Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

“I’m Sorry Keith. But I’ve Got Some Bad News for You”
That’s what Michael W. said to me as he handed me my termination papers this morning.

Am still shocked about it. But on the whole I feel relieved, though I do feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me.

As I said to Michael, this wasn’t a complete shock, since I knew that the marketing functions were moving away from the Oakville office and more into the U.K. office, but it is still sooner than I expected. The parting was amicable, and I have at least a month’s severance, and they want to keep my time open for doing contract work. From experience with others that have been let go from the firm I know that that is nothing I can expect too much from.

I also feel like I’ve been with this firm long enough – perhaps too long. I was feeling a bit aimless, and have been seriously wondering if this is really what I want to do. Now I have the impetus to find something else.

I have always enjoyed writing, and am seriously thinking about something along those lines. Alternately, I have a Masters of Public Administration degree, and I have pondered about returning to the public service. Start up my own business? Many possibilities, all of which need to be assessed. And in addition to management experience I now also have extensive programming experience in PHP/MySQL, as well as my teaching experience. I’ve got experience and a lot of options, so at the outset I do not feel too worried. It’s also nice to know that I have a not insubstantial inheritance to fall back on that will carry us for some time forward if things don’t pan out so well initially. Guess I’ll know soon enough.

Still, when I walked out of the office this morning, it was a sunny day, it was warm and birds were calling. “Freedom” I said to myself. Easy to say really, and I realized my heart wasn’t fully into it. Still, on the walk back to the train station I noticed some of the greenery sticking up through the ground, and realized that if I had to be “free”, this wasn’t a bad time of year for it.

Now the hard work begins, of course.