Things Continue To Happen

The next part in my series of various reflections on my impending move falls on what happens to be my last week of work here in the Bay Area. That's hard to imagine at the moment, since ever since I stepped foot back here at home, all I've known during my weekdays was my commute into Oakland to work at a little known defense contractor named SAIC.

August 31, 2009 was my start date. June 3rd, 2011 will be my ending date. 641 days. 641 days I have been employed (enslaved?) by them. Officially, this job was my first foray into the real world (my previous full-time jobs all being internships), so despite my very open and unrestrained gripes about the position, there'll always be a sense of nostalgia when I look back on this.

I suppose we did still have our share of inside jokes...

I can't say that the experience was completely harrowing for me, but I do feel like a small part of me has died by working in these mundane conditions. Whenever I describe the nature of the job and my coworkers, there's a unanimous sense of disbelief that there would be such a concentration of boring people doing low-skilled technical work in one place. Didn't you go to happy hour? No, and in fact one year our holiday party had an open bar, and most of the people drank pineapple juice instead. Didn't you hang out outside of work? No, and when our company attempted to have work functions outside of the office, people had nothing to say to each other and started talking about work again. Well, you were there long enough, did you make a good amount of money and did your career there advance at all? No, in fact our boss had a meeting with us one day to explain to us that our job had no chance of a pay increase beyond what they gave us already (an extra $.10!) and that this isn't the job where advancement opportunities are available. Terrific. I hit the glass ceiling at an entry-level job.

And while it hasn't exactly quite hit me that I am reaching yet the end of another era of my life, I have been reflecting on what it is I'll be walking away with from this job. Then I really think hard about it and I realize I probably won't come away with anything useful. The job consisted mostly of low-level busy work, and it was only a matter of time before I completely snapped and burned out. I only hope that my burned out ambition and overall complacency can all be alleviated before the new gig.

In the meantime, here's to temporary retirement!


"Oh I don't mind your robe being there. It reminds me of you whenever I take a shit in your bathroom "
-BS

mm50

Wu-Tang vs. The Beatles - R.E.C. Room

Things Are Still Happening

I promised you all details of my impending new change in my last substantial post, so I won't disappoint.

I mentioned that New York City will be the site of my new ventures. Long story short, starting June 27th, I will be an SEO intern at Flying Point Media in New York City. What's SEO? Search engine optimization. Or, in layman's terms, digital marketing and marketing strategizing in the search engine realm, i.e. getting your site exposure on Google, Bing, and the like.

But wait, Mark, you never expressed an interest in this field before, why the sudden change? Well, if you've been following my blog for awhile, you'd know that I have been in a sort of rut for quite some time, some of that attributed to the field I have been working in. My current job and field has been fairly stagnant, and growth in the public sector/transit/geography industry is not going anywhere, very unfortunately. My two weeks have already been put in, but that's a topic for a future post. No, I think I'm ready to pursue a new path.

And yes, I realize that this is merely an internship position. But this company is hell bent on making sure their interns are hired right away after the internship period, so it's practically a temp-to-hire position. Unfortunately, bottom-rung intern pay sucks (especially in New York City!), but hey, I gotta start somewhere.

So how did someone like me, a person with no discernable background in marketing or SEO happen to land a competitive position in a lucrative and growing field thousands of miles away in New York City of all places? Networking. I don't mean to sound trite, but it really is who you know. Using the power of LinkedIn, I found a friend who was in this particular field, I expressed interest in and asked how she got started, and she mentioned an opening at her company. Sent my resume, got her recommendation, aced the interview, and before I could blink, I was offered a start date.

So that's the story. I haven't officially announced this anywhere else, so you lucky readers (yes, all 5 of you!) are the first to know! Don't you feel special.

Still so much to say, all to come soon enough.

"Sometimes I feel like Iím dumbing myself down to make things easier, so I have a safety net to fall back on and blame when I fail. But that's dumb, because in community college, there is no safety net. This is it."
-SS

mm49

Gladys Knight and the Pips - Midnight Train to Georgia

T'was my 2009 theme song

Things Are Happening

My blog tends to follow some sort of cycle. I blog consistently for a while, I stop. I apologize for not blogging.

I attempt common blog theme project. I succeed at said project. I attempt new common blog theme project. I fail to follow through.

I rant about work. I say things need to change. I reminisce on more exciting days. I wonder if this is all life has in store for me. I promise to act on it.

But there's a trend here you probably haven't noticed: all these posts have occurred sometime in the past 2 years. A sign? An indication that I haven't been completely satisfied with my direction in life since the year 2009?

In most of my posts this year (with the exception of the 365 project), I have complained, I have lamented, and I have bemoaned the direction my life has taken. I have found colorful ways to describe the state of things in my life ("largely unremarkable," "soulless mediocrity"), so I won't rehash any of those sentiments. I've said all I could on those subjects. It's gotten to the point where I have become so passionless about what I've been doing that I don't even want to take the effort to describe it anymore. So I won't.

Instead, I'll start talking about what is going to be happening (and consider this my first public announcement):

In a little more than a month, New York City will be my next venture.

More details to come.

"my life changing move elsewhere is a vociferous and whip-happy dungeon master."
-RI

mm48

George Mason University Green Machine - Killing in the Name Of

mm47

Robin Thicke - Complicated

mm46

From The Corner to the Block - Galactic w/ Juvenile & Soul Rebels Brass Band