One More Time, With Feeling!

Earlier this week I was putting together materials for my annual review at work, and trying to think of something profound to say for a New Year’s post. This is a bigger problem than you might think, given that I do not have many profound thoughts. Most of the time I’m doing well just to have coherent thoughts, and there are days when the most deeply philosophical conversation I have is going to be with a large calico cat. For that matter, there are days when I’m pretty sure the cat thinks I’m a blithering idiot and is only talking with me just to be kind. But fortunately I’ve never cared what people (or cats) think about me; when you work in public – and teachers do, even more so than bloggers – you really can’t. All we can do is stand up straight and speak the truth as we see it; everything else depends on the people who may (or may not) be listening…

The year just concluded was a busy and very strange time, as I taught eight classes at Michigan State University, tried to learn more about being a teacher, served as Faculty Advisor to a group of really amazing young people, and somehow managed to convince the Management Department to keep me around for a while longer. I’m still not sure what is stranger to me: that I’m doing what may be the last job I ever expected to have, that I don’t actually suck at it, or that this is still the most fun of any gig I’ve ever had. I never expected to be any good at this, and I certainly never expected to enjoy it as much as I do. But then I look back on my hopscotch career path, and I think that might actually be the point…

I’ve been a salesman and a sales manager; a customer service representative and a customer service manager; an A/P clerk and a collections officer; a process auditor and an audit team leader; a business analyst and a forward planning specialist; a management consultant and a grant writer and the vice president of the consulting firm; a grant writer and a business plan writer and a program manager and a teacher. I’ve worked in the service sector, banking, executive recruiting, entertainment, retail, food service, energy (petroleum), wholesale, consulting, non-profit, government service (municipal and Federal) and education. And the amazing thing is, I’m not actually that old; I could easily end up working for a few more decades and add a few more job titles and industries to my collection…

Every time I’ve thought I had it all figured out there’s been another plot twist, and I’ve found myself going on to a new challenge, a new industry, a new city or state, and a new set of life experiences. And despite being at a point in my life when most people have settled down into the routine that will take them the rest of the way to retirement age, I’m still not sure where this voyage is taking me. The thing is, neither is anyone else. The one thing we know for sure is that nothing is certain, the world around us is going to change without warning, and the future will not merely be stranger than we imagine – it will be stranger than we can imagine…

Ready or not, there’s a new year starting right now, and a new semester starting on Monday, and all we can do is the best we can do. So, one more time everybody, with feeling: “It’s been a long December, but there’s reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last…”