I'm in a holding pattern right now. Waiting for my neighbors to get back so that I can ask them some questions on how to hang some blinds in the living room. Hoping to surprise HCW™ before she gets back home from the first day of her weekend training event at the office.
A holding pattern. Yep, a fitting metaphor for my life if there was ever one. So anxious to optimize the situation—make the right choice from among too many options— I end up usually making one which I know to be sub–optimal, and as a consequence, become unhappy about it. While it seems like everyone around me knows where they are going—that includes the Jones' as well—I stay stuck in neutral not knowing whether or not to run after having hit the ball.
It is a product I suspect of my fundamental interest in pretty much everything. Like a puppy dog—or a 6 and half year old Golden Retriever–faced with a slice of cheese (or ground beef), I am constantly shifting my regard to the left then the right then back again as various stimuli come and go. While at any given moment, I may have successfully deluded myself into thinking I was happy, the reality is that my stomach was empty. Eye candy it is. No more, no less.
The current focus of my sorrow is the sad state of my career and its resulting prospects. It is my opinion–and you may not share it–that I have driven my car—stuck in neutral as usual, moved there only by some invisible force—into a dead end. Now I have been working on the situation with a friend. We have whipped my resume into shape and have been spreading the good word accordingly, though I stopped soon after starting, a mix of fatigue, jadedness and depression stopping me before I really got started. The one position that perked me up, and on which I applied a few weeks back, has fallen through.
The source of this negative energy is my current job, both a boon—heck, it pays the rent—and a bane as it saps me of all my energy. I have come to the conclusion that my opportunities there are limited, and this in spite of any commitments I have made or am prepared to make.
So I found myself drawing up a list of alternatives just now on the dining room table. Assuming that I have done some sort of mental SWOT analysis, these are the ones that I came up.
- status quo: stick with my current employer. Pro(s): financial security (that's open for debate), not much else. Con(s): emotionally draining; no upside in terms of salary or career
- change career: use my current MSc studies as a springboard to change both industry and career track; ideal job would be in high–level consulting and strategic analysis; good example would be Royal Dutch/Shell's famous scenario planning division, the spirt of which can be found at GBN. Pro(s): stimulating, definitely what I like; reading would be a big part of the job; yum. Con(s): Risky, not as financially sure ...
- industry change: this means still working in marketing but changing out of working for small dinky software companies; instead going to work for a company with among other things an HR department, benefits like flextime and profit sharing—remind me again what profits are, it has been so long—, and some career upside. Pro(s): stimulating, stability, opportunities to advance. Con(s): could be boring.
- consulting/in business for myself: under this scenario, I would (eventuall) strike out on my own doing consulting probably in the things (I think) I know, including marketing, strategy, business development, entrepreneurship, financing, business plans, etc. Finally put digitera.com to good use (or why not true-silver.com). This is something I could on the side initially and then ease into when there is enough of a base. Pro(s): personal development, huge potential upside if it works. Con(s): Some initial instability.
I'll talk more about this stuff in coming days. In the meantime, though I am not yet decided, I am tending towards one or two of these options (a blended option as we MBAs tend to like ...). Which one would you choose ?