Don't Follow My Lead

For the first time since I was 17 years old, I am without a proper job. I will officially be unemployed. Thankfully I’m doing it under my own terms. But still scary. Today is my last day at my current job as a Systems Administrator.  I hope I did a good job for the company and the time I put there.   I love my co workers, and their ball busting ways.   Even if work wasn’t entertaining, at least they were always good for a laugh or an interesting conversation about the different Terminator timelines or which Avenger is the least useful (Black Widow).

I got to say, that leaving the country and going into the unknown in 2 weeks doesn’t scare me.  Its should, because I have so very little planned for what I’m about to embark, yet, I’m more at peace with that decision everyday.

What does scare me, is the fact that I no longer have a job.   I always knew I had a paycheck coming my way. Now the idea of not having a paycheck scares me, there’s no safety net, no going back.

A while back I had a one-on-one meeting with my manager. I told him that in about 2 months I would be leaving the company.  While my skill sets are not unique, I have been in this company for seven years.  I have forgotten more about this place that I can ever document, so I thought it would be beneficial for him to know about my plans, so that they can plan on how to replace me.  He said “I hope you have a good job opportunity coming.” As a way of wishing me good luck in my next job.

However I said “I don’t have anything lined up. I’m traveling the world.” And as those last 3 words were coming out of my mouth, my eyes watered. If you know me, you know I’m not much for touchy feely moments, so the fact that I got momentarily choked up was unexpected for me. But it really set in stone, the moment I’ve been planning for over 20 years.

I went to one of the sites I support(ed) yesterday, my last on-site visit.  The fact that I’m leaving the company was brought up, and they start asking me questions about my plans and why I’m doing this.  I don’t have great answers for those questions.  But I did say that, there’s an imbalance in the way I run my life.  This woman also agreed with that statement on her own life.  I know there’s plenty of people with that same sentiment.

One of the reasons I like to travel is that you get to know a different sides of yourself.  You meet people along the way, and you feel more at ease with these strangers.  It forces you to open up.  It took me a while to figure it out, but is the fact that when I’m traveling nobody asks me “What do you do for a living/work?”

It’s such a first world question.

I can’t express how much I detest that question.  I don’t like to ask that question, but sometimes I can’t find a way to NOT ask it.   And I don’t like when people ask me that either. In United States what you do for a job seems to define you as a whole person, it helps to label you into an expected box.   Lawyer?  Well you must make a lot of money and be an asshole.  Dentist?  You must be a sadist. lol.

It’s an easy way to tag people for sure, but the times I have been to other countries, I don’t think I have ever been asked that question.  They don’t care.  That’s not what completes them.  Their jobs are just the vehicle to put food on their tables, not what drives them to be fulfilled (or not).  Their families and friends do that.

In United States a get together is as much a celebration as is in other countries, but in other countries it seems they do it daily.  We are lucky if it happens weekly here.   When I was in Peru, my aunt’s house was the hub of the family.  Her daughters, sister(s), brother, would come by almost every day, they would laugh and talk, and be a united front.  They knew what was going on in each other lifes.  It took me a while to realize I didn’t know what most of them did for a job.

Work was such an afterthought in their lives.   The way it should be.  I shouldn’t be so scared.  I won’t be.