I don’t go to family reunions, because I’m well aware of the weirdness of my relatives. For example, there was my great uncle who was well known for being a retired veteran and obvious alcoholic. When we were at my grandma’s house, we’d sometimes see him in his old military garb, marching in time outside in the rain. When he wasn’t doing that, you’d pretty much always find him wearing a pair of Big Smith overalls… and nothing else. (That’s a story for another day, though.)

Although it’s generally accepted that every family has some odd characters, it’s awkward when one of them catches you off guard.

Let’s backtrack to my high school days. I was working part-time at the local Walmart in the evenings as a cashier. Although dealing with the public is not something I’d have the patience to do anymore, I frequently entertained myself by “people watching.” If you’ve ever seen that website, People of Walmart, you’ll know what I mean.

I was working the checkouts one evening, when I eyed a frightening creature unloading their cart at the end of my lane.  I was 95% sure it was a human male.  “He” was wearing all black clothes with chains hanging from every pocket.  He had tattoos everywhere, and facial piercings all over his mug.  I could have probably put my arm through the gauged holes in his earlobes.  The eye makeup was the cherry on top.  He was a Marilyn Manson wannabe.

When it was his turn, I greeted him pleasantly, thinking to myself, “God, please don’t let him stab me.  I’m too young to die.”  He reciprocated with a smile and a greeting, and watched me bag his groceries.  After a moment he gave me an odd look and said, “Mikey?  Is that you?”

I’m pretty sure I dropped his can of vegetable soup as I stood there looking at him awkwardly.  This guy knows me?

“Oh my god, it is you,” he continued enthusiastically.  “You might not remember me.  I’m your cousin, Jay.*”

I remembered my cousin, Jay.  The specimen standing before me was not the Jay I remembered from my childhood.  I silently hoped my mouth wasn’t rudely agape, although I knew it was.

“Wow… I haven’t seen you in forever,” I said, awkwardly trying to make conversation with my relative from the dark side.  He was really friendly, as I remember him being.  Obviously, I didn’t tell him how intimidated I’d been only minutes earlier.

When I took my lunch break that evening, I called my mom to tell her about my experience.  She burst out laughing uncontrollably when I told her who it was.  As it was her sister’s son, she couldn’t wait to call up my aunt and ask her about it.

To my knowledge, I haven’t seen him since that day.  Who knows, though?  Maybe I’ll actually attend a family reunion one of these days, and we can catch up on old times.

Do you guys have any funny stories about a weird relative?

* Jay is not really his name, but it’s close enough.

Opening his eyes, he found himself staring at a blank wall.  He shivered as he felt the chill of the air from the ceiling fan overhead wafting over him.  He tried to roll over, and found that he could not.  He heard snoring from behind.

A wave of nausea engulfed the 23-year-old as he, with great effort, wriggled loose enough to turn and see what held him captive against the wall.  His eyes widened as he found himself lying next to a very obese girl who had attended the previous night’s party.  She occupied the vast majority of the small twin-sized bed in the corner of his room, leaving less than a foot between herself and the wall.

James felt his stomach drop as he visually scanned the room.  On his nightstand were a half-dozen or so beer bottles, mostly empty.  Shifting his gaze, his eyes landed on a pair of boxers lying wadded in a bunch near the entrance to his sleeping quarters.

With a sinking feeling, he looked back and forth between the abandoned undergarment and the large girl lying in his bed.  “There’s no way I was that drunk,” he silently attempted to convince himself.

He felt mildly relieved as he did a quick check under the covers and found himself fully-clothed, wearing the same outfit from the night before – shoes and all.  Squinting, he also realized that the boxers did not belong to him, although he cringed, wondering if they still might be evidence of what had happened in this room the night before.  Mentally, he added “wash sheets twice” to his to-do list for the day.

