both said that I'd enjoy technical writing, and I suppose I would, on a day-to-day level: I'm pretty technical, a good writer, and I certainly find satisfaction in making people understand things better. It's hard to consider taking a pay cut for what is ultimately uncreative work, though. One said I'd enjoy teaching English Literature, but I've seen the academic career path in action, and it isn't for me, expecially not starting over with a new field in my mid-thirties. Doing this would also cause the social problem of turning into my husband's mother, or competing with her, both terrifying thoughts, much as I love her. Apparently, I'd also enjoy being a librarian, which doesn't surprise me. But there's something supremely tedious-sounding about that. Sometimes, I imagine I'd like to be a caterer, but I'm sure I don't have the motivation to build a business from scratch right now.
None of these tests say I should be doing what I'm doing. Then again, the version of what I do that the tests seem to know about has more to do with quality control, and less to do with sensing and dreaming, than what I actually do. I should dig more into the test results, soon. But I somehow get the feeling that the thing that might be right for me to do, should I chose to do something more right than what I do now, isn't in the government's list of occupations.
To dream the plausible dream. This is my wish.
no subject
At least, it is for ME. And we're pretty close to similar situations.
What do you enjoy... I mean, really, REALLY enjoy? You spent a lot of time creating World Tree... what did you like the most about that? How else do you spend your time when you have free time?
I'm lucky. I can shift around my current job so that I will be getting back into what I really love: mathematics. You'll find your way, BeeTiger.