It's my blog, and I'll bitch if I want to...

..bitch if I want to, bitch if I want to - you would bitch too if it happened to you! Bum-bum bum bum bum!

So today, I am sitting here in my cube, at the job I have been at for a whole 2 months, and going through the old (all too) familiar process of going through all of my personal documents, emails and pictures, moving the ones I want to keep to my flash drive, and then deleting all of the copies on my hard drive. It's the same process I have gone through 3 times in the last year, and one I am getting all to good at. It is always bittersweet, and never something I ever really want to do, or envisioned I would have to do one day when first starting a job.

The job here at GCU was truly a 'dream come true.' I had been wanting to make the transition into a BA role for the last 3 years, but never seemed to be able to find anyone willing to give me that one break I needed. Then, out of nowhere almost (I say almost because I had started looking for something else - got tired of being mico-managed to the gills by my old boss at Sage, whom I affectionately referred to as 'BB'), I get an email one day from a recruiter named Laura Troy about a BA job that might just fit the bill. Turns out there is a company - GCU - that is looking for a BA with extensive development experience, even a developer who is wanting to turn BA. Miracle of miracles, my prayer was answered!

But as with so many things in life, too good to be true turned out to be just that - too good to be true. The boss, fantastic; the job itself, wonderful; the other BA I have to work with? Intolerable - loud, belligerent, demeaning, overbearing, snarky, defensive, duplicitous and just downright unpleasant. And all of that might actually be tolerable - IF he wasn't a personal friend of the boss; a personal friend who actually used to be the bosses boss at another company long ago. So yeah, that added in to all the other stuff has pretty much created an environment that is unbearable for me, and once again, I am revising my resume' and sending it out. Yuck.

It is so hard for me sometimes to not engage in negative stories about myself about this whole 'job situation'. It seems like I am the only person I know who has this trouble of keeping a job for any length of time. I did do a 3 year stint at Banner, which was a record for me, and could easily have stayed there. But other than that, it has been the story of a "Ramblin' Man" for me. And I don't see any of my friends or relatives doing it. Most of them have been at the same job since before I started college! Which leads me to ask myself "waht's wrong with me that I can't find a place to fit in? Is there something about me that makes me unable to work well with others? Am I the real problem?" I have been down the dark path of these thoughts, and the place they lead to is pretty scary, so I try to stay out of there.

I try to remind myself that only one of the jobs I have had in the last 8 years has actually asked me to leave (BGA) - all the other ones, I left by my own choice. And there was the time at Banner. I was able to navigate several tricky situations and personality differences to stay there for those 3 years. And I still have great relationships with many of my old coworkers. In fact, I met a group of them yesterday for lunch. So maybe it's not so much that there is somethign wrong with me, as it is that I still - oh boy, here comes the U2 reference!@ - haven't found what I'm looking for.

So, I guess the seemingly-eternal quest for a "decent job" continues for me. I actually got an email a bit ago from a recruited I contacted, and it is about an opportunity that actually sounds like a pretty good fit. And I am trying to remind myself that I DID get this job, which was a seeming miracle. And it really would be nice to get something closer to home - my new home in Mesa. Who knows - maybe something even better will come of this. And, maybe I will be unemployed for a month again like I was in June of last year. Who knows. One thing I do know is that I have a wonderful woman in my life and a family that I am very grateful for. And in the final analysis, that is what will last - regardless of the jobs that come and go. I may not have what it takes to be the "perfect fit" as an employee, but when it comes to being a dad, a brother, a life partner - well, I think I fit those pretty darned well!

Post one

Ok, so this is probably going to be the most nonsensical, utterly worthless blog I have done yet. And BELIEVE me, I have had some real "winners". And by virtue of the state of our society, I fully expect it to be a huge success.

"What is this blog all about?" you ask. Just what is says, say I - city smells. More specifically, the smells of the greater Phoenix area, including Tempe, Mesa, Phoenix, and maybe even just a hint of Chandler, with a little Glendale sprinked in occasionally for spice. And more specifically than that, it is about those smells I experience on my almost-daily motorcycle rides into the heart of Phoenix from my lovely rental home in Mesa.

Now one could also ask "Why? Why would anyone blog about that?" To which I would answer simply - because I am compelled to. And what compelled me was not the fact that there are different smells I smell each day (duhhh!), but the incredible, and often unbelievable variety of smells; sometimes smells that catch me totally off guard, and even evoke memories of times gone by, as smells can often do.

For example, yesterday on my way home, I smelled the scent of vanilla candles - you know, like those ones you buy at the store to make your house smell good. Here among all the car exhaust, industrial pollutants and other pungent odors, I smelled vanilla candles. Whoda' thunk it?

Then today on the way in, I smelled a smell that I can only describe as a fabrication or manufacturing smell - sort of a chmically (yes, that's a word - I just wrote it, right? has to be...) smell, with a hint of maybe paint, glue and wood perhaps, or even plastic. Not burning plastic though - that is another smell that I have smelled before, but not today.

So tune in, won't you? To see what smells I smell each day, and perhaps even read some of my other fascinating thoughts - maybe even thoughts that are inspired by the smells I take in that day. They say 'don't forget to stop and smell the flowers', but I ask this - why do you have to stop, and why does it have to always be flowers?