About two months ago, after listening to me vent about a particularly problematic work situation, DMc pointed out:
If the start of the path is thorns and briars, the end of it will be man-eating bears and wolves.
A year ago, you noticed the poky bits starting to propagate. You haven’t gotten to the bears and wolves quite yet, but you know they’re there, waiting to finish eating your soul.
You still have time to change your path. We’re situated for it, and in fact, you taking off Q4 from Working for The Man would be excellent for our personal plans and timeline.
Cut them loose, they’re never going to be able to meet the promises they made to you – I’m not saying they lied on purpose. I do believe that your direct management didn’t deliberately mislead you. But, jeez, enough already with that place.
You’ve got a social network already established where we’re going, and you can find whatever work you want when we get there.
Pull the plug. DO IT.
So I did it. I gave 30 days’ notice and I resigned from Giant International Managed Services Company (aka GIMSCO), after two of the most intensely challenging years of my entire 25-year IT career. My last month was not anything like I had imagined or intended…but it’s over now, and my mind is starting to settle down. I haven’t had a work-related nightmare in over two weeks. All I will say about GIMSCO is that Managed Services is not a good match for the likes of me, and I met some really terrific people there, some of whom I hope to keep as friends.
A few weeks ago, I posted a frosting recipe and noted that I had not made a post since DECEMBER 2021. Holy shit. Really?! I lost nearly an entire year just swimming upstream from one fiasco to another.
This realization led me to the planner that I had purchased and started in late 2021. Right before McDad passed away suddenly and our world shifted into super-stressful hamster wheel mode on all fronts. I made a calendar update in that planner in February, and then never updated it again in 2022. If you know me at all, you know what a bad sign that is about my mental state.
Time for a reboot, obviously.
I ordered a new planner for 2023.
I took a moment and said a brief eulogy for the bubble of hope and optimism I’d had in early 2022. Because that motherfucker totally left the building by January 8th, and did nothing but tease our bitch asses until we decided to grab the wheel.
We’re done letting life happen to us.
We’re creating our own damn rules, our own damn timeline, and our own damn standards of living. I’m taking Q4 2022 off from Working for the Man, and we’re relocating the McCasa to The Hometown of My Heart. BAM.