Well, despite the recent bad luck sort of continuing–Kat was recently passed over for a position for which I think she was well suited, and we’re slated to put 12-year-old cat Nicodemus to sleep at the end of the week–I find myself strangely jazzed at work. For the first time in a long time I’m scared in the right way. I don’t know if I didn’t have creative freedom before or if I simply didn’t let myself believe I had creative freedom before, but I know I have it now–there’s a lot of work to be done getting OXM out the door every month and I feel very empowered to get that work done. It’s not a crippling amount of work, and it’s not an unreasonable amount. It’s just a challenge.
And I hate to use that word because the corporate world of weaselly middle-managers have taken the word “challenge” and turned it into a weak euphemism for “problem” if not “shitstorm of impossibility.” But a challenge is supposed to be something that you can actually overcome with work and ingenuity, and when you do, you feel great about it. Maybe you even learn something in the process. Those, I like. Puzzles offer surmountable challenges; all video games are built on the very concept of them. So the idea that I get to go to work, pick a method that suits me, and tackle those challenges–hell, even the problems–in the manner I see fit, so long as I’m reasonable in my methods and ready to work as part of a larger team, freakin’ thrills me.
I made a list of things that need to get done at the office. All of them are pretty much “as soon as humanly possible” deadlines.It’s daunting, but it’s not scary. It’s just interesting work–work I’ve spent my whole career learning how to do. Let me at it.
Coincidentally, today would have been John Lennon’s 66th birthday. “(Just Like) Starting Over” indeed.