Burn the Ships

I have a new job!

This might come as a bolt from the blue to some people, but trust me, I've had this on my mind for a while. I've had this nagging feeling since about November that while my job is fine for now, it's not a company I want to be with long term.

It would be in poor taste for me to use this platform to rant about every little thing I don't like about my job, but i do have a couple of big reasons. One being that the advancement opportunities that I was told would be available are not near as common as I was led to believe. The second being that I felt like I was constantly putting out fires because of inefficient workflow management instead of being proactive to provide the best. I can do that for a while, but it was wearing on me. The company was just not what i needed in a long term job. I knew that there must be a better fit out there.

Over Christmas, I started shooting applications to other labs to see what was out there. Sure enough, within a couple weeks, I got a response. Not only did they want an interview, they wanted to interview me for two positions because of my qualifications.

The interview went well. As I mentioned in my last post, I slay at job interviews. Usually, if I can land an interview, I get a job offer. As I was escorted out, I was told that they had a few other people to interview and that I would hear from them in the next couple of days. I walked out feeling good, hopped into my little Sentra, and heard a song on the radio that hasn't left my head since. "Burn the Ships" by For King and Country. The metaphor comes from when Captain Hernán Cortés landed in Veracruz to conquer it. He ordered his men to burn the ships so they couldn't go back, they had to take the land. I'm not a huge fan of the whole conquest thing, but the metaphor is useful. Burn the Ships, no going back, into the unknown. It's also a good song.

The interview ended at 8:30. I took a break at work around noon and pulled out my phone to see an email from the place I had interviewed at. An email with an offer. In four hours. The door could barely have closed behind me before they decided they wanted me. I now had a decision to make.

I do like my current job. My coworkers are wonderful and I do like a lot of the tasks I do every day. I make enough money to live quite happily and I like my working hours. The company is trying to improve and major workflow changes are coming. Maybe that will make this place better than my new offer. I could stay with this known quantity. My ship.

I told my manager I had an offer that I was considering, as a courtesy. I like my manager, and didn't want to completely blindside everyone. It was hard to work because my mind kept going back and forth, weighing the pros and cons, wondering if something better was out there and I should wait. When I got home, I do what I always do when I have a lot on my mind.

External processing. It's where I talk it all out to someone and they tell me to do what I already want to do, I just need to make sure there isn't something else I should consider. Who is on the receiving end of this depends on the exact situation. This one was a job for my mom. So I called my mom and gave her the verbal equivalent of a wall of text detailing my feelings on my current job and the offer. She ended saying that I knew what I needed to do. Yeah, it's true. Mother knows best.

"Burn the ships, cut the ties,"

I accepted the offer. It was time to draft a letter of resignation. I waited to hand it in until Friday, so that my two weeks would end on the last day of January, and the new job would start right at the beginning of February. Nice and neat. But man, walking into the supervisors office with that letter was ten times harder than walking into the interview. It was my point of no return. Once this is in, the countdown begins.

"Send a flare into the night,"

I handed in my letter and started telling my coworkers. There were two general reactions from two different ilks of people. The ones at the bottom of the totem pole with me were excited to see me moving to something better, and some even asked where I had applied because they were thinking of leaving too. Those higher up in the company, who didn't have the stressful, frantic workflow generally were like "You're leaving? Why?" To be fair, I'm a cheerful person and don't complain often, so it wasn't obvious that I wanted something more. I had a couple of people say that they were sad to see me go because I was good at my job and they liked working with me more than most of my coworkers. But I knew that I must go.

"Say a prayer, turn the tide,"

My second to last week has given me opportunity to use my exit in a positive way. The lab hired a new manager that whipped another lab into shape, so maybe he can rework our lab to make it more efficient. He had round table meetings with everyone who works in the lab to see what is happening vs. what corporate has told him is happening.

My round table was great because is was able to say all of the things I think the company could improve to someone who can do something about it. And because I'm almost out, there could be no negative repercussions! Not that I was planning on staying anything too crazy, it was just nice to know that there wouldn't be simmering resentment to deal with. I like my coworkers, so I wanted to leave them with the best chance for a better situation than the one that made me quit.

"Dry your tears and wave goodbye"

I have struck the match and the ships are burning, I'm going into my last week, then I start my new job! My next post will hopefully be about my new work, so stay tuned. And if you know it's time for you to burn some ships and take that first step into the unknown, do it. You can't explore the new world of you stay in the ship.

"Step into a new day
We can rise up from the dust and walk away
We can dance upon our heartache, yeah
So light a match, leave the past, burn the ships
And don't you look back"

Lyrics: "Burn the Ships" by For King and Country

10 years? Really?

Welcome to the new decade, my friends. Not that it means a ton from a scientific perspective, we just made a few more laps around the little star we call the sun. But culturally? Ten years is actually pretty significant.

My tenth birthday was the first time I was allowed to have a huge slumber party. I invited all of the girls in my class (which sounds like a lot until you remember that in my class that was like 9 total), we played games, I got tons of presents, it was  my favorite childhood birthday party in memory

For ten years of my life, I was in 4-H. Some of the stuff I did for that program was STUPID and I DIDN'T WANNA. But other things were really fun and I have fond memories of things like modeling and showing rabbits. And still other things seemed incredibly annoying and dumb at the time, bit I'm glad I learned them. The Favorite Food Revue taught me about table setting and menu planning, which is something I encounter all the time now. I had NO patience for some of the things that I sewed (my mother can vouch, I have no idea how she had the patience for my nonsense), but without that, I would have way more difficulty making the cosplays that I love so much. Overall, 4-H was time definitely not wasted.

Ten years ago, I was preparing for my first speech meet. Some of my favorite high school memories are centered around speech practice and meets. I was able to bond with my friends and discovered that I love to make people laugh. Plus,And I wasn't half bad at it, and I've got the medals to prove it. Additionally, I learned skills that have been tremendously helpful since then. In college, presentations were so much less stressful for me than they could have been. I knew how to articulate an idea in a way that people actually wanted to hear. In an environment where Ii had to carefully divide my mental energy between projects, not having to expend much on delivering presentations was a lifesaver. I never would have gained that skill had it not been for those winter days spent having my delivery picked apart over and over.

Beyond college, my years on the speech team have given me confidence in interviews. Sure, it's still heart-pounding, but I can bring back a little of that overconfident teenager who can sell a lighter to a dragon (hey, I still like to make people laugh). Speech taught me things that have shaped my personality. It has become a part of my identity that I am a public speaker. And you know what? I've been a public speaker for ten years.

 Speech queen

Job interview queen

Ten years is kind of the default for "a long time." It's a nice, round number and it feels like forever when you're living it.

When I was in college, I started encountering a mentality that we all develop to some degree: that it's too late to start something new. It's an easy thing to fall into when you pick up sheet music for the first time while surrounded by those who read music when they could barely read words. It seems like you're behind, that you have to "catch up" to everyone else. It seems so insurmountable, what's the point? As I get older, I see that more and more. It feels like we've missed the boat on learning new things.

But consider this: if you start learning that thing, by 2030, you'll have done it for ten years! And that's nothing to sneeze at. Take up an instrument, learn a language, get the education you've always wanted. Ten years is a long time to be able to enjoy something. And what better time than a fresh, new decade to pick up something you will enjoy for the next ten years?

I hope you're encouraged by the prospect of a new decade and it's possibilities. I'm choosing to be positive about it, so here's to another decade of adventure!