Job Stuff

About two and a half years ago, J interviewed for and was offered a job at a plant here in the LR area. With our families still living here in LR, and with two young kiddos, it made sense for us to look for something here. We both felt this was a cleaner, safer, and healthier place for the kiddos to grow up, despite the economic advantages of Houston.

The down side was the job situation. My job in Houston was a godsend - an attorney job that was actually the 40 hours a week it was billed to be, at a firm that I respected, working with people I actually liked. I was not optimistic about finding something like that in AR, so I made a pitch to telecommute when I could, and make trips to Houston when I needed to.

Somewhat surprisingly, they took me up on it, ostensibly on a 6 month trial basis. I never heard another word about the trial period once the details were settled, so I guess everyone was happy with it.

When I proposed the telecommuting idea, I said quite plainly that if it didn't work for either of us - me or the firm -  I had no trouble ending the effort. I never wanted to be in a situation where I felt like I was regarded as not giving a full effort. I also needed to make sure that traveling worked for me.

And everything worked fine, for a while. But I spent four weeks in Houston in January of this year, and it just didn't feel right anymore. The travel schedule is pretty unpredictable, and it's hard to stay connected to both people and cases when you work remotely. Sometimes it worked fine, but sometimes I felt very isolated.

Alyssa will start kindergarten in the fall, Benjamin will be in first grade, and it was hard to stay on top of what all was going on at school with them when I ended up heading out of town fairly often. Not to mention trying to plan activities and keep up with everything going on.  Dear god, the paperwork... So when the majority of my cases wrapped up in February, I started seriously thinking about making some changes.

A few other things happened that pushed me in the same direction, and last week I knew it was time. It sucked, it was not a fun decision, but it was the right decision, and that's what really matters. In another year, in ten years, it will still be the right decision.

So. What's next? I have no idea. I'm going to take the summer off with the kiddos, and once school starts in the fall I'll probably try to figure something out. I have this crazy notion that something will just fall in my lap before then anyway. That is actually what happened with my current job - it could happen again, right?  RIGHT?