His head was throbbing as he climbed free of the bed and sat down in his computer chair near the footboard.  His room, generally neat and orderly, resembled tornadic aftermath.  Several books had fallen off of his bookcase in the far corner, and lie open in the floor.  The framed posters on the walls had hundreds of cracks in their protective plastic coverings as though they had been pelted with shots from a BB gun.  The masses of Airsoft pellets littering the floor gave a clue to fate of his decor.  Elsewhere, lamps had been knocked over, electronics had been relocated, and many of his dresser drawers had been either pulled out or removed altogether.  He noticed stacks of t-shirts, socks, and jeans lying in random places throughout the room.

“I’m entirely too hung over for this,” he muttered to himself as he got up and slowly made his way downstairs.

He found the kitchen to be a disaster as well.  The countertops were no longer visible beneath the piles of cans, beer bottles, and shot glasses.  The dull scent of Jägermeister lingered in the air, and didn’t do a thing to help his nausea.

He wandered into the living room to survey the damage there.  As expected, drinking vessels and beer bottles lined nearly every flat surface the eye could see.  The TV was on, although the screen was blank.  His friend, Ross, lie on the couch like a mummy, encased in a cocoon made of blankets.  His head poked through the top, and his mouth was agape.  A dark puddle of drool collected on the tan couch cushion below.

James turned to find Levi fully sprawled across the pool table in the adjacent room, snoring like a grizzly bear.

Suddenly, there came a series of loud crashes and a string of profanity from behind.  Quickly walking around the corner, holding his throbbing head, he found the source.  His corpulent intruder from the night before had unsuccessfully attempted to walk down the stairs.  Her inebriated state had left her sitting in a heap at the bottom, scowling indignantly and groaning in pain.

“What were you doing in my bed last night?” he asked, as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

“I couldn’t find a place to sleep,” replied the girl, rubbing her backside.  “You’re a little guy, so I figured you wouldn’t mind if I shared your bed.  You don’t take up much space.”

“What about my room?” James continued.  “Why is it torn apart?”

“I don’t know,” replied the girl.  “It was like that when I went up there.”  With that, she lie back, closed her eyes, and attempted to go back to sleep in the middle of the floor.

“I know what happened to your room,” said Ross in a gravelly voice as he emerged from the living room wearing nothing but his white boxer shorts and an enormous grin.  Although he looked like death resurrected, his mischievous pride was apparent through his squinted eyes.  “Tom and I decorated for you.”

“Why?” asked James, having a feeling he knew the answer.

“Well, after we carried you up there, we decided you needed some changes.  Your room is always so neat.  We can’t have that sort of thing around here.  So we fixed it.”  Ross beamed.

James shook his head silently, wondering what it must be like to live with normal people.

“Here, come have a beer with me,” Ross continued.  “It’ll make you feel better.”

James opted for a piece of bread and some Advil instead.  He leaned against the wall, chewing silently, as Ross opened the refrigerator and popped open a beer.

“Man, you should’ve seen yourself last night,” Ross said after taking a swig.  “Remember this?” he asked, holding up a funnel with a long, clear piece of tubing attached to the bottom.  James vaguely recalled his mouth being at the end of the tube the previous night, drinking the various beverages that were poured into the funnel as the crowd around him cheered him onward.

“You’re not very good at playing football when you’re drunk either,” Ross continued.  “You are a lot easier to tackle, though.  I thought we broke your leg a couple of times.”

“I’m going back to bed,” James said flatly, turning toward the stairs.  “And I’m never drinking again.”

He heard Ross calling to him from the kitchen as he stepped over the chubby girl at the bottom of the steps and began making his way up to his room.  “Yeah right.  You say that every weekend.  Just wait until next Friday.  It’s gonna be a blast.”

My brothers are notorious for holding up checkout lines, as then tend to only carry cash, and it’s generally only in $100 bills. This would be okay, except that they rarely spend anywhere close to $100 at a time. More often than not, the cashier has to flag down their supervisor to get change while the other people in line behind them stand there and wait, scowling. I feel like my siblings should wear fedoras and big gold chains so that they can fit in with the rest of the ballers out there.

