Reflections on Two Weeks of Employment…

…or, “How Do You People Actually Do This?!”

So, a little more than two weeks ago I left the ranks of the self-unemployed freelancers and rejoined the corporate rat race (or drone drama; take your pick), and I’m gradually beginning to feel like I didn’t make The Worst Decision Evah.

Yeah, it’s been a fairly painful transition, but it wasn’t unexpected. And every passing day takes me a little further away from the easy living/low paying work-from-home routine. I realize that the pain springs primarily from the comparison of what came before, and as those memories fade, so too will the discomfort.

I’m not comfortable writing about many specifics regarding my job or my employer, which puts quite a crimp in my blogging aspirations, but it is what it is. But here are a few random observations about my new life:

• We’re a Windows shop, as is just about every other oil company in existence. Part of my job is to be the local liaison with the centralized IT group in Denver, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time installing and troubleshooting equipment. Part of the aforementioned pain that I expect will never completely disappear is remembering every single day how sucky Windows continues to be, in comparison to my sweet Mac setup at home. Just sayin’.
• Clothes are once again a big deal. There was a point a few years ago that I contemplated getting rid of most of my dress shoes, as I thought I’d never again need more than a couple pair. I’m glad my pack rat instincts won out. But I have had to invest in a bunch of new shirts (mostly short-sleeved with built-in pocket protectors to go along with the whole IT geek thing) and slacks.
• And speaking of clothes, I’ve discovered a new Law of Nature: the likelihood that you’ll spend most of the day crawling under desks to run cables is directly proportional to your decision to wear black dress pants, which is itself inversely proportional to the likelihood that the janitorial staff vacuumed the carpet within the last six weeks.
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are really, really complicated.
• You know that guy who said that if he owned Hell and Texas, he’d rent out Texas and live in Hell? I’m pretty sure he went to Houston for GIS training in August.
• Unwinding my web design business has been a bittersweet process. Most of my clients have been quite understanding and supportive, some even to an embarrassing point (one made a fairly sizable donation to a local charity in my honor). I do miss the diversity of interaction with the wide range of clients I was blessed to accumulate. What I don’t miss is hitting the computer at 6:30 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. to serve those clients. And part of the reason I’ve been absent from the Gazette is that I was continuing that service in addition to working the new job, up until September 1st. My eyes are just now losing some of their glaze.

Of course, the upside to all of this comes every other Friday. A steady paycheck is the best way I know to calm the raging seas of Second Thoughts. Oh, and let’s not forget the brilliant concept of Paid Vacation, something I haven’t experienced this century. Yeah, life is good…and gets better all the time!