Birthday Present

Today is my 26th birth­day anniver­sary. Today I also gave my two weeks notice at my place of employ­ment. I final­ly have a new job after two years of look­ing! Actu­al­ly I had two new jobs. On Thurs­day I received two job offers with­in a few hours of each oth­er. One in New York City work­ing as web­mas­ter in a news­room for a big finan­cial news site and one for a web/graphic design posi­tion redesign­ing coun­ty office web­sites at the Cuya­hoga Coun­ty offices in down­town Cleve­land.

It was a very tough deci­sion. I spent much of Fri­day dur­ing my dri­ve to Notre Dame on the phone with folks in NYC and much of the rest of the week­end mak­ing cost of liv­ing cal­cu­la­tions and effort of move cal­cu­la­tions and lifestyle cal­cu­la­tions and talk­ing with my friends and fam­i­ly about the var­i­ous options. I’ve decid­ed to stay in Cleve­land. By stay­ing here I’ll be able to save more mon­ey, look for a house and con­tin­ue to broad­en my skills. And get a dog! The NYC job would have looked awe­some on a resume, would have been chal­leng­ing and pro­duc­tive, but the Cleve­land posi­tion con­stitues a lifestyle upgrade and the NYC would have been a lat­er­al move in that regard. I’ll final­ly be able to stop liv­ing pay­check to pay­check and will be doing work that is in line with my pas­sions.

I think I’m the only per­son who knows what a close thing it was. I’d already start­ed look­ing for apart­ments in NYC and rekin­dling dor­mant friend­ships. My mind was focused on New York and I had giv­en up com­plete­ly on the Cleve­land job mar­ket. Maybe the most dif­fi­cult part of my dis­cern­ing process this week­end was detun­ing that focus so I could be as objec­tive as pos­si­ble. I’m wor­ried that my friends in NYC will feel like my rejec­tion of that posi­tion will come across as a rejec­tion of them, and I don’t want that to hap­pen, because it isn’t. I’m going to build up my comp time and vis­it NYC some­time next year and take the folks who helped me out for din­ner.

But in the end I am gid­dy and grin­ning that I final­ly have a job doing some­thing that is actu­al­ly inter­est­ing and can leave the grim con­fines, patron­iz­ing pay and cor­po­rate indif­fer­ence of my cur­rent posi­tion for a place that treats employ­ees like peo­ple instead of infi­nite­ly renew­able resources.

In cel­e­bra­tion of my new job, here is a song: I Work For the Gov­ern­ment Now by Cen­tral Ser­vices. Here is anoth­er link to the same song, since you only get 100 DLs from YSI. I promise to be worth the tax­pay­er mon­ey that will pay my salary.

26 thoughts on “Birthday Present”

  5. Adam, what a great sto­ry — thanks for shar­ing that. I real­ly hope it works out for you. I’m sure we’ll all be the bet­ter for it! Have a great birth­day and hol­i­day sea­son.

  7. Glad to see your stickin’ around. After all, if you left, who would heck­le Steve the 2nd Thurs­day of every month?

  8. Wel­come to the Coun­ty, Adam. I’ll show you the extraspe­cial hand­shake as soon as you are eli­gi­ble for ben­e­fits.

  12. Though I’m sad to hear you won’t be head­ing to my neck of the woods, I am glad to hear you got a new job! I assume you did­n’t give notice in any sort of in-your-face flam­boy­ant fash­ion, but I like to think you did 😉 Next time you vis­it NYC, we shall burn our West hood­ies in effi­gy.

  14. Adam,

    It is a good deci­sion. NYC is not that far and you can always go vis­it but here in Cleve­land you have already made your mark. So now maybe you can afford the ameni­ties.

    Hap­py Birth­day!

  16. that was an intel­li­gent way to address the situation–I’m con­vinced that this is the place to live afford­ably, and a great base for travel–were you aware there is a liv­ery ser­vice that takes peo­ple from the east­ern sub­urbs to the air­port each week, as they com­mute to NYC? The M Group is one of which I am acute­ly aware, in the mon­ey field.

  18. GREAT news! Way to go, Adam.

    I’m still hold­ing you to that beer. Remem­ber you told me your neigh­bor­hood or mine?

    Have a good hol­i­day.

  19. All of us out here in blog­world are cheer­ing for ya. Glad you can stay here in CLE. Your voice is need­ed, want­ed and well loved… hap­py b‑day

  21. glad you are stay­ing, mr. adam
    con­grats on your new job — i just start­ed my search for one as well, as i’ll be grad­u­at­ing in the spring.
    are you still going to be an alter­nate at the foun­da­tion?

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