Last weekend was no different. I made sure I went through the checkout line in front of them, and quickly completed my purchase using my credit card. (Actually, Wife Unit used hers, since we have a joint Kohl’s account, but I have no idea where my card is.) After finishing, I meandered out to the foyer to sit on a bench and wait… since I knew I’d be waiting.

I was right.

Max sat down next to me as I heard the familiar, “Can I get change over here?” While the festivities were underway, I glanced over and took a look at Max’s pants. They looked like they were about a hundred years old, tattered and filled with holes.

“You should’ve bought some new pants while you were here,” I piped up, thinking that these must be his work pants.

“Nah, I just bought these the other day,” he casually replied.

I looked at him as though he’d grown a third nipple on his forehead. “Then why are they filled with gigantic holes?”

“I bought them this way.”

It’s no secret to me that I’m getting older.  My waistline is significantly larger than it once was.  My hairline seems to recede more by the year.  I found a weird hair growing out of my ear the other day.  I get it… I’m aging.  I guess I have an old-fashioned mindset on top of everything else.

Let’s say I went to the store to purchase a pair of curtains.  (*snicker*  Like that would happen…)  If I were to get them home, and discover that they had been ripped full of holes, I would probably take them back and ask for a refund.  Sure, I could probably still use them, but they would look terrible, and probably wouldn’t offer me a lot in the way of privacy.

Why would a pair of jeans be different?

I’ve seen these types of jeans in stores before.  They are advertised as “rugged” or some other nonsense.  Apparently, this is some new fashion trend among the teenaged folk.  Clearly, my fashion sense, including my preference to wear clothing that is still intact, is grossly outdated.

Can someone enlighten me?

Image credit:  http://refashion.livejournal.com/166170.html

My day was absolutely terrible.

I’m tired.

I’m irritable.

I’m going to finish my beer and go to bed.

So, in order to entertain you in my place, I give you a bunny with a pancake on its head.

Usual antics should return to blogginit.com tomorrow.

Have a pleasant night.

Image credit:  http://images.sodahead.com/polls/000191086/polls_Bunny_with_a_Pancake_on_Its_Head_1225_795374_answer_101_xlarge.jpeg

If you’ve read my blog for very long, it’s no secret that I would love to be a writer one of these days.  I have this dream of escaping from the corporate world and making a living with words and a keyboard.  I don’t necessarily have to be a world-renowned novelist, but I would love to be able to make money writing in some way.  Clearly, that day isn’t today, but I have to start somewhere.

As they say, practice makes perfect.  So in an effort to improve my writing skills and get feedback from my wonderful audience, I’ve decided to add a new feature(?) to my blog:  “Short Story Sunday.”

Every Sunday, I am going to select a random writing prompt from one of the bajillions of websites out there, and just start typing.  There’s no telling what I might end up with when I’m done, but I’m going to make an effort to do this every weekend.

If you decide to read the resulting work, I have a favor to ask of you.  When you’re done reading, please tell me what you think.  I want to hear any thoughts, suggestions, praises, criticisms, or whatever else you might have.  The goal is to slowly mold myself into a better writer – and I need your help to get there.

Without further ado, I give you my first attempt titled Road Trip.

—

Jack drove in silence along the curving wooded road.  As the drops of rain caught his headlights, they seemed to dive at him in mid-air as they descended from the darkness above.  There was still about half an hour separating him from his tiny apartment, and he gave an exasperated sigh.  It was a gloomy end to a horrible day.

He glanced down at the clock in the center of the dashboard.  “10:32″ glowed dully back at him from the face of the silent car stereo.  Another day of his life had come and gone.

At thirty-two years of age, Jack still had no idea what he wanted to do with his life.  He’d spent the last nine years working at the investment firm with no promotion anticipated.  He despised his job, but it seemed as though the window of opportunity had long ago closed.  Unqualified for anything else, and having no desire to go back to school at this stage of his life, he continued to make the commute into Dayton on a daily basis, grinding out the hours of his life, one at a time.

He switched to his low beams as a car emerged around the curve ahead, and cursed under his breath as the other driver failed to do the same.  As the other vehicle whizzed past, Jack looked up to his rearview mirror.  The red taillights moved further away, glaring at him as they went, almost as if in spite.

