As the Job Turns

November 29, 2011

I’ve decided to leave my job.

Actually, that’s not completely honest. I decided a little while back to leave my job. But today I’ve decided to write about leaving my job. Big difference. Now it’s serious.

Leaving a job is a funny thing. Most of the time — this time included — when people leave a job, it’s to find another job. That’s the goal: hop directly from one speeding rat racer onto the back of another. Which is sort of odd, if you think about it. There are very few things in life which one leaves, just to glom onto something of the very same kind again.

Take spouses, for instance. One doesn’t — usually — leave one’s spouse simply to jump headfirst into another matrimonial bed. Outside the Maury Povich show and certain late-night weekend Cinemax feature films, that sort of thing is pretty rare.

(To be fair, some spouses do leave their husbands and wives for other people. Fairly regularly, if you believe the TV dramas and reality shows and chat line commercials in vogue these days.

But that’s different. That’s not leaving your wife for another wife. That’s leaving your wife for a busty cheerleader who cooks killer pasta and doesn’t mind you snarfing Cheetos in bed. Never mind whether she actually exists — for some people, the specter of said indulgent culinary cheerleader is enticement enough.

Which is good, I suppose, because a specter’s as close as they’re ever likely to get.

I asked my wife if I could leave my job for a busty rigatoni-rocking Cheeto-enabling cheerleader. She said no. So I’m finding another job, instead. As “Plan B”s go, I can’t say it’s my favorite.)

“Come to think of it, I don’t need a refresher. I need whatever the Twitter version of Cliff Notes is.”

At any rate, I’m leaving my job and finding a new one. It’s not an entirely new experience for me — a sizable portion of my standup material was based on an interview I once had. But that was eight years ago. And frankly, I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter, having just been unceremoniously laid off, along with many dozens of my closest coworkers after nearly four years on the job.

So it’s been over a decade since I’ve voluntarily taken my ball and gone home. And then taken my ball to some other office and dropped it there, because a man’s gotta work if he’s going to pay for beer and internet and bionic dog hospital bills. But the point is, I could use a refresher on this whole “job hunting” thing. Last time I did this, LinkedIn didn’t exist yet. Now I’m supposed to use it to hypnotize my four-and-a-half connections into giving me job offers, or something. Business is weird.

Come to think of it, I don’t need a refresher. I need whatever the Twitter version of Cliff Notes is. And a 3-D holographic resume, just to get a foot in the door.

Luckily, things appear to be coming together fairly quickly, When you’ve been doing what I do for as long as I have, in the places I’ve been doing it, and with the people I’ve done it with, you wind up making a few connections. No matter what your stupid LinkedIn semi-circle figures want you to believe.

And somewhere along the line — if you’ve ever helped those connections, or worked alongside them, or once offered them a piece of gum, only slightly chewed, for just a nominal gum transfer fee — you might get a boost out of one of them toward a new position. Or a good recruiter. Or a pit of angry vipers.

(This is why I always double-check the address for any set-up “interview” I might be pushed at. Anything on Snake Lane or Adder Way, and I’m out of there.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I might not have enough antivenom handy to survive the ordeal. No, thanks.)

So I’ve had some leads, and some interviews, and things are looking good. By next year, I should be wearing a brand new uniform.

(Which is the same old rack of rugbies I’ve always rocked. But somehow, maybe they’ll be just a little brighter, no?)

With the holidays looming, I’ve had to let people at my current job know the score. A few have seemed surprised, maybe even shocked — giggling and gleefully clapping your hands indicates “shock”, right? — but I think most people have seen this coming. I mean, let’s face it. I’m leading a few people right now, and thanks to me we have two team mottoes:

#1. Hope is for babies.

#2. It can always get worse.

Probably not the sentiments of a man content with his current lot. You don’t see a lot of “hope is for babies” in the Dalai Lama’s books, just for instance. Gandhi was ever so slightly more upbeat than that. Hell, for that matter, Edgar Allan Poe was more upbeat. The time, she is ripe.

So it’s off on a new adventure — sort of like the one I was thrust into when I started this site back in mid-2003, when the wheels were clearly coming off my previous job. Will I meet another ZOLTON, PUNISHER OF SOULS? Will I be spat out by some corporate conglomerate machine? Most important, will they let me scarf Cheetos in bed?

These questions and many more shall be answered… as the job turns!