For the past ten years, I have spent most of my time working for startup companies, or companies that were in the process of rapidly expanding their already established business. The lure for me has always been to be part of something new...part of creating something that previously did not exist. Every day at work was something exciting or new, and staying up until 3am working on a project for the next day was all part of the lifestyle. One time, I even found myself working on a project for work while I was on a cruise ship in the Mexican Riviera...over a VERY expensive satellite Internet connection.
But now, my lifestyle has changed, and the startup environment is like an annoying relative that you can't get rid of. I've fallen in love and gotten married, we've moved to suburbia, and we're thinking of starting a family....and I love all of those things about my life now....much more than the adrenaline rush I used to get from work.
So I'm looking for that 'thing' to do that balances my skills and talents, as well as my career ambitions, against the personal goals that I have in life. I've made the observation that couples who are extremely successful financially don't have the best marriages (because they're married to their jobs, not to each other), and that couples who focus on their undying love for one another instead of their careers find themselves eating beans and passing clothing down from their oldest son to their younger daughter.
I know I can't have both....it's fairly rare to be incredibly successful and have the perfect family life....but I want to do what I can to find a job where I can be reasonably successful and have a pension to look forward to in 25-30 years, and be a reasonably good husband to my wife, and father to my future children.
Is it possible? I don't know yet. But I am going to try my damnedest to find out.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Baby Blues
I am not sure if it's normal, but I want a baby as badly as my wife wants one. I have talked with other guys, and most of them seemed somewhat indifferent about fatherhood. But honestly I can't see my future without some little ones running circles around me and the missus.
Statistically, about 20% of couples will have some kind of problem conceiving a child the first time. Four couples that we are close to have children, so I guess it shouldn't have come as a surprise for us when, after 2 1/2 years, we still weren't pregnant.
We went to the doctor for infertility therapy. I dutifully provided my 'sample', which checked out okay, and my missus went through a series of tests clearly devised by a mad scientist, and those all checked out fine. "Your infertility is unexplained", the doctor told us. That was, until they decided to put us on some powerful drugs to help the process along, and they found a growth in the area of my wife's reproductive organs.
"It's not cancer, but it has to come out. You're going to need surgery."
Fast forward five months, and the Doctor has just wrapped up a laproscopy to remove this "thing" from the love of my life. I've been a ball of nerves for months leading up to this procedure, but my wife went in as calm as if she was getting ready to take a nap. My fear had been that the Doctor was going to come out of the OR and tell us that it was worse than he thought, and that he had had to remove my wife's ovaries or uterus.
"Thing's went great," he said. "We took it out, and although it was the size of a grapefruit, she's going to be just fine now. Her organs all look healthy and textbook. See you in a few weeks for the follow-up."
After hearing that, I broke down. Finally, some good news and a chance for my wife and I to breathe life into the child we've wanted for so long.
Stay tuned...I will let you know how it goes....
Statistically, about 20% of couples will have some kind of problem conceiving a child the first time. Four couples that we are close to have children, so I guess it shouldn't have come as a surprise for us when, after 2 1/2 years, we still weren't pregnant.
We went to the doctor for infertility therapy. I dutifully provided my 'sample', which checked out okay, and my missus went through a series of tests clearly devised by a mad scientist, and those all checked out fine. "Your infertility is unexplained", the doctor told us. That was, until they decided to put us on some powerful drugs to help the process along, and they found a growth in the area of my wife's reproductive organs.
"It's not cancer, but it has to come out. You're going to need surgery."
Fast forward five months, and the Doctor has just wrapped up a laproscopy to remove this "thing" from the love of my life. I've been a ball of nerves for months leading up to this procedure, but my wife went in as calm as if she was getting ready to take a nap. My fear had been that the Doctor was going to come out of the OR and tell us that it was worse than he thought, and that he had had to remove my wife's ovaries or uterus.
"Thing's went great," he said. "We took it out, and although it was the size of a grapefruit, she's going to be just fine now. Her organs all look healthy and textbook. See you in a few weeks for the follow-up."
After hearing that, I broke down. Finally, some good news and a chance for my wife and I to breathe life into the child we've wanted for so long.
Stay tuned...I will let you know how it goes....
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
I Am Not a Cubicled Resource
Let's begin with an ending: In short, 2006 sucked, and I wasn't sorry to see it go. I started the year out in a job that I thought was going to take me places, but I ended up being miserable in. Mid-year, my wife and I got the news that she was going to need surgery to remove a growth that was preventing us from starting a family. And toward the end of the year, in what seemed like a personal atomic explosion, my grandpa passed away, my wife went through the ordeal of her surgery, and I went through a personal breakdown that led me to realize that it was time for me to go back to work in the "real world".
So when the clock ticked past 11:59pm on New Years Eve, I was GLAD to put all of that behind us.
I can remember when this mess all started. It was May or June, and I felt like I was really taking the business that I worked for places that the partners had never imagined. It was a small company, where I was one of just a few people who worked there, so my role in the company was quite large. But whenever it came time to reward me for my hard work, I found my reward to be quite lacking. Instead of a raise, I would get cheap show tickets. Whenever anything would go awry in the company, I would get berated no matter how quickly I worked to resolve things, even if the problem was not my fault in the first place.
Then the unimaginable happened. One day, while having lunch with the more 'eccentric' of the business partners, they tell me that they've come to the conclusion that their role in the company is to 'use me as much as possible to make them the most amount of money possible'. Straight out, just like that, they tells me this. And while I realize that the ultimate goal of any business owner is to leverage their workforce to make them the most amount of money possible, I have never had someone tell me to my face that they feel that they need to use me for their own personal gain.
All at once, I felt like I went from a key part of making the company a real success, to nothing more than a cubicled resource, to be used up until worn out and then cast away.
That was the beginning of the end of my involvement there. I refuse to wake up in the morning with the sole purpose in life of making someone else rich. I am not a cubicled resource!
So when the clock ticked past 11:59pm on New Years Eve, I was GLAD to put all of that behind us.
I can remember when this mess all started. It was May or June, and I felt like I was really taking the business that I worked for places that the partners had never imagined. It was a small company, where I was one of just a few people who worked there, so my role in the company was quite large. But whenever it came time to reward me for my hard work, I found my reward to be quite lacking. Instead of a raise, I would get cheap show tickets. Whenever anything would go awry in the company, I would get berated no matter how quickly I worked to resolve things, even if the problem was not my fault in the first place.
Then the unimaginable happened. One day, while having lunch with the more 'eccentric' of the business partners, they tell me that they've come to the conclusion that their role in the company is to 'use me as much as possible to make them the most amount of money possible'. Straight out, just like that, they tells me this. And while I realize that the ultimate goal of any business owner is to leverage their workforce to make them the most amount of money possible, I have never had someone tell me to my face that they feel that they need to use me for their own personal gain.
All at once, I felt like I went from a key part of making the company a real success, to nothing more than a cubicled resource, to be used up until worn out and then cast away.
That was the beginning of the end of my involvement there. I refuse to wake up in the morning with the sole purpose in life of making someone else rich. I am not a cubicled resource!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)