Returning his eyes to the road, he gave a startled shout as he slammed on his brakes and swerved to avoid hitting the woman walking along the edge of the shoulderless rural highway.  His tires screeched in protest as his vehicle made a 180-degree turn and came to a halt, facing the direction from whence he had come.  Out the corner of his eye, he had seen the woman dive into the ditch, attempting to get out of the way.

He took a brief second to gather his thoughts as he listened to the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.  The gleam of his headlights caught the figure of the woman climbing out of the ditch about 20 feet ahead.  She brushed herself off, and hurried over to his window with a frightened look on her face.  Hesitantly, he lowered it just a crack.

“I’m so sorry,” she stammered, with streaks of makeup running down her rain-soaked face.  “My car broke down a little ways up the road.”

Jack looked for a moment at the dripping woman before him.  She appeared to be around his age.  Her medium-length black hair stuck to the sides of her face.  She had piercing blue eyes that were filled with desperation.  She was wearing a tan-colored vest and a dark red top with a denim skirt.

“Where are you headed?” he asked her after a moment.

“San Francisco,” she replied hesitantly.  “Eventually, at least.  At the moment, I’m just trying to find a place to stay for tonight.”

“Hop in,” he said, gesturing at his passenger-side door with a tilt of his head.  Gratefully, the woman hurried around the front of his car and climbed inside.  As she put her purse down in the floorboard, Jack turned up the heat a notch in order to warm her.

“You have no idea how much I appreciate this,” she said as he carefully turned his car around and continued his journey.

“It’s fine,” he said, attempting to sound friendly.  Although he was in no mood for human contact tonight, he wasn’t about to leave a damsel in distress at the side of a wooded highway in the rain.

“Are you from San Francisco?” he asked her, attempting to break the semi-awkward silence that now filled the car.

She gave a half-smile and answered hesitantly, “No, I’m not.”

“Going to see family?”

“No,” she replied.  “I’ve actually never been there.”

“Ahh, taking a vacation then.”

“More like a permanent vacation,” she continued.

“Oh?” said Jack, raising his eyebrows.

The woman turned to him slightly.  “I want to start my life over,” she said after a moment.

He gave her a sideways glance.  She took a deep breath and continued.

“I’ve lived here in Ohio all my life, and it’s taken me this long to realize that there is nothing for me here.  My family passed on years ago.  I have no husband, no children, a dead-end job, and a small apartment.  I’ve been saving my money for a long time, trying to find a way to get out.  I want to just leave everything behind and find a place to start again.”

Jack was a bit taken aback.  This woman seemed to be his female equivalent, with the exception of being far more courageous than he.

“You can see how far I made it, though,” she said with a weak chuckle.

“Why San Francisco?” he asked.

“Why not?” she replied quickly.  “It looks like a beautiful city.  It’s warm.  It’s close to the ocean.  There is a lot to do, and there are a ton of people to meet.  It sounds like the perfect place for me to start over.”

He gave a nod as she continued, “And if I don’t like it, what do I have to lose?  I’ll move on until I find somewhere else.”

He realized this woman was doing what he had always dreamed of doing.  As she continued to tell him about her dreams of making a bright future for herself, he found himself more and more envious.

“What is your name?” he finally asked.

“Debra,” she replied.  “Debra Rheece.”

“I’m Jack.”

They drove on for a bit longer.  The rain was beginning to let up a bit, and a star or two began to appear in the night sky above.

“Are you hungry?” Jack asked.

“Very much so,” Debra replied.

“Would you care to grab a bite to eat?  There’s a place here in town.  Nothing fancy, but it’s good for a decent meal.”  Debra nodded in agreement.

Jack’s weariness had begun to lift as he spoke to Debra.  As they made their way into the small-town diner and sat down in a booth, he decided he wanted to know more.

“What about your job?” he asked her after the portly waitress had handed them both a menu and a glass of water.

