Telling the manager

Well the ball is starting to roll; this past Wednesday I told one of my two managers of my solo law plans. I wanted to type out my thoughts Wednesday night so they would be fresh but I was just too exhausted and drained. Instead I had a nice conversation/pep talk with my wife about what happened which was comforting and then we watched part of a French movie on the TV.

I had been trying to arrange a time to talk with this manager (who is my dotted line manager but the one who hired me) for a few days, one meeting I had scheduled got cancelled, I tried the walk-by-the-office approach but that didn't work, so finally I just sent a cryptic "can we meet" email. I stopped by her office at the agreed upon time, but she put me off for another hour. Anyway, finally we did meet and I told her what I was thinking. She immediately rejected the concept of turning my job into a part time position, but seemed grudgingly open to a part time or contract basis until they found a permanent replacement. I could tell she was not happy that I was making plans to leave after a year there. She had been instrumental in hiring me into what most people acknowledged was a position for which I was overqualified. Although nothing specific was said, I had the sense that during the 25 minutes we spoke I was no longer part of the team; mostly from subtle ques that would take too long to describe in this post. There were no real to-do's or decisions out of the meeting other than telling my other manager (who is really my direct manager; this is a matrix organization) and will make the call on if and how part time might work. I will do that next week as he is out on vacation this past week.

The whole experience left me depressed, although I am not sure what I was expecting going into it. Perhaps the conversation made the solo law plan more of a reality, more daunting, perhaps it was that for the third time in less than five years I find myself facing the prospect of starting over whether it be looking for a new job or, in this case, starting a new business. On the long drive home in the dark, I listened to that song Breath Me by Sia that they used in the last 15 minutes of the final episode of Six Feet Under. When I am in a melancholy mood I like to listen to melancholy music.

After that down turn, I have bounced back and took today as a vacation day and have been working on my web site. It’s starting to come together. More later.