leaving corporate america

This is my second month away from corporate america, where I lost my soul for five years somewhere in the land of beige cubicles. So I made some money, piled up a lump of cash in my 401K, wrote some cool brochures for my portfolio, and made what I think are life-long friends (photo of our writing team above) but was it worth it? In the meantime I lost a sense of who I am. I stopped writing about things that were really important to me. Instead it was all about products and branding and coverages. Sure, it was moving words around on paper, so my writing didn't suffer too much. It was my soul that suffered. And, yes, in the end my writing suffers. Because what am I to write about if I have lost my soul? So the past two months have been about getting in touch with who I am again. In some ways it's excruciating, because I have to deal with the fact of 5 years of lost time.

So I am back to writing about things I care about. But what do I even care about anymore? I'm starting at square one. It's a new day. I can't look back. I'm forging ahead.

It's always been a struggle, as a writer, to figure out how to make money....to provide for myself, and to write about things I care about. It's always the corporate jobs that suck the life out of you that pay the most. The life-giving assignments typically pay crap. So if anyone out there has figured it out, let me know.

How to measure success

I had my "checkpoint" meeting with my boss today. The rating scale is as follows:

1. Unacceptable -- results do not achieve one or more expectations set in performance plan.
2. Fair -- results achieve some expectations set in performance plan.
3. Successful -- results consistently achieve most or all and occassionally surpasses come expectations set in performance plan.
4. Outstanding -- Results usually surpass expectations set in performance plan.
5. Exceptional -- Results consistently surpass expectations set in performance plan.

But what they don't tell you is that really the only way to reach "exceptional" is if you work 18 hour days and make the corporation and marketing the entire meaning of your existence. This I will not do. So just so you know....I will never be "exceptional" in the eyes of the big corporation. Oh, well.

Ivy seems to have risen from the dead. After five days of not eating and getting weaker and weaker, she is now eating again, and purring a lot. The prednisone my vet prescribed is helping her appetite, but we know it's just a temporary solution. So we wait and enjoy each day we have with her.

Since there is a new (easier) way to post photos, I will now select a random photo to insert here (just because I can!).