First my update to the announcement…

Last week I announced that I was leaving my previous employer of 4+ years and taking a different position elsewhere. I wanted to give a brief update on the response to my farewell email and my observations of the new job so far. That job was my first one out of college and it was weird making the announcement and leaving the only office environment I have known. I did feel like I learned so much in the consulting industry and I am sure there are aspects of it that I will miss.  I will definitely miss the people – hopefully they will still want to hang out from time to time. Time will only tell.

My observations are my new employer are pretty positive right now. I am trying to complete all of the required paperwork and get down to business in my current role. I’ve work with many of the people within the information security team, but not specifically with many of the people in the team that I am on. It is a little different and will take a little getting used to, but I think there’s a high chance of success. Things move a little slower in industry and I’m already seeing that now. For example, I’m still waiting access to some forms that are supposed to be “pushed” out to new hires. I do admit that I did start right after the holidays and I am sure there is a lot of backlog.

The one major thing I’ve noticed is the focus on work / life balance and the pace of the office. It is definitely expected to put in a solid 8 hours of work a day, but after that, and as long as you are getting your work done, you don’t need to sign in at home or stay late at the office. Sometimes it may be necessary, but it definitely is not expected. This leads me to a point about goals.

One of the reasons I decided that it was time to leave consulting was because I wanted to pursue personal goals. Due to the nature of consulting, you could be called upon at a moment’s notice to travel to a different city or respond to a client problem/incident. While this happened infrequently, I respected and understood this part of the profession. I didn’t feel right making a committment to an organization, class, or group and all of sudden not being able to give a 100% of my effort because I had to called away to my job.

I wanted to post these thoughts in order to provide some perspective on the first update of my 2009 goals. Shortly after the year began, I posted my goals which included learning a foreign language. As luck would have it, I found a Chinese language class about a 5 minute drive away from my house! It meets twice a week for 1 hour in the evening. I have had two classes so far and am enjoying it. Everyone told me that learning Chinese would be difficult. So far, I have to say I am having difficulties on a couple of the tones. The only way for me to improve is to practice it. I also a little bit of trouble with the “z” and “j” words. Other than that, I’m really glad I signed up for the class. I would like to continue the classes for the entire year if possible and as a long term goal become fluent in Chinese.