Der Krisenplan

Well, the benefits of the holiday have well and truly evaporated.

I got called in by my boss for a talk there on Friday and found out that they're thinking of moving me to a sales position before the year is out. This has been bandied about before, but now seems much more concrete: I've been asked to wrap up some projects early and to prepare a change-over plan, and then today there was a meeting about recruitment in November to which I was cordially not invited... Things look grim.

But, new job, new challenges, new excitement, right? Well, the thing is, I like what I do now and I know I'm good at it. And that's a pretty rare combination. Plus, hello sales! I don't really like 'people', I abhor competition, I hate having to meet targets, and I have a phobia of speaking on the telephone. Yeah, I'm the ideal candidate to handle client relations???

Even worse, the rumour is that I will be moved to the department of death. This is the one area of our company where sales are tanking and morale is at a fairly low ebb. And I'll be the new guy again, at the bottom rung of the ladder, with no experience and no idea what I'm doing. Just peachy!

The thing is, this is a Japanese company, so you don't get asked about transfers, you get told. That's probably what's upsetting me the most - the feeling of powerlessness and that this bright future that I thought I had seems to be being taken away from me, and I have no control over the situation.

Well, this weekend I took a step to take back even a little bit of control; I decided that I needed an exit strategy, a Plan-B in case the next year or two of my career don't really work out for me. I won't go into details, but suffice to say that I start intensive german classes in the goethe institute next Sunday. I already have my textbook and am struggling with my 'ders' 'Wohers' and 'ypsilons'. But it's all exciting and is giving me something better to focus on than how I've been kicked in the nads by my company.

Congratulations if you made it to the end of this whine. More upbeat programming will resume shortly.