Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Under Employed? or Midlife Crisis ?..Brain is Full !!

My mind is a swirl. I have so many ideas of what to blog about; too many to say "ah haa" and write just one.

Fidel's school stuff is a concern at the moment. I can't do anything, but 'cause he's not happy and has his worries, it spills on me - rightly so ( :( ) ... not causing me to lose sleep, but its keeping a part of my brain actively occupied.

And work - there my brain is really swirling. We are upon the beginning of a business planning cycle. Its my first " formal" planning cycle where I get to participate actively; a first in my entire work life (complete with a zillion annexes to fill out vice a simple statement :S). In parallel, I am writing an inaugural implementation action plan for the function I am performing , which is a totally new position . And to top it off, lets just say my reporting structure is a mega mess.

Trying to conquer this mess has honed in my thoughts of what I suspected even when I came on board in November:

"Why did they hire me ?"

There are messes and then there are messes.I thought past messes were messy. This mess is worse.

They don't need me. I have done what I do in organizations of 2000 plus people and less (seemingly so) complicated organizations, yet now I am at a higher level (including salary) trying to do what I did; now its for only 400 people total. There there are no labs or other fun issues involved. I'm not even doing emergency preparedness now. And there the mess just begins. So, you want me to plan and write for what ???

Am I am drafting a document to justify my existence ? I want to scream out and say that I cant do this in good stead- at least at my price. "You don't need me " is what I want to say. You are spending way to much coin on me in terms of what you need. But in the world I live in, I can't get a similar position at the same price (with real work). If there was one at this very moment it would take at least 9 months to complete the competition .. processes are to slow. And to go outside of my world at this point - not an option.

I've hit the "mid life crises" wall *lol* and haven't yet figured out what I want to do when I truly grow up. AND, have now become totally disillusioned/jaded about a lot of the institute I've been a part of for the past 5 years.

Anyone need a "Mom" consultant ?

2 comments:

jmb said...

This sounds like a very disquieting situation. But of course you are trapped by the big salary and the difficulty of changing jobs. That's understandable. Can you find some other duties to enhance your job to make it more interesting? Do you worry that they might let you go?
I hope everything works out for you.
regards
jmb

MedStudentWife said...

Thank you for your thoughts JMB.

I think a lot of what this is about is that I'm a bit of an over acheiver and also expect everything to happen at a my pace which can be verymuch "now". I'm trying to learn to slow down and that my norm isn't everyone else's.

I think I'm also going through some introspection now - figuring out what I really want to do in my life.

I'm sure it will all be ok... its just been a "hairy" few months.

Cheers
msw