Well I haven’t written in a while really because I’ve been concentrating on my own feelings and my own family.
Don’t get me wrong I really did want to get the severance package I really did want to get laid off; I know it sounds bad but I did. The truth is I didn’t think how it would feel to come into work for the next three months knowing that I have no job afterwards. I also don’t think I put in to much thought as to how it would feel not to have any projects assigned to be me, and the projects that were to be assigned to me would be interesting tasks such as scanning in Certificates of Analysis and then having to put them on the shared drive…wow there is something exciting.
After hearing of my task to be shared with another chemist (who has 30 years experience) I couldn’t help but think and then say out loud with no tone of sarcasm…”this is why I went to school? This is why I have a chemistry degree?” I’m not saying I’m a superstar by any stretch of the imagination. I got decent grades at school, definitely not a straight A student, and definitely not my mom who is a genius, but, decent none the less. Yet, here I am scanning papers and logging them in, like an intern at a first job.
Am I being ungrateful, I don’t think so. I think that I am just being human. I have no ambition to come to work. I come to work 3 hours late and leave early and nobody says anything to me. I guess that is the only way I can really show the company my true feelings of not only being laid off, but being demoted to a position that interns hold. I am however, grateful to have worked in a big corporate mess, now I know what it is, and now I know how to deal with it.
Since I have been pretty miserable here at my position for the last 2 and half years I’ve decided not only to find a job that I will love but also that I no longer want to be a chemist. I’m not sure what I really want to be (when I grow up) but at this point it is not a chemist. I want to get into the business sector and see if my personality is a better match there. I feel that it will be. The other thing I have found out about myself is I refuse to drive as long and as hard as I have been to get to work. I am not looking for a 70 mile daily commute. I want something close to home and preferably downtown. Those are the things that I know. Everything else I want to explore. This is a good opportunity to really do what I want to do…the only problem is trying to figure out what it is that I want to do.
At this stage in my career I know I don’t want to work in a lab. I want to be a boss, a manager, someone that actually gets to make decisions and execute plans. I want to climb the latter and I want to do it now.
I wish I had a guidance counselor around to ask advice. You know the kind we had in high school and absolutely hated. I remember the kind sweet old lady that was my counselor. I couldn't stand her. She was so clam it was inevitable that she was a bad person, because good people aren’t that sweet and calm…I saw her blow once…not pretty, like I said not a good lady. Yet I wish that something like this existed for people out of high school. I could just walk down to the first floor office and brows through books of professions that I would like to do when I grew up. I guess when I go visit my parents in t-1 hour I can see if the old high school is open and see if I can step inside for some nostalgia and a book or two on professions.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
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2 comments:
We have a temp secretary who took over for a woman on maternity leave. The woman just came back and now the other one has another week until she leaves. She pretty much sits around and reads a book. She helps out when needed, but the other secretary pretty much got back on top of her things fairly quickly.
I would suggest going to http://www.salarysource.com/description.cfm they have a list of titles and descriptions of what they mean.
When you are looking for a job, try to leverage you existing experience, even if it is a different field. For example, if you wanted to go into sales/marketing, try to do it in a sector that deals with chemicals. That way you can be a subject matter expert and comein with relevant excperience instead of starting at the bottom of the food chain.
You will also want to customize your resume for each job you apply for, so it looks like you are a perfect fit for the job.
Let me know if you'd like help brainstorming or playing with resumes. I do a lot of that.
Having to go to a place where you know "the end is near" is the worst feeling. In 1993 I broke up with a girl friend and lost a teaching job all in the same 30 days and I just hated to get up in the morning. I had more motivation at the temp job I had, filing papers, than I had during my last quarter of teaching.
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