There is a certain happiness sighted when your bus comes along. It is of course a small specialized form of happiness and will never be a great thing.

-Richard Brautigan, The Old Bus

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The end and the beginning

The wife and I are enjoying a leisurely breakfast at LaBou, across the street from the University of California, Davis, Medical Center. We are meeting the wife's oncologist to discuss her coming chemotherapy.

We took the No. 82 bus from our house to the 65th Street light rail station and rode the train to the 23rd Street station. Today I turned in my Sacramento Bee ID card. I am now officially unemployed.

I've decided this is good. I had been unhappy at The Bee. The lack of opportunities to do new things -- I'd been on the job for nearly 28 years -- combined with the increasing workload as staffing cutbacks took effect left me little reason to stick around.

But it took The Bee to cut the golden handcuffs that held me to the job. Now the opportunities are unlimited.

It also has been helpful that I have been free to travel with the wife as she prepares to battle breast cancer.

This all looks better today than it did June 16, 2008.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm a firm believer that things happen for a reason, and that setbacks such as being laid off are really gateways to new opportunities.

I've been laid off several times in my career (comes with the software territory), and all but once do I feel that it got me in a new direction. (The one time...I really do miss working for that company, it was my dream job, and I would love to go back.) I was even laid off twice in the past year; both times, I'd become somewhat unhappy, and now I'm very happy. I can't say that it's dream (see earlier reference), but it's pretty darned good.