Tag Archives: transition

It was the end of a decade…

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For the last ten years, approximately a third of my work year has been dedicated to party and event planning. This week is the first time since 2014 that the annual big show is set to start and my fingerprints aren’t all over it. My feelings are unexpectedly mixed.

I’m absolutely thrilled that I haven’t needed to convince dozens of presenters that they need to do things my way. I’m ecstatic that I haven’t had to deal with months of schedule changes and wanna be primadonnas making absurd demands over every detail. I’m incredibly grateful that I haven’t had to spend time discussing the best way to lay out tens of thousands of square feet of circus tents, how best to remove light poles from the parking lot, what live bands we can get for three consecutive nights of social extravaganzas, or whether it’s strictly legal for the US Government to host a whiskey tasting and cigar bar as part of an industry engagement event. 

I won’t need to figure out the inevitable chaos of registration and check in. The moment something goes wonky with the live stream won’t be my problem. I won’t be fielding complaints from people in the audience who have an outsized sense of their own importance because they’re an Executive Vice President of Who Cares. 

I’m not going to get a panicked Teams message that the bathroom is flooding. I won’t spend the night dreading the possibility that the whole tent complex could blow down if a reasonably strong thunderstorm happens to pass through the area. 

There’s nothing about that that doesn’t feel good. 

There is, however, a small part of me that will miss being a minor shot caller this week (Mostly because number of bosses who wanted their name associated with this mess was always very limited). I’ll miss working closely with some of the key players without whom the whole effort would collapse. I might even miss the sense of barely hidden mayhem and chaos that could break out at any second during a live event.

It’s just as well that this experience has passed to others this year. I’m not at all sure I’d have been in the mental or physical headspace to give it the level of attention it needs way back when planning kicked off in the fall.

I wish the team leading this ongoing, multi-year hot mess the very best of successes. I hope they knock it out of the park… if only so people will stop thinking my name is somehow inextricably linked with this particular Big Show. This week is going to feel just a little bit weird, but then I guarantee I’ll be 100% pleased as punch to have the thing be someone else’s problem. 

Overthinking the process…

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I’m an over thinker. I’ve been that way since I was a kid, when I’d regularly worry myself sick about whatever issue my dumb brain chose to fixate on that day. I tend not to make myself sick anymore… although my blood pressure range might indicate that’s not entirely true. Still, I tend to dwell a lot on things that other people might tend to breeze through.

Now that I’ve at least gotten Anya to roam the house for a few days while I’ve been working, the next obvious step is trying to make a decent introduction between her and Jorah. In the olden days – or as I remember it from the early 1980s, when someone who came home with a new cat would just turn them loose in the house and let nature take its course as the newcomer sorts out the household routine, resident animals, and the dos and don’ts. 

Now, deep in the kinder, gentler 21st century, we have a thousand websites and experts with their own 47 step process for introducing new animals in the home. They seem well intentioned, to be sure. Maybe they’re even advocating the Best Possible Way™ to do things. The thing is, as much of an animal lover as I am, I’m not in a position to dedicate every hour of every day to catering to their every need. I’m happy to provide fresh food and water, unconditional affection, a safe environment, and if needed, specialized medical attention… but at some point, I need them all to simply exist together, even if it’s not a love match.

Much like I had to resort to old country vet methods of getting medicine into Anya, I’m beginning to think I’ll need to adopt the old ways to get these introductions over the hump. I don’t mind keeping a few gates up so the new felines have clear lines of retreat, but continuing to cycle between loose dog and loose cats every couple of hours feels like a ridiculous way to keep going indefinitely. Of course, all of this is only true for Anya, as Cordy continues to steadfastly refuse to abandon the comfort of their safe room… so we’ll need to do this all again if and when she decides to emerge into the broader household.

I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for one more big effort here – and I’m tired just thinking about it.

Disorienting but comfortable…

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I’ve lived through the four presidential transitions as an adult. They all come with the same basic features – mostly the victorious and defeated parties trying to figure out the shape of their brave new world.

What I wasn’t mentally prepared for in 2021, though, was just how quickly Donald dropped off the radar (unless you’re steadfastly tuned in to “alternative news” sources).  After hearing his steady drumbeat for 4 years, waking up each morning and scrolling Twitter before my feet hit the floot to see what batshit crazy thing happened overnight, the last few days have been a remarkable return to politics being just politics. 

It’s like having walked through a foggy landscape only to emerge, unexpectedly, into a bright, clear upland of well-known surroundings; disorienting, but comfortable.

I’ll be railing against President Biden’s agenda soon enough, but I’m kind of determined to take the weekend and really just appreciate the wonder of how completely different it feels.

My lying eyes…

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I’ve worn glasses since I was in 7th grade – meaning I’ve had them now far longer than I ever lived without them. They feel like a natural extension of my face at this point. 

My prescription has changed over the years, but for the last decade or so has been fairly stable. That’s why it was painfully obvious early this year that I was struggling to keep the small print in focus. What’s worse, after long sessions with the book of the day, I’m regularly finding the words blurring together and my eyes just too tired to focus on anything that’s not halfway across the room.

It hasn’t been debilitating, but has been thoroughly annoying and disheartening from day-to-day as it sets limits on how many pages I can get through in a sitting. I don’t make a habit of living in fear, but if there’s anything in life that causes me an unreasonable amount of dread, it’s the idea of losing my vision. It’s precisely the kind of perverse plot twist the Olympians would devise for me. 

