{"id":150,"date":"2020-01-31T19:42:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T19:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.vectrocom.com\/?p=150"},"modified":"2020-01-31T19:42:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T19:42:47","slug":"post-from-an-antique-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.vectrocom.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/31\/post-from-an-antique-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Post From An Antique Land"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Confession time.<\/strong> They say for a blog to be successful you have to be transparent and tell it like it is, no bullshit. So I been thinkin’ about like, well, why do I feel so bad for having been laid off? Happens to the best of us, right? And I can’t pretend that I had the best career out there. My “team” was spread across two states and two countries and the person who fired me was my boss’s boss’s boss and never met me before the day he represented the true meaning of at will employment <\/em>and told me to hit the bricks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why feel bad? Here’s why. See, I’ve been where I was for fifteen years. Actually closer to sixteen, since I started as a contractor and flipped to FTE (full-time-employee for the uninitiated) after a year for – get this – job security. Cue Nelson Muntz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway that’s a pretty long time. And I’ve been through a lot of reorgs. As I’ve also said, I think, the primary product of our upper management is not a strategy or new products or ways of working – it’s org charts. I mean, that’s really<\/em> all they do, is just rearrange the deck chairs. (If anyone from there is reading this all indignant that you developed new operating models and such – please. Spare me. You just cross off names and fire people when the CFO comes around, because at your company, IS was, and never will be, anything but an expense.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I survived reorg after reorg. And here’s the thing. It made me feel special. It made me feel like there was something great about me. And that’s the confession part, because the people that were let go were generally good people too. Sometimes they were my friends, and even as I was bidding them farewell and good luck and acting all sympathetic – deep inside I was gloating because I survived. <\/em>I was better than they were, and management could see it. I was special. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nope. Just lucky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So getting laid off takes that little illusion away, strips reality bare and you see just what a dickhead you were, or at least I think I was, and that’s my little confession for the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good news: I’ll never feel special again. Except maybe when I beat my high score in spell tower or my kid draws me a picture. That I’ll allow. But a company will never again matter to me in any significant way. It’s just an income bucket and the key to all of this is to have a lot of buckets going forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In closing, something relevant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said\u2014\u201cTwo vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is\u00a0Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I am, your humble correspondent, signing off from lone and level sands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good news 2: it’s Friday, baby!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Confession time. They say for a blog to be successful you have to be transparent and tell it like it is, no bullshit. So I been thinkin’ about like, well, why do I feel so bad for having been laid off? Happens to the best of us, right? And I can’t pretend that I had … <\/p>\n

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