A month in (halfway thru '24)

stumbling into a new job

At work, I push long term ideas into tasks due on July 4th or December 25th. But this time, there’s nothing on that TTD list for Independence day.

It started on January 9th. I went to a BOE meeting in the morning to get my DMV construction contract approved and then received an email to attend an all-hands that afternoon.

Our Administrator was demoted. A couple of weeks late,r our Deputy Administrator was also demoted.

The Division wasn’t perfect under them—the seeds of overwhelm that pushed me out started under their watch. But the place had changed. Even though I like the guys who stepped up in their void, the Director made his mark.

People often think government workers have a ton of protections, but as a “non-classified” employee, I could be fired for any reason. Once it became clear that anyone would be fired at any time for stepping out of line and the workload had gotten out of control. Why stay?

Only for the projects.

That’s when a phone call from a mechanical engineer fell from from the skies. Or the airport (same difference.) I thought about the offer and demurred.

A week later, she called back and directed me to apply before the deadline expired at 5pm. I was in San Diego about to go to the zoo. Fine! Tippy-tap on the iPad, cutting and pasting from LinkedIn onto the county website.

A few weeks later they called for a first interview, a half-hour time slot.

Ok whatevers, let’s get coffee to see what it’s about. She warned that this was my only shot, there wasn’t going to be a second interview.

Oh! The competitive juices kicked in. If I’m going, go hard. I changed the appointment to an in-person meeting and spent the weekend updating the resume and work sample.

I didn’t open that portfolio during the 48 minute conversation but walked out feeling great. Both about my performance and the opportunity.

I’ve been on many interview committees for contractors and architects for the Division. It was humbling to be at the mercy of other people’s decision again. Fortunately, it was a short wait. They decided fast.

Speedrun through salary negotiations (with the advice of my network), drug tests (a moment in gratitude when I realized I was the wealthiest person in the building), background checks (a long wwwwaaaaiiiittt), and now I’m airport employee.

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Four weeks into the new job, I’m still in the honeymoon phase.

It’s a huge relief to escape the overload from the previous job. I didn’t realize the psychic toll until I had to start using my alarm clock again¹. For the past year, I had been so amped up on work nights that I was waking up at 3am and 4am “naturally”.

It’s also a relief to work thoughtfully. When work was creeping up, the first response was to cut corners to save time. Even though I had my supervisor’s blessings, doing slapdash work is its own punishment. Then to add insult to injury, I started doing (uncompensated) overtime to stay afloat in emergency mode. Three weeks ago, I had a sudden jolt, “I can think again!”

I’m certain the meetings and intensity will creep up, but it’s a good sign that they aren’t throwing the new guy right into the fire. As a planner, my work with affect everyone negatively—who wants to work inside a remodel? So politics will rear its ugly head soon enough. But so far so good. My team is chill and everyone has been super welcoming.

Plus, the airport has offered me more food in a month (two lunches and popsicles) than six years at the Division! I guess that makes up for getting asked “Do you even speak English?” at a termain…then getting berated by the drunk passenger when I couldn’t stifle a nervous giggle at getting hit with this schoolyard taunt as my very first question from the public.

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I wonder if I’ve been posting less because I now have an audience on Substack. Or maybe Ockham’s Razor just says, “Dude you’ve been too busy at work!”—after all, it’s hard to post much when I haven’t been writing at all.

But Grizzlypear is the digital archive of my life since 2008. I need to excise that pressure to “provide value” to “my” readers. That’s not why I’m here. I appreciate y’all and I hope you enjoy my blatherings, but I hope you don’t mind that this place is more of a blog than a “newsletter”.

That said, here is a listicle of self help nuggets from this job change.

1. Always have the conversation. I learned this adage from my last boss in private practice and I almost blew an amazing opportunity by initially declining the conversation.

2. Sometimes it’s a favor to sell harder. I don’t want to own your happiness, but there are times when it’s appropriate to push back. I’m grateful that the mechanical engineer told me that I was making a big mistake. A couple of days ago, the PM who took over my old projects gave me a call. It felt good to be helpful, but I also felt “Thank god I’m not doing this no more!”

3. If you need to leave, don’t stay. I feel bad for the projects I left behind. I would have been the best PM for those jobs. But they’ll be fine, the agency always takes care of itself. But I wasn’t fine—and I didn’t even realize it until I left. Corollary: If you’re not certain if you should stay, you need to go.

4. Draw boundaries. Definitely easier said than done. But I didn’t do the Division or my projects any favors by taking on so much work that I gave up and left. I should have been disagreeable early to nip the overwork in the bud. If I wasn’t overloaded, I’m pretty sure I would have (been dumb enough) to stick to my guns and not-apply for the airport position.

5. Learn when to offload. A huge perk at my old job was the freedom to innovate. As often happens in corporate life, if you grab responsibility, you get stuck with it. I should have been insistent on offloading ancillary tasks to others after my improvements had morphed into maintenance mode.

6. Be nice. Even though I’m cocky enough to think I was the ideal candidate for this job, I only found out about the opportunity because I defended a mechanical engineer during a stressful project with a bad client ten years ago.

7. Never hurts to remind people that you exist. It’s a chore to pick out a photo and gussy it up for a holiday email each December. But it’s fun to hear back from old colleagues every year. And what’s the ROI for being top of mind when a new opportunity pops up?

8. Funny how getting paid changes your perspective. I never thought passenger jets were beautiful. But they are so sexy now that my paycheck is tied to them. I love watching the tail of a jet slice through the air like the fin of a shark. What troglodyte would resist the romance of flight!

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This weekend I finished a calligraphy notebook with this tiny poem. It shouldn’t have taken five months to fill up this notebook. But I’m going to do Vegas Ordinary for July before re-evaluating which daily practice to practice daily.

suburban
saturday

breakfast
   organic
corn with
   toast

rush! rush!
   off to
basketball
   class!

1. I know, I know! I shouldn’t need an alarm clock, especially since I’m a morning person! I need to start going to sleep earlier so I can wake naturally in time for my work schedule.