My Job and My Passion

I was reflecting on my post last night about not having my job define me. I was thinking this morning that over the past three weeks, that's pretty much exactly what it's done. I've been caught up in trying to figure out what I'm going to do "next". One of the great things about a big company is that they change and that you're given opportunities to move laterally and vertically. We reorganize and it's not uncommon for my job to change radically, or for me to be given the opportunity to take a very new position.

The crazy thing with my job is that I wake up just about every day looking forward to doing my job. I've worked virtual, out of my home, for the past 12 years and I love it. I like the people I work, I like most of the customers I get to work with and I like the challenge of what I do. To top it all off, I really believe in the stuff my company does and I love the company I work for. Most of the time. At the end of the day, those are the most important things. Money factors in to the fact that I want all of those job elements in a place where I'm valued. One of the ways my company expresses that value is through money. I'm a firm believer that if you love what you do, you'll be great at it, and in my line of business, that translates into money. I always find a way to spend what I've got, so while making more is nice, it's not on the top of my list really.

It seems like every 18 months to 2 years, I get an itch to change what I'm doing. I reach a point where my job stops challenging me. I can do the job too easily and I'm feeling too comfortable with it. At that point, I get restless. I want to do something new that makes me "uncomfortable" all over again. Something that pushes me to be better. I'm not a huge fan of being stationary. Being still just doesn't feel right.

I'd started looking at my options a few months back, most of them within my company. I'd identified a few that looked pretty interesting. I'd narrowed it down to one job that seemed silly to take. It was more work and more stress in a new group with a new job supporting a very challenging, very visible customer in a new way with more travel. The real upside of this would be the challenge. It was way outside of what I'm comfortable with, more in an operations role working as more of a general manager over $30M+ customer. I poured over this decision and even after I'd decided, the timing fell through and I'm taking a new job that I was promoted into. It's one I've done before and I'm pretty comfortable with, but I'm having to start from scratch to pull my team together. I've now got to figure out how to turn this into a role that will stretch me, when frankly it seems like it's standing still. On the positive side, I have a great job that I'm very good at, with people I like working with and that pays me well. I can't really complain, and I'm not.