The Go In-Betweens

So, it's over. It's done. My involvement with Ramp ended on Monday evening of this week. It was an odd one because out of all of the jobs I've left, and there seem to be plenty, this was the first that my reasons were not either getting shown the door, or leaving due to the inevitibility of a mental breakdown. I mostly left Ramp just because I knew there were better opportunities elsewhere, and because of quality of life choices, i.e.: being able to walk to work each morning, thus gaining back 2-3 hours of each day.

In retrospect, I gained a lot from my 8 months at Ramp. I got into the UCD process pretty heavily during that time, grabbed another peek at Microsoft culture, and walked away with a handful of lifelong contacts. The dark side of it all was that being there also put me in some of the most stressful situations of my work career. I mostly felt like I was on my own to get a handle on some pretty complicated problems, during some high intensity situations. When I met these challenges, it was very rewarding. But going through it all put the first gray hairs on my head. There were some days where I walked away thinking "I just can't do it. It's not worth it." So now I'm headed for a much lower-stress, seemingly more longterm situation. My promise to myself is that no matter how things turn out in the beginning, I will always look at this in terms of months down the road rather than days and weeks. The idea of being at the same place for the long haul suddenly seems attractive to me.

So now we're in the "go-in-betweens". I'm on day two of my 3 day period between jobs where I'm trying to get caught up with my life. Yesterday, Leilani and I spent a lot of time organizing the home, and what we would do to make it a better place. I slipped out for a haircut, a prescription refill, and Fathers day shopping. I also picked up a new shirt and tie. Will be needing a few of those.

Today, we've mapped out some furniture shopping. Our plan is to immediately find new blinds for the sliding door, as well as a new dining room table. Less urgently, we need to find a sofa (Lei would argue it's more urgent), and a new coffee table. In between that, we'll be bringing Leilani's friend Molly to the airport.

To wrap up the go-in-betweens, I'd feel much happier returning to work knowing that I've cleared out unnecessary junk from my storage, and did a bit more organizing around here. May be biting off more than I can chew. When you look down the road at 3 days off, it seems like enough time to clear out all the clutter of your life. In reality, it slips away with you being lucky if you cleared out 2/3 of your list.