Career Moves

Real life is interfering with my blogging. Choices must be made. Time managed. Decisions decided and obstacles derided. There's a lot to do and no time to lose, and I'm just soooo damn damn tired, I just want to snooze.

Sorry. Composure! There, all better.

Tough quarter, Q4 07. Don't want to go through that again. Business is down all around and no less so right here. Pulled together a resume for the first time in a year that starts with a "2" and went job hunting. Got out the big gun, which these days comes in the form of a Toshiba laptop. Job hunting is now virtual! Who knew?

Virtuosity makes the hunt appear easier, but I am not deceived by appearances. If it's easier for me to submit 5 or 6 applications a day, then it's easier for all those underemployed losers I'm competing against, too. Too bad for them. I am all over this process.

I hope.

So, I've got a promising lead. Good face to face with the recruiter. Said he's recommending me. Yay! (How do you spell relief?) Waiting for the interview with the actual prospective employer. Trying to go through the company website, which is extensive. And slow as molasses. It won't even fully load on my PC, and I have a T-1. So I'm reading a competitor's website to hopefully get a grip on industry issues I'm going to be an expert on next week when I meet these people. Let's hope I get them right.

Sweet irony is dropping by, of course. Just when I'm ready to abandon this entrepreneurial adventure I've been on for over four years, business has a significant uptick. My CPA tells me that this is the downfall of entrepreneurs, we are ever hopeful. An uptick could mean it is finally all coming together after years of hard work, long hours, worry, risk, big changes, small changes, indecision, strife, exhuberance and stress, lots and lots of stress. Maybe this is really it!

This irrational optimism is what allows a new entrepreneur to abandon a perfectly good job to try to get rich with that business plan typed up when the boss wasn't around. And irrational optimism is what has kept me in business for well over a year after any purely rational businessperson would have called it a day, turned off the lights, and gone home. So, why give up now? Just when I have an uptick?

Why indeed? No small rhetoric there. A real question that begs a real answer.

The answer my friend, is as wispy as the wind. Because it is a very personal answer in a very impersonal context. Entrepreneurs, like me at least, are not always real businessmen. I'm not. I thought I would get really rich doing this, and getting rich sure sounded good. Well, I'm not rich yet. Not even close. It's been up and down, and pretty exciting at times. But I'm tired of the smallness of it. I may change my mind next week, but this week I'm looking to get into a large organization where someone else can worry if we run out of paper towels or toner. Where my phone is just on everyday because someone else takes care of it, and if my laptop crashes I don't need to pull out my own credit card. I'll have fancy business cards with someone else's name on them. And nobody will threaten to sue me personally. These are not rational business reasons. But they are my reasons for today, and I'm going with them.

Until I change my mind. Which I may very well do.

See you at Wal-Mart!