I'm a Goddamn House Cat

Thanks to some changes at work, I've been slacking on all things internet: writing for this blog, reading and commenting on others', and keeping up with the latest nonsense on Twitter.

We just went through a re-org, the first I've had to go through in seven years at this company. That means I have a new role, a new team, a new boss, and a new and exciting level of work and stress that I need to get acquainted with. 

As long time readers of the blog know, I work in procurement and have ever since I was getting my undergrad. I worked in my university's procurement office during the day, negotiating prices and contract language, running RFPs, managing our supply chains and cutting POs, and then went to classes at night to earn my BA and then, later, my teaching credential.

After teaching for a hot second, I realized I liked negotiating with suppliers a lot more than I liked negotiating with teenagers. So I broke the record for shortest teaching tenure and then came right back to the field that was so good to me over the past couple decades. The work made sense to me: analyzing total cost of ownership and booking cost savings, haggling over prices and hammering out language that would eventually be memorialized into a contract. And I was good at it. I am good at it. Which I've found is a big part of liking my career.

But thanks to this re-org, I'm now in a new role: a role where I need to be an expert in this one specific technology commodity...and I'm not yet. I'm trying to pick things up as best I can but it's going to take time and, in the meantime, I'm not really doing that well. 

After years of knowing my position in and out, and being the guy who people asked questions of, now I'm the guy asking all the questions. I don't know the technology category. I don't know the processes and policies to get things done. Worst of all, I often don't even know who to ask to get the right information, so I sometimes end up bugging a whole string of people just to track down one answer.

Beyond the general 'new guy' stressors, the team is understaffed. There's too much work for the number of people, which is leading to the whole team putting in long nights to catch up on email and projects, low morale, and stress that's starting to kind of just be with me around the clock. 

I've been here before with a prior corporate job, and back then, once I started waking up in the middle of the night worrying about my projects, I started asking around for new positions. 

But now that I work from home, even though work is rough, I kind of don't want to leave.

The thought of having to commute again, just on its own, is almost enough to keep me where I am. I hate thinking of all the hours I wasted over the years, sitting in traffic, navigating rush hour twice a day, wearing out my left leg while working the clutch. 

No. Thanks. 

And then there's the pre-work ritual of making myself presentable to my bosses and coworkers. While I haven't done this in years, I still remember waking up early just to shower and shave, iron my shirt and pants, scarf down some breakfast, just to climb in my car and hit the road. This is time I could be sleeping. Plus, then I have to wear those dang dress clothes all day.

After a few years of working at home, I'm kind of accustomed to working in the t-shirt, shorts, and bare feet I'm most comfortable in. It sounds ridiculous and this makes me sound like a wimp, but I really don't like wearing dress shoes for ten hours a day. They hurt my feet.

Beyond the avoidance of all the little inconveniences and time wasted with modern office life, there are some big perks I enjoy from working at home. 

In between meetings, instead of chatting about sports at the water cooler, I can hang out with Baby AF for a little while. I can feed him a snack or sneak in a little playtime with him on the mat. 

And I get to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Mrs. Done by Forty and our baby every dang day. The t.v. is off and our phones are away, and we get to have a meal together and just talk. I know this probably sounds boring AF, but this is kind of a real life goal for me.

And there's the little stuff, too. If I need to run an errand on my lunch hour, it's easy to. If something needs to be prepped for dinner, no big deal: I can pull something out of the fridge or get a head start on dinner when I'm on a conference call that I don't need to talk on. All that little stuff is pretty nice.

So while my new role is proving to be stressful and humbling, and is maybe even one I'd typically leave, I'm finding myself pretty...stuck. We're so close to financial independence. I'm just...comfortable where I am. In my house. I don't want to have go out into the world again and hunt down something better. I'm just too used to being in the house, and I don't want to leave.

I think I'm a goddamn house cat.

If I don't like my situation, everything should be pretty clear cut: go do something about it. The fact that we're so close to financial independence means I should be more willing to make a change, like take a lower paying job. I should work up the courage to leave the comfort of home behind, look to see what's out there, and then find something that's better. 

That's what an outdoor cat would do. If a neighbor stopped putting food out, or started chucking rocks like some sadistic fuck, then that outdoor cat would just find a better bunch of humans to hang out with, end of story. They wouldn't just stick around. 

But despite the new job bringing on some pretty righteous stress, the kind that has me thinking about work a lot during the evenings when I'm supposed to be focused on my family and my hobbies, and occasionally has me waking up in the middle of the night, I'm so comfortable in my current situation that I hesitate to give it up.

Sure, the job itself might be rough for the next couple years. But Baby AF's freaking adorable and he's here all day. I have baby on demand. 

And Mrs. Done by Forty is done with her PhD and is home, too, available to sneak in a quick round of a board game during lunch if we want. 

And the pay is really good. Maybe the stress is just something that comes along with that?

Maybe my prior job at this company, the one that was way easier and less stressful, was an aberration. It seems like everyone in the corporate world is putting in some rough hours and dealing with some pretty upsetting shit. What if I think the new job will be better for my mental health, and it turns out not to? Then I'm missing out on family time, and sitting in a car for an hour or two and sitting in full length pants and a shirt with a collar and shoes that cover my whole foot for no goddamn reason.

This is all just whining. I know that. And it's some of the worst kind of whining: a guy who's complaining about how his unfairly high paying, work at home job is now suddenly stressful. 

Welcome to the party, pal.

But, hey, this is my life, and these are my feelings. I figure everyone eventually gets used to the situation they're in; then if things get worse they're going to react to that. Even a spoiled little house cat whines if you forget to feed him.

*Photo is from the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue, which is also in the running for the most interesting source of a photo from Flickr Creative Commons.