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Tales from the Steppes


2005-05-11

11:44 a.m.
Though it's cold and lonely in the deep dark night, I can see paradise by the dashboard light

I started my new job on Monday and had to attend orientation that day. Orientation was long and boring. No surprise there. What I was surprised at was my internal reaction to the ramifications of this development.

I have worked part-time, sometimes even full-time, but was never the person carrying any of our benefits. Now I am working for an organization that not only offers excellent benefits but also expects me to stay until retirement. I am soooo not in that frame of mind. I can handle picking an insurance plan, putting aside money for childcare, accidental death and dismemberment, and all of the other miscellaneous benefits. But I am very uncomfortable with the retirement plan and the Commissions expectation that I am staying that long. If the retirement plan was a 401K plan, I could probably handle that. Instead it is a mandatory pension plan that I have no real input on what happens to my money.

I realize this all sounds very minor and petty but for me it runs orthagonal to most of my thinking and life. I don't like to make commitments. I don't like my future to be planned. I am certainly not staying in one place for 25 or 30 years. What am I doing with the rest of my life? I don't know. Yet. I mostly make it up as I go along. And that is the way I like it.

It isn't that I don't plan; it is more that my plan includes things changing. Me changing. I guess maybe I do have a problem with long term commitments because I don't think it is realistic or even a good idea to make them. With the exception of the Mongols, I try very hard to not make commitments. Even when I married, I said no vows and made no promises. Perhaps others would consider them implicit but not me. Which is not to imply I do otherwise. It is more that I make no promises and expect no promises in return. "I'll try" is good enough for me.

I suppose this musing is a little weighty for the reality of the situation - it's a job that I can leave whenever I want to. It was more that my employers treat it like a bigger committment than I want to make to them and I did not realize that until I got to orientation. I guess one of the lessons I have learned in life is to make sure that both parties in any relationship approach it with the same level of investment and it disturbs me to take this job without things being equivalent.

On the positive side, I did arrive here that afternoon to find that my cubicle was cleaned out. It is one thing to have people watching you while you work. It is completely another thing to have an audience of skulls surrounding you. My old division chief has allowed my new division chief to borrow the computer I was using for a bit, so I can work in my new cubicle. Eventually, the new division will have to buy me a computer but until then I am working on the old one in my new cubicle.

I have yet to meet the Skullmaster - he has not been in yet this week. I know I have seen him around and he looks relatively normal. No fur loincloth or anything. I hope he does not disappoint me with being more normal than his office furnishings would indicate.

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