Been here and there

I went back to DC for a business trip immediately after Thanksgiving. It was way beyond awesome to see so many really neat people that I'd met when we lived there.

The trip was excellent for a lot of reasons (great client meetings for my current job, a couple meals on the business dime, seeing old friends, racking up frequent flier miles, talking with a bunch of locals about the incoming president, etc), but it was unexpectedly valuable for wrapping up loose ends I didn't even know I had.

I'd always felt like leaving my previous job left some unfinished business - I acutely felt how much more I'd wanted to do there. Maybe I should have just transferred to another office? Maybe I should have just waited it out? Maybe I just needed an attitude adjustment of some sort that would have made things better? After all, a lot of extraordinarily bright and hard working friends of mine stuck with it, emplying various strategies to maintain sanity. And, I certainly felt intellectually qualified to do the work, as well as curious enough to excell in an environment where I was constantly learning.

What this recent visit showed me, though, was that there was, in fact, no alternative path for me: My friends and former colleagues are more willing and able to deal with the things that drove me nuts, and I see now that moving to a new office or just waiting it out would not have worked for me. [Let me also clarify that I believe all people have different sensitivities and thresholds, and what might drive me to cover my naked self with stamps and mail myself to a pirhanna infested region in the amazon may just roll right off the backs of others. This isn't a negative assessment of anyone involved, only that we all have different lists of what drives us crazy.]

Must also say that knowing that these quality people are carrying on the work they do makes me feel better.

So, I returned feeling great about seeing old friends who I genuinely miss, having really good business meetings alongside the most senior people in my company, and attaining unanticipated closure to a period of my life that I invested a LOT of energy into. (yeah, that's right, ended that sentence with a preposition. it's MY blog, I can.)


Friends back east: I miss you tons. Be prepared for the regular pitches to move out west. Cuz da west is where it's AT.

Off to bed.