2018 - The Year of Changes

It is 4 a.m. and I'm awake.  Not just awake, roll over look at the clock and go back to sleep awake but awake drinking coffee not going back to bed awake.  I blame going to bed too early for the predicament I find myself in this morning.  All in all not good as I'm out of town for work, practically a stones throw away from Canada in Northern NY and have three appointments and about three and a half hours of driving to get back home in order to start my weekend but better yet my vacation.

I won't complain too much though because in a year of change I'm setting about ending it with yet another.  Let me catch you up to date...

In July I left my job of nineteen years.  Something about spending my entire life at my job and living out of my office, a suitcase and an airport got tiring.  Worst yet my compensation in no way reflected the amount of work I did for and on behalf of that company.  I gave them everything and at the end of the day they just couldn't do the right thing, at least not until I gave my notice which was a little too little and a lot too late.

So I moved on to my present employer and honestly I can't say enough good things about them.  They get it.  They've done the right thing since day one.  My co-workers, my boss... They're all great people.  My boss especially... The man is a whirling dervish of dedication and drive.  A salesman who lives, eats, breathes and loves the product he sells, the job he does and the people he interacts with.  If  I didn't need what I know I need to be successful, I'd want to emulate him in the role I'm playing right now.

This role however is not for me...  And while there is a part of me that feels as if I'm giving up too soon, a bigger part of me is more relieved to know that the job offer on the table will still support the job I do and the company I currently work for but will give me the structure I am so desperately craving to return to.

I'm not an outside salesperson.  I'm an inside manager who travels as needed.  Who keeps her finger on the button of control and keeps everything in front of her organized to the tenth degree.  This person I've been trying to be gets lost behind the windshield of her car and feels displaced, out of touch and unable to feel the pulse of the job itself.  In other words ineffective...

I've actually cried a few times in the last six months from the pressure of feeling for lack of a better word untethered and un-pressured.  And that's the thing, in this job those are the last two feelings I should feel.  If anything, I should feel the weight of the world on my shoulders and the drive to be the best.  But all I feel is lost and disconnected in an environment that leaves too much time for thinking too much about things that won't lead to my success and makes me doubt my ability to do the job as I know it needs to and should be done.

I'd like to think that my leaving will actually play out better for my boss and my job.  I'll become their customer and in my new role, I will absolutely sell - the way I know how to sell - the product, the brand and the reputation of my current company in a way that works for me, grounded with my feet on the floor, a desk in front of me, a steady stream of customers and projects to manage with my finger on the pulse of each and every single neuron.  This is what works for me, this is where I excel and this is where I have to go...