“I’m not going back,” said Debra.  “I work for a publishing company, taking care of their finances.  I don’t enjoy it, and I’ve decided that life is too short to spend every day doing something you don’t enjoy.  Today, when I left, I decided that it was going to be for the last time.”

Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  Debra was doing something he’d dreamed of doing for years.  He thought about it for a moment, and decided she was right.  Life is short.  By now, though, he’d spent so many years being miserable that he had almost forgotten what it was like to be happy.  This revelation made his stomach drop.

“I’m not going back to any place that makes me unhappy anymore.  My job… my apartment… or anywhere else in Dayton,” she said.  “I’m leaving everything behind.”

Jack’s mind had begun to race.  Although this idea sounded half-crazy to him, he almost wanted to join her.  There was nothing here that made him happy either.  If he were to leave, what would he really be leaving behind?

They finished their dinner and climbed back into the car.  Jack started the engine and pulled back onto the highway.

“Where will you stay when you get there?” he asked her.

“I’m not sure yet,” she answered.  “I’ll probably grab a hotel room for a week or so until I find something.  I don’t need anything fancy.  Just a roof over my head.”

Jack took an exit to get onto the interstate.  They drove on for some time, talking about San Franciso and the hope of a better life.  Jack told Debra about his painful divorce, the death of his parents, and his loathing for his job.  It was the first time in a long time he’d had the opportunity to get these things off his chest, and it felt surprisingly good.

After about 30 minutes, Debra glanced down at the clock.  “How much further do you have to go?” she asked him.

“A long way,” he replied.

“Oh,” she said uneasily.  “You can just drop me off at the next hotel if you’d like.  I had assumed you were headed home for the evening.  You’ve done more than enough.”

“I was headed home,” Jack said.  “Plans have changed now, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I live about five minutes from the diner.  We passed my home a long time ago.”

“Where are you going then?” Debra asked.

“I’m coming with you.”

Deep down, I didn’t really mind the long commute when I weighed it against the long-term benefits it would bring.  Eager to free myself from the clutches of retail and land myself a “big boy job” in the IT field, I gave my classes the entirety of my efforts.  I enjoyed the things I learned, and actually didn’t even mind doing homework.  I’d often find that it would take great lengths of time to finish an assignment at home because I would get distracted by a particular topic contained in the textbook, and would spend hours researching and trying experiments on my own.

Although I truly enjoyed my early college experience, my attitude slowly began to deteriorate as I was forced to endure classes taught by less-than-qualified instructors.  There were numerous times that I would walk into a classroom, and the instructor would open with, “This isn’t really my area of expertise, but they needed someone to fill the slot, so I’m going to do the best I can here.  We’ll get through this.”  For the $70k price tag that was attached to my education, I expected much better than that.

I do remember one instructor, though, who stood out from all the rest.  Her name was Gwen.

I walked into my Microsoft Desktop Operating Systems class on the first day, and was bored to tears.  The instructor was a young guy with a soft monotone voice.  He was pleasant enough, and moderately knowledgeable, but he could put you to sleep in a matter of minutes.  It was one of the longest days ever, and I was dreading ten more weeks of the same.

It was later announced that there had been a shuffle in teaching staff, and there would be a brand new instructor taking over the class the following week.  No one really knew any details… other than it would be a woman.  This brought forth snickers from some of the guys in the class.

Men seem to primarily dominate the world of IT.  In my experience, it’s not often that you happen across a female systems or network engineer.  It’s also my experience, however, that when you do happen across a woman in one of these roles, she generally knows her shit.  Gwen certainly fit this description.

She was a smaller woman (much shorter than me) with long hair.  She stood at the front of the classroom when I walked through the door for round two the following week.  As soon as she opened her mouth, I knew things were going to be different.

Rather than just read random sentences from the book and skim over the topics, she actually engaged the class.  She was funny, and had us all cracking up within a matter of minutes.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but her little one-liners helped me remember a myriad of topics that likely would’ve faded from my memory otherwise.

I couldn’t believe all that I had learned by the time the class was over.  She had a way of explaining very in-depth technical subjects in a way that my grandmother could’ve understood them.  You could ask her anything, and she would have an answer for you.

