Twitter's headquarters will be moving into a building exactly four blocks from my house. While driving home from the dog park yesterday, I pointed it out to Sam and noted how awesome it would be if I got a job there and could just walk to work (because, you know, I can no longer be bothered with my current 10 to 15 minute bike commute).
Though I threw the comment out there flippantly with no real intention of pursuing anything with Twitter, I have been considering a change for quite some time. I haven't looked for a new job in about three years, ever since I began with my current company. I started here with a loose five-year plan (with basically means: stay with it for five years), and I tried to convince myself that this whole business of insurance was something that I could grow to enjoy and develop an interest in. Unfortunately, though not unexpectedly, that has not come to fruition, and the only thing I find enjoyable about the work I do is the people I do it with.
Yet I hesitate to go back out into the market and search for a new job. The rejection is demoralizing, my options seemingly limited, and I don't imagine the economy has improved enough to a point where my experience and education could lead me to that elusive "dream job," especially when I am not even sure I would recognize one if I found it.
And though my friend Steve used to say that it is never too late to reinvent yourself, I think there is a critical period for reinvention, and if I stay in this insurance industry for much longer, I will one day find that this critical period passed me by without so much as a tap on the shoulder.
My sister Linda sent me a message saying she received her first post-college job offer earlier this morning, and I could practically hear the excitement in her text. She deserves it too, made smarter choices with her pursuits than I did. When I left college, I had not one but two enriching but otherwise useless degrees in hand, and I was completely unsure of where I would land. Avenue Q had it right: what do you do with a B.A. in English?
Well, work in insurance companies, apparently. And though just the other day, my boss Sarah came by to randomly announce to our team how great it was to work for a boring but stable insurance company, I have found myself slowly wanting more from my job, from my career, than just stability.
And I blame this blog. I blame writing. I blame my decision to not only graduate with two useless undergraduate degrees, but to then turn around and pursue a largely useless post-graduate one. I blame my desire to now put that degree to use in a way that extends beyond this writing experiment.
So with these thoughts, I stumbled into work this morning particularly disgruntled. And right when I thought I just had to suffer through nine hours of a workday before I reached my long weekend, Sarah popped her head into my cubicle and whispered, "Since Monday is a holiday, feel free to leave early. Like at 3:00."
Sounds like I just scored myself two free hours of time to update my LinkedIn profile, resume, and apply for that open copywriter position I happened to see at Twitter.
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