I took a few hours of sick leave this morning and schlepped over for my annual eye exam and diagnostic for this new issue. This appointment has been on the schedule for months and given the sum of other circumstances in this plague summer it’s one I would have probably cancelled… but since current situation is standing between me and fully enjoying the books, I’m 100% willing to risk painful, suffocating death to get it resolved.

As it turns out, Doc assures me I’m not, in fact, going blind… but it’s yet another instance of bodily succumbing to the ravages of middle age. My fancy new transition lenses should be here in about two weeks. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find some tennis balls to put on the legs of my walker.

New computer day…

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I’ve put it off for as long as I reasonably could, but today was the day that I finally was forced to send my venerable Dell Latitude E6540 into retirement. Sure, it was five year old tech cobbled onto a platform that’s design traced back to the early 2000’s, but I legitimately liked the big brick of a machine (when it wasn’t hopelessly crippled by security patches and software updates). Over the last dozen years I’ve probably had five different variations of this model and as much as it was big and heavy and generally clunky, it was a workhorse. I toted the E-series all over the country. The only times it ever crapped out on me was when I was working at the office… Which makes it about as reliable as any other coworker, really.

OK, so I’m just trading it in for a newer series Latitude from the same manufacturer and this updated unit as a few extra bells and whistles – some of which the powers that be who run the network haven’t decided to eliminate yet – but I don’t have a bond of trust with this generic black machine idling on the corner of my desk. I don’t have the same level of trust in its quiet, differential being that I had in my obnoxiously heavy silver companion.

It’s probably a better machine on all fronts, but the real problem is every time someone has given me a new computer, something horrific happens during the transition – half a decade worth of saved email disappears, the contents of My Documents disappears, various drives stop working, or the internet becomes “unfindable.” I’m waiting to see now what the form of my destruction this time around will be. Who knows, maybe everything will go swimmingly and the transition will be seamless… although based on historical experience that really does feel like the least likely of all available options.

Hey new guy…

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I’d like to say that the transition between career fields is more or less seamless, but I was struck today by the first inklings of the magnitude of the my current unknown unknowns… like how to print to the color printer. Yeah, I had to answer the one request the boss had of me today with “uhhhh… yeah… I don’t think I can do that… sir.” Sure, it’s not exactly a career breaking moment, but still, it was humbling enough to be brought low by office automation. And don’t get me started on the acronyms. I’m keeping a running list of the damned things to look up feverishly when I get back to my desk. It looks like I’m in flat out fake-it-till-you-make-it mode for the foreseeable future. I’ve been here before, though and vaguely remember that this part of the transition doesn’t last too long. Someday soon, I’ll even be the one spitting out unreasonably pronounced acronyms at the newcomer. Until then, it helps to be reminded that even the most humbling day here are better than being an allstar in the court of the walrus king. Such are the restorative effects of being on home soil.

Things to do…

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So we’ve officially gone directly from stressing about getting a job to stressing about getting through all the wickets to actually get there on time. It probably says something disturbing about me that I’ve sat down and started keeping track of those wickets using a color coded matrix. Of course this isn’t an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems like as good a way as any to keep track of the things I need to get done between now and June 4th. I’d anticipate in the next week or so this list is going to be alot longer than it is now. That’s fine. I’ve never shied away from hard work for a good cause… and my escape from Memphis is currently the best cause of which I am aware.

Today was a planned day off long before I got the word that I would be leaving, but I’ve tried to use it to good effect. Aside from the original planned trip to the vet, I’ve managed to set up appointments with two movers for quotes, changed some mailing addresses, started the process of changing my insurance coverage, talked to my sawbones about forwarding medical records, and even packed a few more odds and ends – before running out of boxes (again). That’s a reasonably productive day. I’m gaining confidence every moment that I’ll be able to clear out without too many issues.

Reception on the other end remains to be determined. It would be nice to have a house lined up and waiting when I show up, but the chances of that happening are slim to none. I don’t exactly have alot of time built in to the schedule to go poke around myself so I’m relying on the kindness of friends, family, and a slightly standoffish relator (at the moment) to point me in the right direction. Disturbingly, the most important features I’m looking for aren’t even something for me. I need a rental house that’s pet friendly and has a fence… because lets face it, trying to cram me, two eighty pound dogs, and a house worth of furniture into a two bedroom apartment isn’t going to happen.Neither is me running them in and out to a designated “community pet area” multiple times a night. So yeah, a house and a fence. Pretty much everything else is a point for negotiation.

There’s a metric crapload of things that still need done… and the clock is definitely ticking.

Boxes, boxes everywhere…

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Back in January, I was operating under the assumption that a move was just around the corner. In an effort to save time later, I set about boxing up those things that were “non-essential” and that I could live without for a few weeks during the transition period. What I anticipated being a few weeks, has drug out over two months now and is well on its way to shattering the three month mark before anything resembling a move takes place.

It seems I may have jumped the gun a bit on being prepared. The spare bedroom? Sure, that’s not a problem. I never spent any time in there anyway. The DVDs? OK, but I’m starting to feel the pain on that one. The biggest problem in this premature packing extravaganza is that every tool and general household item I own is boxed up and stacked neatly in the corner of the garage.

Need a light bulb? It’s in a box. Screwdriver? In a box. I’ve learned an important lesson here. Many of the things I have laying around the house are definitely non-essential… for a few weeks. Anything more than that and it gets to be a downright inconvenient proposition. So far, I’m resisting the temptation to crack open the boxes and making due with a Swiss army knife and Leatherman as household fix it tools. I’m reading a lot more to make up for the DVD’s now stacked up behind the couch. Unpacking these boxes even just to alleviate some bit of inconvenience would be like admitting defeat on some level… but I shall never surrender.