Escape From The Island of Misfit Toys

At all of my jobs 'cept one of them, I have looked around and been like "Do I really belong here?" "Are these my peers?" "Would this be my jury if I ever did anything wrong?" This is hard sometimes and eventually I decided that to be a giant easily you must surround yourself by midgets. It seems I've done that, in some cases, or at the very least in my mind I have. In social situations, if the conversation is weak, unchallenging or uncompelling, I will often just turn out mine own lights by way of a brown bottle somewhere, however at work you can't always do that. Well, I guess I could when I did PR, but not in my current position. Also, not in my current frame of mind.

Anyway, my boss, which was one of the main reasons for staying in my current occupation announced her resignation today and will be gone in a month. Now, not only do I feel like I'm on an island, but my name is, in a box on an org chart, on an island. This is not a good thing, so I have been forced to start lashing together my raft to escape the island and find a new job, possibly. My job is safe, but I fear for my sanity if I stay. It's basically throwing your hands up to everyone that you have tried to help, that throws your face into some kind of work-fueled filibuster by dragging their feet, that they win. It's pretty much the mom telling her kid in the toy aisle, "Fine. I'm leaving. You can stay here if you want that toy so bad."

Now, I'm just trying to figure out what I do and how well. I'm not feeling superemployable in a cut and dry way because I've done a little bit of everything in my current job. Yes, there are databases and pop-up blockers and Visio diagrams. There are business processes, validation reports and ad hoc query creation, but what does it all amount to? I'm not sure.

Also, looking back at all of the previous jobs and realizing what a long trip it has been to here is kind of weird. It brought up this horrible memory of being in an Oracle SQL class on Valentine's Day which was my anniversary at the time. First and only one was that year and I think we ended up staying in and having a nice dinner, but I remember just feeling wore out and unhappy, but going through the motions anyway. As it turned out, so was she. The whole memory is just so depressing somehow and speaks volumes about this job. The last two years have been very difficult and unrewarding much like the relationship.

Anyway, the whole experience is pushing me back into a bunch of books to sharpen my skillset and be a badass, but it's overwhelming to take on all at once and sometimes I just shutdown before I can even begin. Regardless, it should be an interesting month coming up. I'm sure it won't be boring, so I've got that going for me.