Friday, January 07, 2005

Honeymoon's Over

Bear with me, everybody.

It's gonna be a long 6 months.

The thing I always forget about this job is that the reason we can all sit around and screw off for 6 months is because for the other 6 months, we're working 24/7.

Blaine's a frickin' sweetheart, and he must have talked me up like I was fuckin' Jesus Christ, because I realize I've just been handed a career along with my corporate card. I'll be supervising document controls for all the new projects coming down the pipeline, which means training and overseeing the support staff in each location and making sure they're delivering and tracking the right information.

I didn't take in the full scope of what this really meant until we had our meeting in the warroom, and I realized I was the youngest person at a table full of men, and my name was up there on the "top" part of the top-down org chart, along with theirs.

What the fuck just happened?

Oh, shit, I got handed a career. Which I could still very well fuck up.

And, worse: which I don't really want.

It's funny, you get your shiny shoes and your suit jacket, and you get told to make plane reservations to camp out in Denver, and it's like, isn't this it? This s the top? This is corporate America. This is why you go to college, to get a good job like this with great health care and a 401(K).

And if I stay here too long, I'm gonna get my soul sucked out.

Don't think I don't know that.

I just want to write books. Fuck. Just pay me for *that*, OK?

So updates and rants here are going to be a lot more sporadic.

The Big Boys are going out to negotiate the NYC project next week, which everyone agrees is going to be long and messy. Prepare for rants from the warroom in NYC.

I've also come to the conclusion that I won't move to Denver. I talked with Yellow about it (they asked him to move out there), and I basically have the same reservations he does: I'm not in love with Denver, the corp. office is waaaaay too corporate (seeing Yellow spiff up for a real corp office was amusing), and honestly, Chicago is just way better than Denver. There's just no contest.

I either love a place, or I'm indifferent about it, and I don't know that I'd have any interest in living somewhere that's halfway between the West and the Midwest.

It feels like going backwards.

4 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

Anonymous said...

I suppose congratulations are in order, tempered by ambivalence though they may be. Best of luck with the increased workload- and see if you can sneak off and see a bit of our fair (?) city if you can; I feel confident in saying we can probably beat Denver. 

Posted by Brendan

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the new gig, Kameron...but do be sure to come back to Chicago before (or if) you get "the soul sucked out of you." Big as it is, this toddlin' town's great for replenishing lost souls. ;)

We'll still enjoy your posts, even though they become sporadic - and, here's to your future books! 

Posted by Lenka

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the new gig, Kameron...but do be sure to come back to Chicago before (or if) you get "the soul sucked out of you." Big as it is, this toddlin' town's great for replenishing lost souls. ;)

We'll still enjoy your posts, even though they become sporadic - and, here's to your future books! 

Posted by Lenka

Anonymous said...

Thanks, I have a feeling NYC will be a lot more interesting than Denver, too... And yea, it's a mixed sort of congrats.

The idea of heckling contractors at one o'clock in the morning just isn't my idea of a great time, though the boys' eyes light up at the idea...

Some of us, however, have lives.

My biggest challenge is going to be figuring out how to balance out my life with all of this going on. 

Posted by Kameron Hurley