My Previous Job/Career in Four Boxes...
Yesterday and today I decided to unpack the residue of my more recent job. During the weeks before I left I went through all of my files (paper and electronic) and drawers and aggressively deleted and recycled most of it. It was an interesting process. I'd look at something and decide if it was immediate trash, if it was something I needed to think about or look at again (delayed decision) or if it was something that my successor might want of need.
When I left I did leave several tidy piles of budgets, personnel files, strategic plans, contracts, organization charts and memos on various topics for my successor. He has done with them what I would have done with such a treasure. He's ignored it all. Good for him. History is meaningless I've been told, and my vision of the future certainly is of no value to your vision of the future. On this particular topic I did fail to take my own advice about leaving things for your successor which is based entirely on About Schmidt, a movie I frequently recommend.
After numerous iterations it came done to just a few files and a few boxes. As I've opened them I've chuckled a few times and I've also looked at things and wondered why I brought it home. I did find four toothbrushes and four brand new tubes of toothpaste in my desk. You know, the kind that dentists always give you after a checkup. There were always good intentions of brushing my teeth at work but apparently I cycled through quite a few cleanings, x-rays, discussions of gum issues, etc., without ever brushing my teeth...at work.
At my home working locations I have my favorite pens, miscellaneous items of distraction, nail clipper, dental floss and who knows what. The boxes I brought home contain from my previous work 'working' location my favorite pens, miscellaneous items of distraction, nail clipper, dental floss and who knows what. There is some duplication and yet some unique items but I don't want those work working location items at my home working location. They worked where they worked. At home they are misfits.
As of Day #52 I really care little about my past work, increasingly focused on my future work. I'll recycle the four empty boxes.
Online...
LHH has a lot of good ideas about selling yourself and penetrating the networking world and making progress on job searches. Today I ignored part of their advice and found another great position which is an IT leadership position (good), which is a large company initiative on small business (good) and which is about 3500 feet from my house (good). This is worth pursuit.
The other most recent online application had a succinct response which was in total as follows:
Hello John,
Thank you for your interest in employment at XXXXXX, Inc.. If your qualifications match our needs, we will contact you to learn more about your fit in this position.
Thanks again for your inquiry.
Was this a bot response? Should I follow up with a phone call? Should I email them? They are also looking for an HR person so I probably cannot call their HR person. I know a lot about HR. Perhaps I should apply for their HR position along with the other position. It seemed that there were quite a few positions at their organization that would be a fit. If none of my qualifications meet any of their needs I'll have to shrug off any thoughts of "you are a misfit for for all kinds of jobs you think are right for you!" I'm good in bad weather so I'm going to shrug (or shake) that premonition off.
Motivation...
Writing motivation seems to be a roadblock to many people, often. Bill Holm provided quite a bit of motivation for me when I realized you could write pretty much about anything. It's not clear why it took so long for me to figure that out. In the visual arts it was clear long ago that you could drive to the mountains to make so-so images or you could work within a fifty foot radius of where you happened to be standing an creatively look at mundane objects and package them with interest. With the right purpose our words can do the same.
As motivation my son sent me this link to an interview of David Sedaris. I'm sure I've listened to him on MPR and I'm not sure that I've read any of his work but I did order Naked not because of the title but because of his thirty-five year writing career of describing and sharing normal events in his life.
My daughter reads this, too. She's different in her commentary and feedback. The other day she said "you are a mess." When I asked why, she said the blog posts seemed to indicate...that I was a mess, but she went on to say that there seemed to be some clarity, some balance emerging. She's right. This is an adjustment and it's not a twenty minute oil change.
Writing every day is good. It's probably improving my spelling and sentence composition. There does need to be some focus on style variation. My typing has been about the same for a long, long time. In earlier posts I'm sure I've given tribute to Miss Ruth Woods my 8th grade typing instructor (1964?). "Don't cross your ankles!" She speaks to me when typos become frequent. I also keep a wooden 12" ruler in my middle drawer. She carried one and whacked us with it. I have one at my home 'work' location. I never had one at my work 'work' location. That might have been what was missing.
JFK...
There are a lot of memories. He was a great President to be the first President for a young person to be aware of. He was bright, had a differentiating accent and spoke to all of us, encouraging us to be be hopeful and to be part of the future.
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