I started at Vallen this week. Manager of Organizational Development. Fully remote. Pay raise. New industry. For the first time in a long time I actually wanted to sit down at my desk in the morning, which if you have been following along you know is not something I say lightly. The last job had me waking up with the enthusiasm of a man walking into his own audit. This is different. I am genuinely looking forward to figuring out what the hell I am doing at a company that seems to actually want me there. That feeling alone is worth more than the raise.
I will admit I had some trouble sleeping Sunday night. The kind where your brain decides to rehearse every worst case scenario it can find instead of letting you rest. That is what the last company left me with. Not a severance package, just a nervous system that does not trust good things yet. But outside of that one rough night, life has been good. Really good. I cannot remember the last time someone told me professionally that we do not let each other fail. Not as a slogan on a break room poster that nobody reads on their way to microwave fish in the communal kitchen, but as an actual operating principle that people seem to mean. Departments get along. Leadership is actually worth a shit. People help each other and nobody is keeping score. I know it is the honeymoon period. I realize that. But when you have been in business as long as I have been, you can smell bullshit before anyone opens their mouth. This does not smell like bullshit. This feels real.
Now the house. It is listed. It is active. It has had showings. It has not sold. Honestly I am not surprised because the entire country’s housing market is a dumpster fire right now and Nashville is no exception. If it does not sell by winter I will do what I did last year. Pull the listing, ride it out, and try again in the spring. I am confident I will get it done. It is just a matter of when. I hate the idea of having to wait another winter to get home, but if nothing else the last few years have taught me patience.
To be clear, I am not breaking up with Tennessee. I am just cheating on her during the months where she is trying to melt me. Same story I tell Michigan in the winter. I have good people in both places. I just want more Michigan time in this chapter. I left Grand Rapids fifteen years ago broke and broken and I am ready to go back in a much better place. I came down south, matured career wise through experience and education, and now I am heading back north. Time to complete the full carpetbagger cycle I used to joke about. Once I get back I want to find a piece of land and start my forever home barndo build. The fully remote gig makes that possible.
The bigger plan is a motorhome. A real Class A where I can stand up straight and have my own bathroom like a grown adult. With implementations across the country as part of my role I can drive to a site, do my job, and not spend another night in a Holiday Inn with a stained comforter and a breakfast buffet that smells like powdered eggs and dirty diapers from all the kids licking the waffles.
So to those of you who have followed along so far, thank you for your support. I will continue to write this blog as I can and in fact had a very good friend and mentor suggest that I do not write enough, so who knows, maybe I will increase the velocity of my posts. Once things really start to move you can be assured that you will have a front row seat without any filters.
Q
Q is a meat Popsicle living in Nashville with hopes and dreams of running away to retire earlier than all his friends. Skilled in the witchcraft of not giving a damn about the Jones’ and filled with a did it or damn it mentality. His thoughts are his own, and he is no role model.
