Christopher Street

Melancholy.

I miss my old job.

For seven years, I worked in a distribution company, which basically means that we were a reseller of product which we then delivered or shipped. I worked in myriad capacities for them over the years, some jobs better than others, but all pretty cool. I was in customer service, I was in sales, I was a project manager, I was a department manager. I finished my career there as the regional Director of Customer Service.

Why I left is a rather long and tortured tale but it will suffice to say that we got bought, I got a new boss, the new boss asked me to do some ethically- and legally-challenged things, I refused (because I have this burdonsome sense of personal ethics), got branded as a troublemaker and was offered the delightful choice of remaining employed but taking a 2-level demotion (and watching those at my new level also get demoted to make room for me) or leaving with an anemic severence package.

I took the anemic severence package. And I got another job, on paper a better job, in a better, more marketable field, making tons more money. But sometimes, I still miss my old job.

It's not that this is a bad job. It's not, really. I work for a company that has some real challenges, sure. And I don't always agree with the way that we do business. But, no one has knowingly asked me to violate federal law in the 2 years that I have been here and that is a plus.

Still, not a week goes by that I don't miss my old job. I miss the fact that I knew our business, end to end. I was really good at what I did, whatever that happened to be at any given moment. I was a go-to person. I was a problem-solver, someone that could make things happen. Here, nothing ever happens, let alone something that I made happen. I miss the pace, which surprises me. When I left, I said that that would be the one thing I wouldn't miss. I said that life was too short to waste it running after errent packages and dealing with hostile customers. Mostly, I said that I was leaving because I was exhausted. The irony of that, of course, is that I miss it so much, that feeling of tired at the end of the day because you worked so damn hard. Most days, that kind of tired was accompanied by some sort of success story. I'm tired, but I got the toner to the irate woman in Delaware...or the A4 paper to the London office in time for the big meeting...or something like that. I was tired because I had fixed someone's problem. At my old job, I was part of the solution.

These days, I'm still tired but it's a bad tired, a tired borne of dealing with unproductive crap all day. That's not a good kind of tired.

Mostly, though, I miss the people that I worked with, many of whom are still there. I miss Laurie, who frequently drove me to drink, and usually in a good way. And, I miss Mark, who was my best boss ever and Colleen who hated dumb people even more than I did. I miss Adil, who rubbed my shoulders every day. I miss Pat, who made me laugh. I miss Tracie, who flew halfway across the country for my birthday. I miss Jim, who did jello shots with me in Vegas. I miss Pam, who prayed for me, even when I probably didn't deserve it. I miss Bianca and her warm, Carribean accent. And I miss Janet, who is probably the best person of all.

Don't mistake this nostalgia, though, for regret. I left because the people that took over after the merger were bad people, people that were asking me to do bad things, people that lied, people that asked me to treat my employees poorly and to break the law in so doing. I can't work for people like that. Pesky ethics--can't seem to get rid of them.

There are days, though, when I think back to the company that we were for a while, and I am sad. I guess this has been one of those days.

Posted by Lori at April 9, 2002 4:33 PM