Change Is Good

On his blog, Drew Robbins talked about inviting change into his life, resulting in a terrific job opportunity for him. Alex Lowe made a big job change to help him focus on his family life. Change is sometimes negative, but I'm a firm believer that one's attitude frames how change will impact their life. Enough Dr. Phil-like blabber. I'm happily entering a major change in my work situation. My employer since August, 2003, decided to change their telecommuting policies, eliminating my opportunity to work from home while juggling child raising needs. I was forced to chose between putting our kids in daycare all day, or leaving the workforce until I could find another position with the same flexibility. The choice really wasn't all that tough. Today was my last day of work and I'm honestly looking forward to the next several months. I'm leaving a position which had offered me few chances to do interesting technical work: For the most part I'd spent the last 18 months doing proposals, white papers, customer support and very rudimentary process analysis work. Before that, I had a miserable two years of test engineering and trying to manage customer relations for a group of developers and customers who were between them conspiring to drive an amazing system into the ground. All in all, booring and miserable stuff for someone who is more interested in actually creating things. This break in work gives me a chance to update my technical skills and get more involved with the developer community. I'm hoping to even get a .NET users group started in my area. During that time I'll continue to search for a neat job which will let me do telecommuting, at least until my wife retires in 18 months and I can move to a full-time, onsite position. Yes, I'll miss access to some neat tools and hardware provided by the company, but I've been out of work and equipment-poor before and still managed to finish off an MCSE despite that. Most importantly of all, this break gives me a chance to recharge my batteries and reconnect with my family. Change. It's a Good Thing.