First thing I did upon starting my work day was to open a beer. Just one out of two purchased for the occasion of yesterday being payday. I then proceeded to skim through my inbox and appointments for the day, concluding that beyond migrating this one production system over to the new VPN there's not going to be a whole lot happening today. Just like most other days.
Second thing I do is to fire up my personal PC. For three reasons:
- Write this post
- Check if there are any new torrents worth downloading
- Check my personal e-mail to see if the competitor has gotten the paperwork ready. I'm so looking forward to jumping ship for the competition.
So, long story short, I worked for a company we'll call A. We had a customer that we'll call B to whom we sold a few older production systems. Then A got bought up by huge company C. Initially I didn't mind. But while A was the perfect size for me - Big enough to give me a nice budget and the resources I asked for, company C is 90% red tape, where I can't do shit without approval from everyone. On top of that, people more skilled at office politics than I managed transfer all of the interesting aspects of my job halfway around the world. Then, it turns out that a couple of former coworkers of mine joined company B as consultants, and they wanted me on board. 30% pay increase, and I get to do what I liked to do again. That's an easy choice. I can't jump over soon enough.
So while I now am severely overpaid to do ridiculously easy stuff, I'm so fucking demotivated and sick of my employer and all of its corporate bullshit (which constitutes 80% of my inbox nowadays) that even when I do nothing, and I'm sitting in my living room couch, I fucking hate it.
I had a revelation around half a year ago, where I was out in the field, and I was having a beer with a friend/coworker. "It's not fun anymore..." we agreed. That's when I started toying with the idea of looking elsewhere. I used to enjoy what I did for a living. I found my work day interesting, the right amount of challenging, and it catered to something I was good at. And I know most people have more valid complaints than their job not being fun, and I know that I'm spoiled in that regard. I hate my current job, not only because it's not fun. But because it's turning me into someone I don't want to be - A bullshit employee with a bullshit job.
I don't know where I wanted to go with this post, or what I wanted to achieve. I just needed to vent, even though the gas that comes out of the vent is a moist fart with not a whole lot of pressure behind it.
I do now. The thing is, my job should exist. It's just that the reasons for it existing aren't as prevalent anymore.