Plan C (If McCain/Palin are elected, and I haven't the will)

Just came across this great piece over at InfoWorld about Americans being able to offshore themselves if IT jobs continue the exodus.

Costa Rica sounds sweet, but I've always wanted to go to Israel and get my kosher on. Regardless, it's an awesome thing to see a more integration of a markets, needs, and talent. Feels like a Schoolhouse Rock spot.

It's like a line of dominoes

Oh man. This is just too good. So, my soon to be old job and me are essentially calling it quits, which is a good thing. I was basically asked to agree to a mutual dissolvement of employment. And I did. Kinda like Colin Powell turning in his letter of resignation, because he serves at the pleasure of the President. So I guess technically I'm not really being "terminated".

Whatever. I still feel like I escaped The Rock.

So get this. Oh man, this is just so good. First, I'm thinking that everyone in my group is just sailing merrily along and then someone who heads a major 2-year over-budgeted quagmired project leaves the group...red flag I says to myself...then yesterday's email announces "staffing changes" and I find out that my officemate is leaving - in the same month! He's been miserable as well! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHA!!

WAIT!

It gets better! I'm talking to another group member, who, at this point lets the cat out of the bag (because when you're leaving it doesn't really matter what you say as long as you don't burn any bridges you need to maintain) and tells me that she's leaving. She mentioned that she didn't feel supported by her boss (my supervisor) and didn't like the way the group was managed. She wasn't alone in feeling that way. I'm thinking that someone may show up on Rate Your Boss.

4 people are leaving the group in the space of a month. Damn. I guess it wasn't just me. Others found their job to be not what was advertised, and didn't like the group going in a direction that wasn't expected or desired. I'm smiling so hard right now. I feel vindicated and liberated. This was the best thing that could've happened. I was feeling like Mugatu and thinking that I was taking crazy pills, but really there was a deep bone cancer-like sickness that permeated the group dynamic making people unhappy members of a dying enclave.

Get the ejection handle, Goose! EJECT! EJECT!

Light at the end of the tunnel

My current job is breaking up with me. I'm glad. It was making me insane. I'm talkin' ka-ray-zee insane. Like, "the prices are insane!" It was only a matter of time before I broke up with it, so I'm actually pleased to have a clear exit strategy [wink-wink, check out the iRack] for my current slave. You could probably tell from some of my posts. They are rich with venom.

If anyone ever tells me that the job that they're at is a bad fit, I will now have perfect clarity on the situation. I'm talkin' perfect like Alexander Overwijk draws a freehand circle.

The good thing about all this is that I know what I don't want to do, so I'm interviewing like crazy, and I'm focusing my efforts on finding something somewhere that makes my happiness happy.

I've got some amazing friends and colleagues who've turned me onto other opportunities, and I'm pursuing them like Mark Foley goes after an underage man-brad.

So who called me today out of the blue for a pre-screen? This was for a job I thought wouldn't amount to a callback given they get somewhere around 1,000 resumes for a single job. Google. How sweet is that? Not just because it was Google, but because after months of fitting a square peg into a round hole I was getting to feel pretty negative, and now that I'm fully injected into the employment vein it's nice to know that I at least warrant a pre-screen from the Fortune-rated Number 1 company in the U.S. at which to work.

We'll see what happens. Regardless of the outcome, at least I have Stuart Smalley's teachings to keep me going.As a postscript, during my initial plans for hari-kiri I found the Commencement Speech to the Stanford graduating Class of 2005, as delivered by Steve Jobs. It was a good read, and highlights how the bumps in the road of life shouldn't be seen so much obstacles, but as experiences that should be taken as new opportunities...not to get all Tony Roberts on you.