I had the privilege of studying under her for three or four other courses during my first two years there.  I was so excited when I would look at my schedule and see her name next to one of the subjects.  She never failed to disappoint either.  Every time I walked into her class, I knew I was going to learn something new, and I was going to enjoy doing it.

As I’ve mentioned several times throughout my career as a blogger, my attitude toward my school soured in the later years.  Some of the fondest memories I have there, though, were in Gwen’s class.

There are a lot of teachers out there today.  There are some good ones.  I’d venture to say, though, that there are only a handful of truly great ones.  Gwen was one of the great ones.  She had a ton of knowledge and experience, and she loved to share it.  She was very good at it too.  I still remember some of her little jokes when I’m troubleshooting problems at work, and they still help me remember tricks that I would otherwise forget.

I still talk to Gwen every once in a great while.  We’re friends on LinkedIn, and she occasionally sends me a message asking how things are going, or inquires about openings with my employer, trying to help her students find good jobs just like I did.  I think it’s safe to say that those students are in good hands.

Did you ever have any great instructors who went out of their way to help you, or taught you something significant?  What made them stand out among the others?

I can tell you that one set of genes that I did inherit from my mother is the set related to her travel habits.  Mom has always been one to remain in the comforts of her own territory.  She prefers to be home in familiar surroundings with her loved ones.  I almost fainted when she made the 90-minute trip up here to see our new house.

I’ve never been much of a traveler.  In fact, mine and Julia’s two-week honeymoon was the longest I’d been away from home since… well… ever.  Even though I do enjoy seeing new places, there’s just something about sleeping in my own bed that appeals to me.

I’ve been asked, “If you could take a trip anywhere in the world for a week, with all expenses paid, where would you go?”

Although not an excursionist, I had an almost immediate response:  “Italy.”

Italy is full of cool things I’d like to see.  There’s the Colosseum, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Pantheon, Rome, Florence, Venice… the list goes on.  There is one thing, though, that stands out above all of these things:  the food.

The wife unit can attest to the fact that I can put away some food at the local Olive Garden.  Their foods are often based around chicken, pasta, marinara sauce, and cheese – all of which are gifts directly from Heaven.  I’ve always loved Italian food, but as with most ethnic cuisine, I’ve mostly experienced the “Americanized” version.

Every time I read blogs written by De-I about his fancy Italian dishes that he whips up from time to time, my mouth starts watering.  If I ever had an opportunity to visit “the motherland,” I think I would be extremely happy.  If this were an all-expenses paid trip (including meals), chances are, I’d probably gorge myself until I couldn’t move.

So there you have it.  If anyone happens to win a free trip to Italy, and you feel compelled to drag me along with you, I likely won’t complain.  Hopefully, I’d be able to make it back.  As I understand it, planes do have a weight limit.

Thanks to Julia for suggesting that I write about where I would go if I could take an all-expenses paid trip anywhere.
Have something you’d like to see?  Make a suggestion!

That has since changed.  There are only a few things I remember about it, but these guys were always my favorites.  I randomly found them on YouTube the other day, and if I’m having a crappy day, I just watch this video and I find myself cracking up.

How can you not love a creature that hides behind its lower lip?  Thank you, Sesame Street Martians, for brightening what was otherwise an extraordinarily shitty day.

Yesterday, when Julia and I were moving our rooms around, she had mentioned to me that I needed some foliage to liven up my office.  I gave her my sideways look and replied, “You do realize that any plant I touch is destined for death, right?”

“Well, we’ll just have to find one that you won’t kill.”

I responded, “It would either have to be made out of plastic… or a cactus.”

Today, as I was wallowing in my self-induced misery, Julia came in to try to cheer me up.  She trotted over to where I was sitting, gave me a big smile, and said, “What can I do to make you feel better?”

I mumbled something along the lines of, “I dunno.”

“You want some ice cream?” she asked me in a way that one might ask a five-year-old.

I grinned.  “Yeah.”

