Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Losing your rudder

I often sit down and wonder "what if" and today, being stuck at home with a brain that is working but a body that isn't I began to consider what on earth I am doing at the moment.

When I got bladder cancer I was pretty much at the top of my game in terms of taking what I had learnt from the industries I had worked in and then gone on to channel that into a pretty unique way of managing (not unique in terms of ways people manage but in terms of a suite of software that actually worked the way companies worked). I had years of experience, I could win work because people tend to buy people and I was setting out future plans and directions for a business that should have seen me retire having built it up to its rightful position. Unfortunately I got Bladder Cancer and then got made redundant.

I went and did something else then, totally out of character but it seemed a good idea at the time. Once I peeled away the thin layer of varnish I knew differently and then I set up the family history business which is still sitting in the back ground here and I've been working on my other start up venture in the background as well as working at the charity.

I'm as competent in my present job as I will ever need to be and having never been an operative doing the same thing year in year out, I am beginning to tire of that quite quickly. As these guys aren't dynamic, a lot of what I have as my core competencies will never be allowed to see the light of day but if they do, and a couple have, they will be someone else's idea.

I blogged about wanting or perhaps needing to get out of the Jet Stream life I was in before I had Cancer and I needed to as it would have been difficult to maintain my work rate given the issues I have had both those I knew I might have and those I actually had.

At the moment I just seem to be in the middle of nowhere. I'm not the industry leading, powerful, energy ball that I was and what I do now I know I will find will not interest me for much longer. I find 9 to 5 and commuting on the same train and same seat and seeing the same people is grinding away at me. I still enjoy the job but I can do so much better than this.

The crazy thing is, I don't know what I want and I've got a good 13 years to give to some industry or other. I don't fit into many organisations because I'm not trained to do that, I go in and fix tings, set them up properly and then walk away and into the next trouble spot. Damn, I miss that cut and thrust and then again, I think to myself that perhaps I just ought to take the pay and take things easy.

There isn't an answer to this at the moment, it is a quandary that I've had to live with since I got BC. There probably isn't a right answer. I know other people have an opinion but this job doesn't hold the responsibility or the opportunity to do much in the way of improving the organisation or myself for that matter.

Let's see what news I get on the 3rd October as that will probably help me to build some ideas.

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