She went back in the other room to work on her sewing projects while I wrote a blog about my hatred for my new job.  It was surprisingly therapeutic to get it off my chest.  After hitting the “publish” button, I went into the bathroom to take a long, hot shower.  Few things in this world are better than that.

When I got out of the shower, I got dressed, sauntered into Julia’s sewing room, and tapped her on the shoulder.

“What’s up, buttercup?” she asked cheerfully.

“I want to go to Dairy Queen and get some ice cream,” I said in my little kid voice.  “Then, I want to get a cactus.”

We did exactly that.  Meet Eduardo.

Yes, he has a name.

He’s a “coral cactus,” which I’d never heard of before.  It took me a long time to pick him out.  Somehow, shopping for a cactus is like shopping for a pet.  Aside from trying to pick out the coolest-looking one, you have to read the labels and see what kind of care they need, how often they need to be watered, how big they get, etc.  Eduardo’s label said, “Care level: resilient.  Requires minimal attention.”

Sold.

He now sits proudly on top of my bookcase, where he should get decent light during the daytime hours.  I’m happy to report that he has been in my care for approximately one hour, and has not yet withered away.  It would seem that I’m making progress over my previous plant ownership experiences.

Regardless, you might want to say a prayer for ol’ Eduardo tonight.

Up until now, I’ve made it a point to not discuss details of my workplace on my blog.  You never know who might stumble across a post, so I’ve tried not to say anything that would be frowned upon.  I’m pretty sure I’ve never stated the name of the company for which I work, nor given any identifying information other than it’s a “hosting and network provider in my area,” of which there are many, so this ought to be ok.  Here it goes.

I hate my new job.

I’m somewhat frustrated about it too, because I feel like I was misled.  When the job was posted, it was posted as a Unix engineering position for my company’s top client.  Of course, there was your usual spiel about how networking skills would be required, there would be some off-hours work, yadda yadda yadda.  Whatever.  That’s going to be the case for pretty much any senior-level IT job anywhere.

What they didn’t tell me is that this job is about 90% networking and 10% Unix administration.

Let me be blunt.  I hate networking.  While, as I mentioned, there is some networking skill involved with every IT job, I don’t want to spend my day troubleshooting why some guy’s VPN connection in China is slow.  You want me to look at a server and troubleshoot that?  Fine.  Even troubleshoot why it can’t connect to something?  Fine.  But this whole business of working with circuit vendors and being responsible for the functionality of devices I don’t even have access to is for the birds.

While network engineering and systems engineering are closely related, they are two very different skillsets.  I chose to pursue the latter because that is what interests me.  The thought of having to learn in-depth network stuff makes me want to claw my eyes out.  It’s just sooooo boring.

Anyway, I’m completely unqualified for the position I have accepted.  And while I have been under the wing of the guy I’m replacing, he will be leaving in a couple of weeks, and I will be on my own with no idea what I am doing.  Every time I think about it, it makes me sick to my stomach.

So I appeal to you good people.  What do you think I should do?  I’ve been in this role for about three weeks now, and I keep telling myself that I just need to give it a chance, because three weeks isn’t enough time to make a decision about something like this.  On the other hand, it’s pretty apparent to me that the day-to-day aspects of the role aren’t going to change.

I felt completely lost and useless when I accepted my previous position a couple of years ago as well.  There was a difference there, though.  I was actually excited about learning the intricacies of the new role.  This time, though, I’m dreading it.

When people have been in similar situations, and have asked me for advice, I’ve always told them that life is too short to spend every day doing something you hate.  If you want it to change, you have to change it yourself, suck it up, and make it into what you want it to be.

I have a marketable skillset, and admittedly, I’ve been browsing around today on monster.com, looking for something else.  I really don’t want to leave my present employer, as I’ve been there for five and a half years.  While that’s not an eon, it’s not really something I want to just throw away either.  I should mention, though, that once you accept a new job at my company, you are stuck there for a year before they will let you move.

So… what are your thoughts?  Am I just being a baby, and should I give it a chance?  Or do you think it’s ok to start looking for something else?  Opinions are welcome.